29 October 2018

THE HARVEST MINISTERS Little Dark Mansions 1993




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The Harvest Ministers' brand of melodic folk-rock owes more to American roots music than to the sounds of their native Ireland. The band is led by vocalist and songwriter William Merriman, who is often joined by co-vocalist Maeve Roche. Their album roster includes 1995's Little Dark Mansion and A Feeling Mission, and 1996's Orbit. Spring 2000 saw the release of the Embezzling Kisses EP. 
 

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KEB MO' A Little Mo' 1994

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Artist Biography by

Guitarist/vocalist Keb' Mo' draws heavily on the old-fashioned country blues style of Robert Johnson while keeping his sound contemporary with touches of soul and folksy storytelling. A skilled frontman as well as an accomplished sideman, he writes much of his own material and has applied his acoustic, electric, and slide guitar skills to jazz- and rock-oriented bands. Born Kevin Moore in Los Angeles to parents of Southern descent, he was exposed to gospel music at a young age. At 21, Moore joined an R&B band that was later hired for a tour by Papa John Creach; as a result, Moore played on three of Creach's albums. Opening for jazz and rock artists such as the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Jefferson Starship, and Loggins & Messina helped further broaden Moore's horizons and musical abilities.
Moore cut an R&B-based solo album, Rainmaker, in 1980 for Casablanca, which promptly folded. In 1983, he joined Monk Higgins' band as a guitarist and met a number of blues musicians who collectively increased his understanding of the genre. He subsequently joined a vocal group called the Rose Brothers and gigged around Los Angeles. In 1990, Moore portrayed a Delta bluesman in a local play, Rabbit Foot, and then played Robert Johnson in a docudrama entitled Can't You Hear the Wind Howl? He released his self-titled debut album as Keb' Mo' in 1994, featuring two Robert Johnson covers, 11 songs written or co-written by Moore, and his guitar and banjo work.

Just Like You
His second album, Just Like You, saw Keb' Mo' stretching his legs by working with a full band and tackling several rock-based songs. The gamble paid off, and Just Like You won the artist his first Grammy Award. Slow Down followed in 1998 and netted Mo' another Grammy, and Door was issued two years later. Big Wide Grin followed in 2001, while 2004 saw the release of two albums, Keep It Simple and Peace...Back by Popular Demand. Suitcase was issued in 2006 on Red Ink Records. The self-produced The Reflection appeared five years later in 2011; the first release on his own label, Yolabelle International, the album featured guest spots from India.Arie, Vince Gill, Dave Koz, Marcus Miller, Mindi Abair, and David T. Walker. The Reflection performed well, peaking at two on Billboard's Top Blues Albums chart and earning a Grammy nomination for Best Blues Album. Keb' Mo' followed the record with BLUESAmericana, which appeared in the spring of 2014. That Hot Pink Blues Album, a live set recorded on the BLUESAmericana tour, showed up in the spring of 2016. In 2017, Keb' Mo' teamed with Taj Mahal to spotlight the good-time side of the blues on TajMo. 
 


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DEEP FOREST self titled 1992



 

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Deep Forest
Innovatively fusing traditional ethnic musics with state-of-the-art rhythms, the work of Deep Forest was best typified by their 1993 smash "Sweet Lullaby," which brought together the contemporary sounds of ambient techno with a haunting traditional lullaby from the Solomon Islands. The project was primarily the work of the French keyboardists and programmers Eric Mouquet and Michael Sanchez; after the latter returned from Africa with boxes of records he'd picked up across the continent, he and Mouquet began sampling the native sounds for use with their atmospheric dance tracks, and with the aid of producer Dan Lacksman, their eponymous debut LP appeared in 1993. Propelled by the international hit "Sweet Lullaby," Deep Forest was a surprise success; Mouquet and Sanchez soon began work on a follow-up, this time exploring such areas as Mongolia, India, and Hungary, recording several tracks with singer Marta Sebestyen. The resulting album, Boheme, appeared in 1995; the third Deep Forest record, Comparsa, followed in 1998, with Live in Japan appearing a year later. In 2000 the duo recorded a soundtrack, Pacifique, to the French film Le Prince du Pacifique. Deep Forest returned in 2002 with its next proper studio album, Music.Detected_. A number of best of compilations were released in subsequent years, and the duo put out a soundtrack album for the Japanese motion picture, Kusa No Ran in 2004. This was followed by silence for the rest of the Noughties. Deep Forest returned in 2016 with its sixth full-length effort -- Evo Devo, an album conceptually based on the process of evolution. 

