hissyfit: Albums for Life: 99: Over the Rhine: Drunkard's Prayer

Saturday, 10 November 2012

Albums for Life: 99: Over the Rhine: Drunkard's Prayer

You're my water
You're my wine
You're my whiskey from time to time

I've recently brought the latest album by Over the Rhine.
'The Long Surrender" is a lovely thing; beautifully produced by the brilliant Joe Henry.
I'm not sure if it's up there with 'Ohio' or the sublime 'Drunkard's Prayer'; only time will tell.
The art work is luxurious; had me thinking "now here's a band with a budget".
Then I read in one of the two included booklets a list of 1000 folk who had contributed to the recording costs.
I'm sure that the much in demand Joe Henry doesn't come cheap.
It reminded me of my recent notes about Lloyd Cole requesting $100 a head from a fan base of 'Executive Producers'.
Seems that a few of you have been involved in helping out your struggling heroes; laudable if they are indeed struggling.
I was reading some American reviews of the album and found this interesting thread; it gets a little vinegary in places but kind of echoes my reservations about the idea.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R3DDWUZP5ITUVI/ref=cm_cr_pr_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B004C9P9MY&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=#wasThisHelpful

I get that if it's done well, handled honorably, it could strengthen the bond between a band and its audience. Speaking with friends within the music world it seems that it's becoming more common.
Who knows, if I can come up with a way of humbly reaching out to you; touching you up without stitching you up; you may well be receiving that thoughtfully worded plea sooner rather than later.
Times are hard so brace yourselves...

Meanwhile, back to the music; there's a whiff of The Cowboy Junkies in the world weary delivery; although this seems more substantial. It's more about the sound than the sometimes insubstantial nature of the songs. Maybe the songs are rendered thus by the etherial nature of their presentation; but what presentation! I've always thought that Bersgquist's voice sounded like a sober Lucinda Williams (respect to Williams as I know that she's mainly dry, but her drawl does suggest a penchant for hooch) and blow me, she turns up hollering on the new album...
If you don't know their stuff have a listen to this beauty; 'Born' from 2005's 'Drunkard's Prayer'.
The album was apparently recorded in their home with a stripped down band and helped save Karen Bergquist and Linford Detweiler's troubled relationship. They both look a little 'troubled' above...
Is it me or does anyone else think that Linford looks like he's stuck paper eyes on the lenses of his glasses?

6 comments:

Séamus Duggan10 November 2012 at 15:23
Hi Trevor, Crowdfunding is becoming ever more popular, alright. There is an Irish site www.fundit.ie which is regularly giving out money to film, theatre, music and other projects. Short filmmakers embraced this form earlier as there are few commercial avenues for them. Thinking back to my own experience of lo-fi low cost recording, it would have taken very little to make a big, big difference.
This is another new one to me, although I have heard the name. Like it.
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Hissyfit10 November 2012 at 15:36
I like the idea of folk paying upfront for the album Seamus; they get what they pay for with a privilege or two thrown in as a thank you for essentially what is a pre-order. Pay a bit more and you get a t-shirt and a limited edition bonus CD of demos; fair enough. It's the idea of plucking a figure out of the air (like Lloyd's $100) which is out of kilter with what the benefactor's give; smacks of praying on people's better nature to me... all they get is the CD, a name check and an emailed poem... poor.
Glad you like OTR; the songs aren't always distinct but they do make lovely sound...
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Hissyfit10 November 2012 at 15:41
And maybe film making is a different thing; I'd imagine that the avenue of any indie film maker's income is not as obvious as the musical dollar... funding needed up front... I'm kind of conflicted with this one... I'd love funding/help but would only countenance the idea if it were a balanced deal...
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Tim Patrick11 November 2012 at 06:24
I wasn't sure if you were aware of OTR, but it appears you sure are! I know I included a couple of their tunes on the comp CD's, and I almost sent you a copy of Long Surrender (double-shipped by Amazon) about a year ago. But I didn't, simply because I thought it a bit of a disappointment. There are a few good tunes, and Karin's sexy, slurry vocal phrasing are very cool. All My FA...VO...R...ITE People!
I've been following the band since Patience; picked it up in one of those ghastly Christian book stores that I used to sneak into. Accumulated nearly all of their albums; all contain a couple of gems. Frankly though, always more impressed by the packaging than the musical content. Perhaps a little crush on Karin too... Um, love her voice?
Back to Long Surrender... again lovely artwork and packaging. Joe Henry's liner-notes articulate and wise. I wish I had the CD here... I love the story he relates of his first encounter with Karin and eyeing her tattoo, with a quote that goes something like "Comparison is the enemy of joy." Am I close? Anyway, it's sorta stuck with me. Can be interpreted on many levels; but I read an interview where she explained how it reminds of an inherent commitment to their art, regardless of profit or recognition. An admirable perspective in a world of disposable 'flavor of the month' entertainment "idols"...
I'm sure you'd agree.

