Album review: Jessica Lea Mayfield seduces on ‘Tell Me’

jessica-lea-mayfield-tell-me

Jessica Lea Mayfield
Tell Me
Nonesuch

Jessica Lea Mayfield’s sound is like a silk negligé; soft with an innocent facade yet sultry, seductive and maybe a little dangerous.

With love sick lyrics and a provocative blend of country rock, pop, blues and indie rock, the 21-year-old singer-songwriter’s new album Tell Me could easily be the soundtrack to a summer love fling.

The Kent, Ohio native was born into music, traveling and performing with her family’s bluegrass band, One Way Rider when she was only eight years old. After a break up with her first boyfriend at age 15, heartbroken Mayfield began writing her first solo album.

Two years later, the White Lies EP was released and caught the attention of Black Keys singer and guitarist Dan Auerbach. Since then, Auerbach has pushed Mayfield’s career forward, inviting her to perform at Black Keys’ shows, helping her in the studio and producing her last two albums.

In both lyrics and music, Tell Me is a raw depiction of what a young lover’s mind endures with feelings of inadequacy, torment and selfishness matched with elation, arousal and wonderment.

The track “Somewhere in Your Heart” is a dark and hair-raising portrayal of love-crazed rejection with heavy drum patterns, throbbing piano and eerie, screeching waterphone.

“Blue Skies Again” is a stark contrast with a pop-infused sound, cheerful melody and uplifting, layered chorus that creates an image of winter melting away into the clear sky of spring. “Nervous Lonely Night” is equally bright with swirling extraterrestrial-like flutters and light-hearted vocals while Mayfield sings satirically about going crazy.

In “I’ll Be the One You Want Someday” Mayfield’s bluegrass roots are revealed with twangy, echoing guitar, stacked vocals and tormented lyrics about self perfection.

Although Mayfield’s voice is front and center throughout the album, Tell Me‘s dynamic music breathes new life — and love — into the singer-songwriter genre.

Jessica Lea Mayfield performs at Off Broadway on May 13.

Jessica Lea Mayfield – “Our Hearts Are Wrong” by Nonesuch Records

Posted by | May 10, 2011 | Album Reviews | Comment 

Richard Buckner returns with ‘Our Blood’ and a new MP3, “Traitor”

Richard Buckner by Kate McDaniel

Kate McDaniel

Consider Our Blood Richard Buckner’s Chinese Democracy. His last album, Meadow, was released in 2006, and since then he’s been touring, with regular stops in St. Louis, and apparently recording what is, by the sound of the first shared track from the album, a brilliant return to form. If you’re wondering what’s taken so long, we can only imagine that a rather creepy run-in with the law and the burglary of his studio had something to do with the delay.

Our Blood is due out August 2 on Merge Records.

“Traitor” by Richard Buckner

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Posted by | May 3, 2011 | Music, News | Comment 

Dearly Departing: An interview with Amy Cole of the Rural Alberta Advantage (with bonus MP3 download)

Amy Cole of Rural Alberta Advantage

myspace.com/theraa / Garry Tsaconas

Shortly after departing for a tour to support her band’s newly released second album, multi-instrumentalist Amy Cole of the Rural Alberta Advantage was kind enough to take a few moments out of her day for some good conversation and a brief glimpse into how the RAA comes up with such powerful songs.

And don’t miss the download of a new track by the band after the jump.

Matt Champion: Let’s start with a little about you. Did you always want to make a career of being a musician or was it something that just happened over time?

Amy Cole: For me personally? No, I never thought I’d have a career being a musician at all. I took music when I was a kid just because I liked it, I guess. As a kid I started taking lessons and getting involved in school plays and things like that, but it was never something I thought would become something I did with my life at all. The way things have gone with the RAA, you know, we were doing it for fun and people started liking it. We decided to just record something and maybe get to play a music festival and it kept building and building, and now it has become what we’re doing. But no, it wasn’t a plan of mine at all. It’s just a happy kind of accident, almost. [laughs] Not that we haven’t put any work into it happening, but it’s for sure not something that has driven us professionally.

I know in the band you wear a lot of different hats musically. What duties do you handle other than backing and harmony vocals?

Oh, in terms of what I play? I play keyboard, I play percussion, the harmonies are a big thing for me. We’ve always been searching for a way to satisfy getting, like, a good lower end into our sound since we’re only a three piece and we don’t have a bass player. I recently started playing the bass pedals and that’s been going really well so far too. I guess that’s one more instrument in my arsenal. Oh, and the glockenspiel too.

I was wondering about that since I know that you don’t have a full-time bass player and there were a few tracks on Departing that have a pretty distinct bass line to them.

