November Grapevine

I’m finding that sometimes the monthly grapevine songs fall in to a similar theme or style. I don’t know if it’s due to the mood I’m in, the weather, or just sheer luck. That seems to have happened this month. Or it could be my imagination………..or the voices……….ummmmmmm…… sorry got off track there (feel free to comment on similarities you see). Anyway, off we go…

First Up:

Saron Van Etten – ‘Memorial Day’

Nothing cheers me up more on a cold, rainy day than a good drone. Yes, I’m serious. I like the simple drums. The drone buzz here is carried by the fuzzed out bass. The keyboards have their own repeating rifts with a nice piece of droning noise in the background. The vocals play off of this, floating on top. And you get to see how it’s generated live. Always cool to visually see how parts go together. Putting all the relatively simple pieces together in their own little orbits makes the sound mesmerizing.

Next up:

The Willows – ‘False Light’

I liked the mix of sounds on this one. It’s built on a ‘folk’ feel. But it has the electric guitar layering in the background with a lot of sustain and reverb as well as a more standard drum kit. Although not truly a ‘live’ video, you do get shots of matched performance footage so you can see what/how people are playing. I like the banjo player playing it more like a guitar with a regular guitar pick style. Banjo is often thought of only in terms of bluegrass and it’s interesting seeing it put to different use.

Finally:

Baskery – ‘Wanna Tattoo’

So we have another video of what I call ‘matched performance’ playing along to the recorded song. I really liked the song when I first heard it. I’ve been in to good ol’ swampy blues music from Creedence Clearwater Revival, though The Gun Club and The Immortal Lee County Killers. So this simple, buzzy thump caught my ear. Then I saw this video. Now it’s even more fun. Fuzz on the double bass! Floor pedaled kick and snare! A six string banjo with distortion and slide (while playing the foot drums)! Recording wise, just enough reverb on the vocals and all the instruments are crystal clear. Now that’s a party.

Adding some retro:

Echo And The Bunnymen – ‘All That Jazz’

Sometimes I’m listening to an album I’ve heard a million times before and I have that little flashback of why I loved it in the first place and why it still sounds great. This song is from Echo And The Bunnymen’s first album ‘Crocodiles’. Starting with simple riffed bass and drums with vocals, it explodes in to heavily trebled guitar, drops back down and starts all over again. The vocals match the intensity of the parts being played. I did a lot of recording where I was working for that whip crack snare sound. Even the bass has a good amount of attack on it. All the components have their own clear space in the mix. This album will never grow old for me.