2004-05-06
If Iris Dement worked with Yo La Tengo, you’d probably get music that’s sweetly voiced, ethereally recorded, sensibly country and slightly bitter. Or maybe you’d have a Kate Jacobs record.Kate, along with career collaborator and former Yo La Tengo guitarist Dave Schramm, lovingly paints sympathetic character portraits of the down-trodden in America. In “What a World, What a God”, an old immigrant confuses the word “pain” with the word “cash” and refuses medical treatment thinking his doctors are trying to rob him blind (but aren’t they?). Dreams quietly die in “Pete's Gonna Sell” and “Helen Has a House”. “Tall Buildings” go up, yet the city goes downhill.
Kate makes a vain attempt to balance these maladies by instilling dreams and beauty in the life of her child in “Life Can Be Sweet”. Puzzle over the remaining lyrics as much as you'd like.
Sonically…it’s swirling country music augmented by Schramm’s numerous instrumental contributions.
We Call This Great.
NEKO CASE
Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
MARTHA BERNER
This Side of Yesterday
CHRIS KASPER
Chasing another Sundown
KORBY LENKER
King of Hearts
Son Volt
Okemah and the Melody of Riot
MARK ERELLI
Hope and Other Casualties
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