Yeah, now we’ve got that with the bass pedals. I guess I’m kind of the bass player now. We’ve worked it out that way. We got it right before our first show in New York at the end of December, around Christmastime. I’ve just sort of tried to learn all of the songs. I just sort of listened to the records over and over and tried to map out the bass parts and then we all got together when practicing for this tour to try and fit it in. We’re really happy with the way it’s been going. It sounds really awesome and we love it. Yeah, I’m really excited about it.

That actually segues into my next question. I know the RAA started with five members and now it’s down to you, Nils [Edenloff] on guitar and vocals and Paul [Banwatt] on the drums. Do you find that you have more freedom musically with a three piece?

I think that’s definitely true. Having less people there’s definitely more freedom. We weren’t a five piece for very long, but when we were it was kind of a struggle of who’s going to do what. There were times I remember playing live shows where two or three of us weren’t actually doing anything in a particular song. It was, like, what’s the point of having all these members if everyone isn’t contributing something valuable to every song? I think with a three piece it works out really well. Paul has the freedom to come up with the crazy beats that he has that maybe he couldn’t have if there were more people and more elements to consider in a song. If there’s just three of us Nils can write his lyrics and melody and pick his instrument, whether it’s guitar or keyboard, to build the song around and Paul can come up with basically whatever he wants on the drums. I listen and try to fill in whatever might still be missing, if it’s a harmony or a different keyboard line, if it’s more percussion or whatever. I feel like we all have a lot of freedom and that’s why we like this band so much.

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Posted by | April 19, 2011 | Interviews, Music | Comment 

Discovery: Cameron McGill and What Army break free on “Houdini”

Ben Mudd

Who knows how I stumbled across boho, neo-folk, semi-popular singer-songwriter Cameron McGill. The song I first heard was “What You Wanted,” from McGill’s 2006 album Street Ballads & Murderesques. As post-Dylan, post-Elliott Smith songwriting goes, it’s a beautiful bummer, with a melody that steps carefully like an alley cat on a fence and a tone that’s as resigned as it is bittersweet. I’ve played the song a few times on Feel Like Going Home; every time I do, I get a phone call: “Who is this guy?”

Well, Cameron McGill now performs with What Army, a young but accomplished rock band that never overwhelms the singer’s sense of wanderlust and occasional piano excursions. The Chicago natives are forever on the road and have made St. Louis a regular stop. Still, they’ve never quite found the audience they deserve. Tonight they’ll be back in the river city, performing songs from a new album, Is a Beast, at the Old Rock House. If you’re looking to discover a new favorite songwriter, this show has my highest recommendation. Listen to and download a new song — with a finely textured, free-spirited indie rock sound — below.

“Houdini” – Cameron McGill and What Army

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Posted by | April 15, 2011 | Concerts, Music | Comment 

Discovery: Joe Pug and Strand of Oaks cover each other this spring

Joe Pug at KDHX

Joe Pug at KDHX. Photo by Roy Kasten.

Cover songs usually take the form of tributes to the fallen or the famous or infamous; sometimes they’re just back-room, borderline-Soprano paybacks.

In the case of Joe Pug and Strand of Oaks, two lesser-known but persuasively rising artists in the indie folk world, cover songs can be a clever way to enhance a co-headlining spring tour.

On the two songs, which you really should listen to or download below, Pug and Strand of Oaks cover each other, and sound wholly at home in doing so. Pug gives his instantly identifiable, post-Guthrie, North Carolina-raised twang to the Oaks’ song “End in Flames,” and the line “Thought I was too old to have dreams like this / covers thrown on the floor / sweat stains my lips” seems to resonate with his own experience.

In return, Strand of Oaks tackle one of Pug’s best-known (as in maybe 12 people know it by heart, but how well they surely know it) songs: “Hymn #101.” Bathed in reverb and doubled vocals, the song, a wanderer’s socio-political hymn, becomes something majestic.

Joe Pug and Strand of Oaks will be making a stop in St. Louis this spring. May 3, 2011 at Off Broadway. It will be sweet to hear them perform these covers live.

Joe Pug/Strand of Oaks Split Single by nodoor

Posted by | April 1, 2011 | Music | Comment 

R.I.P. Jack Hardy, mentor, master and songwriting legend

Jack Hardy at KDHX

Sara Finke

The Bob Dylan news site, Expecting Rain, reports that Jack Hardy has passed away at the age of 63. Very sad news.

John Studebaker Hardy was a central figure, something of a guru actually, on the New York folk scene. He founded Fast Folk Magazine and the Songwriters’ Exchange workshops, and inspired a generation of post-Dylan folkies to write about more than just themselves.