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Hissyfit11 November 2012 at 09:05
Can find no reference to tattoos in Joe's liner notes tt. He does mention "etching cartoon hummingbirds into bare skin to attend naked truth" in their quest for "luminance of order" and a "lipstick-smeared brand of soul". I love Henry's liner notes; funny, wise and (surely) half pissed...
I was chatting with Seamus (over on Vapour Trails) about how I favor the band's sound above their songs; the sound is archaic; heavenly. The songs can seem a little unfocussed but that may well be benefit of their smokey, ethereal presentation...
I've disregarded profit and recognition all my career Tim.
I hope to hell that some might find virtue in that necessity...
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Anonymous11 November 2012 at 17:15
Alternate liner notes? You've got me digging...
Eureka, found on OTR's nice little site!

I was going to copy/paste the whole piece but comment box only allows 4,096 characters. To read the whole thing:
http://overtherhine.com/albums/the-long-surrender/

First few paragraphs:

JOE'S LINER NOTES:

Teddy Roosevelt once said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” I looked it up, and that’s what I found, anyway; and it surprised me, too. I don’t know what malaria fever-dream might have brought such a tough customer face-to-face with that startling bit of clarity, but I do know when the conscious thought first flashed across my life’s personal Situation Screen: Karin Bergquist –one half of the puzzle that is Over the Rhine— walked into my kitchen, peeled off a corduroy jacket, and there it was: inked into her arm, just below the left shoulder. Accompanied by a delicate hummingbird, the tattoo’s flowing script seemed as folksy and inevitable as if it had been cut there by Ockham’s own straight razor. It read like unadulterated truth, that is, and it stuck with me.

Karin and husband Linford Detweiler came west from their farm in Ohio ready to shed not only comparison, it seems, but all assumptions about how their new songs might live and breathe, hover and speak. Before their arrival on my turf, my communication with them had been a fast flurry of emails, occasional phone conferences, and the bundles of song that I’d find sporadically filling my morning’s inbox. I had imagined an elaborate life for the two of them, stitched together from a few threadbare facts and scrap references, and from the séance-like voices that their demos used to address me. I pictured Karin and Linford in the attic of their Civil War-era house in the rural outskirts of Cincinnati, huddled beneath a swinging bare bulb, shooing away pigeons, and confiding songs-in-progress into an old German-made reel-to-reel recorder. (I don’t know how they got that piano up there.) That’s what the songs implied upon arrival; and I imagined they paid a young undergrad, working part-time at the local Box-n-Ship, to loop the magnetic tape through a special port in his laptop in order for the songs to land in my lap, still crackling and smelling of mowed grass and jarred fireflies…still evolving.

Etc.....................

