Northern Spy Review #1: Eleven Twenty-Nine (Tom Carter & Marc Orleans)

Well, sometimes strange things happen. For good or for bad, you never know and it may not matter as long as it doesn´t matter to you. If it matters that´s another matter altogether and it may mean what you didn´t mean for it to, but two sides to the same word is what make it the same word, and the same world the same world, and that may be what makes it go round.

I got a comment from Northern Spy, and happened upon this album at precisely 11:29 in the morning a few days ago. To be honest, I had just given up on music, coming to the conclusion that it could no longer be a way of life for me. I´m ashamed to admit it, but it´s true. Such drastic and dramatic days I´m seeing. The coincidence of the name and the hour, not to mention the spirit, convinced me to hope and I gave it a listen.

I listened to the excerpts on the site, and was glad to be hearing it, so glad that I dared to believe again, and here I am writing again.....

Birds and riversides, clouds and sky, trees and hands with opening eyes, songs of a somewhere, songs of the journey, slow burn drift lift, wing flutters, wind shudders, snow flurries, no hurries, you may have the blues but you got no worries, soul songs, music for your upward tendencies.

Performed with a beautifully unselfconscious patience and restraint that calls to mind some of the best Charalambides moments (think Unknown Spin, Joy Shapes, A Vintage Burden, Likeness....). I´ve been fond of Tom Carter´s music for a few years now and had the pleasure of seeing him play here in Madrid once. I was previously unfamiliar with Marc Orleans, but from what I hear on this album he and Tom are a made match... The "songs" are there, but they´re definitely alive and open, growing and glowing while they were recorded. It´s soul-satisfying; with the inimitable inevitable psych blow out you hope for from Tom, but then it also plods along on acoustic; delays, distortions, slides, and the guitars themselves touched in such an intimate way; a Blues record for the end of days. It´s dedicated to the late Jack Rose.























Out June 14th, Northern Spy Records, CD, 150 gram LP, & digital download.
Engineered and recorded by Jason Meagher at Black Dirt Studios
Original silhouette paper cutting artwork by Andrea Peisch
Mastered by Paul Gold at Salt Mastering