I profiled Hardy in a February 1999 issue of the Riverfront Times: “a more literate Celtic Townes Van Zandt, grave in his tone and generous in his ideals, as rooted in the present soil and sky of Ireland and America as he is fascinated by the legends of the past.”

His output is vast, beginning with a classic self-titled album in 1971, and gathered, in part, on a mammoth box set called The Collected Works of Jack Hardy. I had the pleasure of reviewing the 2000 album, Omens, for Amazon.com:

For his first new release since 1997′s Celtic-flavored The Passing, Hardy turns his attention to nonchalant, Americana-ready folk rock and a high-brow library full of poetic images. “I ought to know great literature by heart,” Hardy sings on the opening track, but his reading comprehension is hardly wanting. Hardy’s dense, mysterious conjurings of Irish mythology won’t be to every listener’s taste, though his love songs, with fragrant lines like “the willow weeps although unheard” and “’round this old house the wind it whines / with a knocking keeping time,” are as vivid and intense as any being written today.

Hardy visited the KDHX studios 3 years ago for a session with Songwriters Showcase. Stream the in-studio set (with a revealing interview) below or on the Live at KDHX page, see Sara Finke’s photos here and raise a toast to one of the very best.

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Posted by | March 12, 2011 | Music, News | Comment 

Album review: Wanda Jackson and Jack White party on

Wanda Jackson The Party Ain't Over

Wanda Jackson
The Party Ain’t Over
Third Man

For her latest album, The Party Ain’t Over, Wanda Jackson, the first lady or queen of rockabilly (depending on who you ask), sets out to push her work into the 21st century. To that end, she’s enlisted the help of Jack White. White proves a nice complement to Jackson and introduces some much needed rough edges to what could have been an overly polished collection of standard rockabilly fare.

“Shakin’ All Over” wallows in a reverb heavy groove of sulky enjoyment, capturing with a sharper precision than even the original the thrilling pulse of romantic and erotic excitement. Jackson is credited with bringing a sexier image to the country scene of the ’50s and she certainly retains the ability to communicate an appealing sexual charge despite her later forays into the more sedate and chaste world of gospel (musically and ideologically speaking). The main source of this pull is an unnervingly innocent purr which still sounds clear and fresh despite a fair amount of vocal mileage.

For proof, look no further than her version of Amy Winehouse’s “You Know I’m no Good.” Although it would be a bit of a stretch to say she improves upon the original, Jackson does seem to come into her own within the salty framework provided by Winehouse’s bruised lyrics and irresistible beats. White rightly pushes Jackson towards the sort of soul revival pop perfected by Winehouse, which provides a newer ground for Jackson to roam around, stretching her rockabilly sensibilities. The album slumps slightly in the back half when the numbers hew perhaps too closely to straightforward, though always well-executed covers.

The best moments of The Party Ain’t Over come when Jackson, with the guiding hand of White, really digs into her signature sound and lets her voice reach down into scratchy depths, then pulling back with just the right amount of sweetness. It’s a heady mix and works surprisingly well on everything from Bob Dylan to Elvis retreads. White’s biggest accomplishment is amplifying and clarifying the essential Wanda Jacksoness.

Ultimately, The Party Ain’t Over encapsulates the various incarnations of Jackson’s career past and present. She covers everything from gospel and soul to, of course, her signature mix of rock & roll and country & western classics. Through it all Jackson sustains her inimitable musical persona of feisty playfulness found at the core of rockabilly. Hopefully the party won’t be over anytime soon.

Wanda Jackson performs in St. Louis at the Blueberry Hill Duck Room on March 27.

Wanda Jackson “Thunder On The Mountain” from The Party Ain’t Over by stereocourier

Posted by | March 1, 2011 | Album Reviews, Music | 1 Comment 

Discovery: Kyle Hall remixes the Dirtbombs’ revamping of Carl Craig

The Dirtbombs

Brian Alesi

The Dirtbombs, one of the greatest live rock & roll bands you’ve never seen — all right, some of you have — have gone techno. This can’t be good.

Actually, it’s quite good. The Detroit veterans’ new album Party Store pays homage to the influential Detroit techno scene, covering tracks by the likes of Derrick May, Carl Craig and Cybotron, and giving them all a furious, garage rock kick, while retaining all the dense dance-floor thump and shine.

It’s fitting then that a few of the Dirtbombs’ revisions of these classic tracks have been further revised and remixed by Kyle Hall, Ectomorph and Omar S. Grab the frenetic Kyle Hall remix of “Bug in the Bassbin,” originally by Carl Craig’s Innerzone Orchestra — while the grabbing’s good.

The Dirtbombs – Bug In The Bassbin (Kyle Hall Remix) by ScionAV

Posted by | February 22, 2011 | Music | Comment 

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