Joe Henry
Barcelona, June 2010

TT
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‘Jones’ is Trevor Jones; principle songwriter with the critically acclaimed duo Miracle Mile, where he works alongside collaborator, arranger and musical partner Marcus Cliffe. Together they have produced nine albums, the latest of which was 2012’s ‘In Cassidy’s Care’, rated ‘Album of the Month’ by HiFi News, with respected journalist Johnny Black noting that Miracle Mile were “far and away the most unfairly unsung musical wizards ever to emerge from this sceptered isle. Big on memorable tunes wrapped around honest-to-goodness emotionally involving lyrics.”

Trevor Jones has also previously produced four solo albums: ‘Hopeland’ (2009), ‘Keepers’, (2010), ‘To the Bone’ (2014) and ‘Happy Blue’ (2016). Co-produced again with Marcus Cliffe, ‘Carver’s Law is another triumph of intimacy.
Previous critical acclaim for Trevor Jones:

“Gorgeous, as ever. Trevor Jones finds the poetry in real life; gently beautiful and genuinely moving. You may cry.” The Sunday Times

“Masterpieces of subtlety and observation clothed in sumptuous, lush melodies.” R2

“Jones is in a class of one. Near-perfect explorations of the human heart. The beauty on offer here is enough to make you weep. It did me.” Americana UK

“Achingly tender.” Folk Radio UK

“Intellectually as well as emotionally engaging.” MOJO

"Meticulously orchestrated, careful and complex, this is canny songwriting leavened by bona fide humanity." Q

“Moves you to tears and refreshes the soul. Scintillating.” Maverick

"Gentle enchantment. The loveliest melodies you've ever heard.” Uncut

“Classic pop songwriting, gorgeously realised. Jones has compiled possibly the finest catalogue of adult pop. Gently beautiful and genuinely moving” The Times

Miracle Mile: A User's Guide by Johnny Black

Despite being based in a home studio in a rural backwater on the outskirts of West London, Miracle Mile chose to name themselves after a fictional gold rush main street half a world away where, according to adventure yarn spinner Jack London, ragged 49ers would blow their hard-won nuggets on booze and broads.
They apply a similarly unorthodox approach to their career in general. The band’s core duo of singer/guitarist Trevor Jones and multi-instrumentalist/arranger Marcus Cliffe have been relentless in their pursuit of the perfect song. Not the fastest, the gnarliest or the loudest, not even the most instantly commercial, but the song whose melody, lyrics, arrangement, performance and spirit might stand the test of time, giving pleasure to listeners not just for years but centuries.
They’d be the first to admit they haven’t yet found that perfect song and maybe never will, but I’d argue that their albums — the documentary evidence of that search — deserve a place alongside the best work of time-tested tunesmiths as elevated as Randy Newman, Elvis Costello or Tom Waits.

Marcus Cliffe wasn’t yet on board when the first album, Bicycle Thieves, arrived in 1997 but already it was evident that frontman Jones didn’t fit in with the prevailing mode. There was no rage, bitterness or self-loathing in his songs and nothing at all turned up to eleven. Instead, he offered meticulously orchestrated slices of ordinary human life, transforming the mundane into the marvellous with carefully crafted lyrics sincerely delivered. Even here, though, the hypnotic sample-based "Recycletwo" revealed a willingness to experiment that marked Jones out as more than just a pop craftsman in the vein of Crowded House or Aztec Camera.

What had started essentially as a recording project had become a five-piece live band by the time the follow-up, Candids, was released in 1998. Loaded with nagging guitar hooks and dynamic vocal interplay, it included one particularly affecting piece, "Small Ad," which featured just one line of lyric, the heart-rending couplet, "Baby’s shoes, never used." With those four words, Jones conjured up a yawning abyss of grief that other writers might struggle to evoke in an entire album.

Jones quickly realised that live performance was not his forte and retired to the womb of the studio for 1999’s third album, Slow Fade, which also saw the birth of the partnership that would lift Miracle Mile higher still above the norm. Marcus Cliffe, in demand as a player for Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Daniel Lanois, Mark Knopfler and others, was drafted in on upright bass.
Immediately the music took a more intimate turn, with Jones exploring the little things that illuminate the big things. Almost every song offers up at least one unforgettable line, like "I'd rather be ashes than dust" in "Everybody Loved You," or the concept of filling the void left by his loss of faith "with despair and metalware" in "Starwatching."
Slow Fade was further enhanced by the delicately filigreed swirls and swoops of England’s finest steel guitar maestro, B.J. Cole, whose style sat so well with Jones and Cliffe that he has become virtually a full-time member of the band.