Tracklist

1 Deep Forest 5:33
2 Sweet Lullaby 3:54
3 Hunting 3:27
4 Night Bird 4:18
5 The First Twilight 3:18
6 Savana Dance 4:26
7 Desert Walk 5:14
8 White Whisper 5:46
9 The Second Twilight 1:24
10 Sweet Lullaby (Ambient Mix) 3:47
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TRAMWAY A Brand of Lovin' 1994

indie rock

 



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28 October 2018

PENCIL TIN A Gentle Hand To Guide You Along 1996

jangly UK indie pop
 
 

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THE AUTUMN LEAVES Treats and Treasures 1997

pop rock/mod

 



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BILLY PILGRIM self titled 1994




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St. Christopher's Crossing
Kristian Bush and Andrew Hyra first began working together in 1990, when Hyra and his sister Annie recorded the down-home folk album Big Back Porch Songs as the Hyras. Bush contributed guitar and backup vocals to several songs, and the Hyras returned the favor that same year, guesting on Bush's self-titled solo album. Though Big Back Porch Songs has never been released, Kristian Bush was given a cassette-only release around Knoxville, TN, the duo's home. St. Christopher's Crossing appeared the following year (credited to Andrew Hyra & Kristian Bush), and after christening themselves billy pilgrim, Hyra and Bush signed with Atlantic. Their 1994 eponymous debut album retained the folk underpinnings of previous releases, though billy pilgrim stepped things up for the following year's Bloom, recorded in Memphis with musicians including Garry Tallent (Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band), Mike Campbell (Tom Petty), Sonny Landreth, Greg Morrow, Richard Bennett,and Rod Smarr (Dr. Hook).

Tracklist


1 Get Me Out Of Here 2:57
2 Insomniac 4:34
3 Try 4:45
4 Here We Go Again 3:49
5 Halfway Home 4:03
6 Hula Hoop 3:26
7 Hurricane Season 4:11
8 Lost & Found In Tinseltown 3:40
9 Too Many People 3:17
10 Mamma Says 3:45
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27 October 2018

LUCINDA WILLIAMS Sweet Old World 1992

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Artist Biography by

The object of cult-ish adoration for years, singer/songwriter Lucinda Williams was universally hailed as a major talent by both critics and fellow musicians, but it took quite some time for her to parlay that respect into a measure of attention from the general public. Part of the reason was her legendary perfectionism: Williams released records only infrequently, often taking years to hone both the material and the recordings thereof. Plus, her early catalog was issued on smaller labels that agreed to her insistence on creative control but didn't have the resources or staying power to fully promote her music. Yet her meticulous attention to detail and staunch adherence to her own vision were exactly what helped build her reputation. When Williams was at her best (and she often was), even her simplest songs were rich in literary detail, from her poetic imagery to her flawed, conflicted characters. Her singing voice, whose limitations she readily acknowledged, nonetheless developed into an evocative instrument that seemed entirely appropriate to her material. So if some critics described Williams as "the female Bob Dylan," they may have been oversimplifying things (Townes Van Zandt might be more apt), but the parallels were certainly too strong to ignore.

Highway 61 Revisited
Williams was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, on January 26, 1953. Her father was Miller Williams, a literature professor and published poet who passed on not only his love of language, but also of Delta blues and Hank Williams. The family moved frequently, as Miller took teaching posts at colleges around Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Arkansas, and even Mexico City and Santiago, Chile. Meanwhile, Lucinda discovered folk music (especially Joan Baez) through her mother and was galvanized into trying her own hand at singing and writing songs after hearing Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited. Immersed in a college environment, she was also exposed to '60s rock and more challenging singer/songwriters like Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell. She started performing folk songs publicly in New Orleans and during the family's sojourn in Mexico City. In 1969, she was ejected from high school for refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance, and she spent a year working her way through a reading list supplied by her father before leaving home.
Ramblin'
Williams performed around New Orleans as a folk artist who mixed covers with traditional-styled originals. In 1974, she relocated to Austin, Texas, and became part of that city's burgeoning roots music scene; she later split time between Austin and Houston, and then moved to New York. A demo tape got her the chance to record for the Smithsonian Folkways label, and she went to Jackson, Mississippi, to lay down her first album at the Malaco studios. Ramblin' on My Mind (later retitled simply Ramblin') was released in 1979 and featured a selection of traditional blues, country, folk, and Cajun songs. Williams returned to Houston to record the follow-up, 1980's Happy Woman Blues. As her first album of original compositions, it was an important step forward, and although it was much more bound by the dictates of tradition than her genre-hopping later work, her talent was already in evidence.
Lucinda Williams
However, it would be some time before that talent was fully realized. Williams flitted between Austin and Houston during the early '80s, then moved to Los Angeles in 1984, where she started to attract some major-label interest. CBS signed her to a development deal in the mid-'80s but wound up passing since neither its rock nor its country divisions knew how to market her; around the same time, a short-lived marriage to drummer Greg Sowders dissolved. Williams eventually caught on with an unlikely partner -- the British indie label Rough Trade, which was historically better known for its punk output. The simply titled Lucinda Williams was released in 1988, and although it didn't make any waves in the mainstream, it received glowing reviews from those who did hear it. With help from guitarist/co-producer Gurf Morlix, Williams' sound had evolved into a seamless blend of country, blues, folk, and rock; while it made perfect sense to roots music enthusiasts, it didn't fit into the rigid tastes of radio programmers. But it was clear that she had found her songwriting voice -- the album brimmed with confidence, and so did its assertive female characters, who seemed to answer only to their own passions. 
 

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