And then, out of nowhere, catastrophe struck. Trevor Jones’ beloved sister died in tragic circumstances. It’s typical of the man that, rather than wallowing in his grief as he had every right to do, he dealt with his loss in the quiet, honest dignity of "Sister Song," the achingly lovely tribute that concludes the fourth album, Alaska. It can’t have been coincidence that the album, despite its meltingly beautiful musical landscape, was named for one of the coldest places on earth.

By the time of Stories We Could Tell in 2004, Miracle Mile were drawing critical plaudits in every significant British magazine and newspaper, along with comparisons to such pop pluperfectionists as Prefab Sprout and the Blue Nile. Critics were noting that Miracle Mile was fast becoming a repository of timelessly romantic music fueled by the same shamelessly emotional human concerns that inspired the great standards. More than this, it was being noticed that while most bands go into decline after two or three albums, Miracle Mile were getting better, perhaps because they’d avoided the trap of trying to be contemporary, and had no need to be more outrageous than the competition, largely because they didn’t see music as a competitor sport.

The sixth album, Glow, showed up in 2005 and found Jones and Cliffe further expanding their musical palette mixing Celtic folksiness with slow, semi-industrial percussion on the inspirational "An Average Sadness," blending Badalamenti guitars with Bacharach horns on "What Kate Did Next," and opening "Strange Sympathy" with a beautifully synthesised string orchestration before letting the song melt seamlessly into a laid-back country-rock rumination on the gap between aspiration and acquisition. Glow was also their most lavishly packaged disc, gorgeously presented at no small cost to themselves.

Album No. 7, Limbo, offered fifteen songs overflowing with sensitively wrought melodies and heart-fluttering lyricism. If it’s not a contradiction in terms, Limbo was even more quietly passionate than usual, deliciously understated and, at times, devastatingly tear-jerking.

‘Cassidy’s Care’ followed in 2012 and received similar critical acclaim.
Miracle Mile may just be too concerned with timeless quality for their own short-term commercial good. They’ll never sink a fang into the jugular when they can plant a whisper of a kiss on that sensitive spot at the nape of the neck and set off a tiny ripple that will, in the fullness of time, explode in the heart. I, for one, wouldn’t want it any other way.
Johnny Black

“Trevor Jones finds the poetry in real life; Marcus Cliffe anchors it in the sweetest pop. Gorgeous as ever. You may cry.”
Sunday Times

"Gentle enchantment. The loveliest melodies you've ever heard."
UNCUT

“Gorgeous melodies, hooks galore, intelligent lyrics that demand and repay careful listening, beautifully produced instrumentation, and an overall effect that combines poignancy and joy in equal measure. Music and words come together in a state as close to perfection as makes no difference, and leaves you with a delicious ache that makes you hug yourself with the sheer overwhelming joy of hearing such wonderful music. The beauty on offer here is enough to make you weep. It did me."
Americana UK

“A little oasis illuminated by musical creativity, glimpsed like a lovely mirage. Intelligent tunefulness that doesn’t kowtow to passing trends has always been as rare as fish fingernails, but it’s here.” Mojo

“Classic pop songwriting, gorgeously realised” The Times

“Moves you to tears and refreshes the soul. Scintillating.”
Maverick

“A tender sadness. Songs that have universal resonance.”
Netrhythms

"Trevor Jones has produced a gorgeous pop album that few will hear — unless there’s justice in the world.’ The Wall Street Journal

“Jones has compiled possibly the finest catalogue of adult pop. Gently beautiful and genuinely moving”
The Sunday Times