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| 艺人： | Frontier Ruckus |
| 语种： | 英语 |
| 唱片公司： | Quite Scientific Records |
| 发行时间： | 2008年11月06日 |
| 专辑类别： | 个人专辑 |
| 专辑风格： | Alternative/Indie Rock |
专辑介绍：Folk music is a mighty big tent that opens its flaps wide enough to contain all kinds of traditional acoustic sounds—blues, old-time country music, singer-songwriter, Appalachian murder ballads, British, Irish, and Scottish music that came across in colonial times and was transformed into something uniquely American in lonely dark hollers where the sun don’t never shine, string band and African-American drum and bugle corps music that traces its origins back to the motherland of Africa, and the current catch-all categories of roots music and Americana. The six players who make up Frontier Ruckus have at least one toe in all of the above pools, and range through them freely while delivering the troubling visions of lead singer and songwriter, Matthew Milia.
Milia and his compatriots don’t seem to be driven by a desire for fame and fortune, even on an indie music level. The band’s presentation of The Orion Songbook is as bleak as most of the songs on the album. The cover art is washed out, like old photos that have been left in the sunlight for so many years that the colors are turning monochrome and the images are blending together. There’s no info on who plays what, who wrote the songs, where the band is from, or where it was recorded. It reminds me of the kind of record you might find in a dollar bin in a thrift store: An anonymous but intriguing artifact that you take home with no expectations, and even after you’ve put it on and given it a listen, you’re still wondering what was going on in the mind of the guy who wrote the songs.
Unhappily, it’s impossible for musicians to remain faceless and mysterious these days. Googling a name can turn up everything from your fingerprints to the kind of deodorant you use, or don’t use. So Milia comes from Detroit, plays acoustic guitar, and sings in a flat, unaffected warble that keeps your attention focused on his considerable verbal dexterity. His simple folk melodies support flurries of words, avalanches of images rife with perplexing similes and metaphors, long chains of internal rhymes, and a worldview that might be terrifying if it weren’t presented in such a matter-of-fact manner. He’s been playing with banjo picker David Jones since they met in high school and on through college. They’re currently based in Lansing, where they added Ryan Hay on piano, Ryan Etzcorn on percussion, Anna Burch on harmony vocals, and Zachary Nichols on trumpet and musical saw. Some people have probably never heard the sound of a musical saw, an instrument one Nashville wag called “the hillbilly theremin.” When bent and bowed with a violin bow, the saw creates long, eerie, sustained notes that bring to mind the music of early B-grade sci-fi monster flicks, but Nichols uses it on The Orion Songbook to add a peculiar depth to Milia’s disjointed visions.
“What You Are” is a good example. Milia delves into the soul of someone who seems to be waiting around to die. The saw wails like a cold winter wind insinuating itself between the unseen cracks in an old house to raise goosebumps on the back of your neck, while Milia’s forlorn vocals and Jones’ bone-clattering banjo dance sadly across the room like ghosts. The saw is more subtle and melodic on “The Back-Lot World”, but just as haunting. The song harks back to the murder ballad tradition of the Southern mountains. Milia and Burch blend their chilling harmonies to the fragile whistling tones of the saw while Etzcorn’s muted rumbling percussion adds a disquieting feeling to the track. The singer confesses the slaying of a former lover in a direct tone that’s meant, perhaps, to impress his new girlfriend, but probably leaves her looking for the fastest escape route.
But most of the songs here are less dramatic, steeped in the hopeless melancholy of a spirit caught in a boring personal hell that seems to have no beginning or end. “Animals Need Animals” likens love to starvation, with Milia’s minimal acoustic guitar and forlorn vocals supported by Burch’s dejected harmonies and that crying saw. Jones alternates between simple clawhammer-style banjo and blue meandering lead lines on “Dark Autumn Hour”, another ode to dashed hopes and broken dreams. “Foggy Lilac Windows” is a meandering ballad, simply delivered by minimal guitar and banjo and Milia’s weary vocals. The lyrics spin a dizzying web of dreary images until Nichols’ R&B trumpet flourishes come in, promising a release of tension that never comes. The album closes with “The Deep-Yard Dream”, a song reminiscent of a childhood that seems as bleak as the singer’s present-day reality, full of crumbling neighborhoods, lost friends, and lost dreams. The sad ululations of the musical saw drift through the air like softly sobbing angels as the music ends.
The songs on The Orion Songbook are full of distorted mirrors, deserted farmland, dusty cracked sidewalks, dead stars, empty stomachs and emptier hearts, abandoned houses, brambles and crucifixes, graveyards, backyards and train yards, violent nightmares, merciless chilling winds, and tattered clothing, both actual and metaphorical. The only refuge is the desolate beauty of Milia’s poetry and the quiet intensity the band brings to every note it plays.
Milia and his compatriots don’t seem to be driven by a desire for fame and fortune, even on an indie music level. The band’s presentation of The Orion Songbook is as bleak as most of the songs on the album. The cover art is washed out, like old photos that have been left in the sunlight for so many years that the colors are turning monochrome and the images are blending together. There’s no info on who plays what, who wrote the songs, where the band is from, or where it was recorded. It reminds me of the kind of record you might find in a dollar bin in a thrift store: An anonymous but intriguing artifact that you take home with no expectations, and even after you’ve put it on and given it a listen, you’re still wondering what was going on in the mind of the guy who wrote the songs.
Unhappily, it’s impossible for musicians to remain faceless and mysterious these days. Googling a name can turn up everything from your fingerprints to the kind of deodorant you use, or don’t use. So Milia comes from Detroit, plays acoustic guitar, and sings in a flat, unaffected warble that keeps your attention focused on his considerable verbal dexterity. His simple folk melodies support flurries of words, avalanches of images rife with perplexing similes and metaphors, long chains of internal rhymes, and a worldview that might be terrifying if it weren’t presented in such a matter-of-fact manner. He’s been playing with banjo picker David Jones since they met in high school and on through college. They’re currently based in Lansing, where they added Ryan Hay on piano, Ryan Etzcorn on percussion, Anna Burch on harmony vocals, and Zachary Nichols on trumpet and musical saw. Some people have probably never heard the sound of a musical saw, an instrument one Nashville wag called “the hillbilly theremin.” When bent and bowed with a violin bow, the saw creates long, eerie, sustained notes that bring to mind the music of early B-grade sci-fi monster flicks, but Nichols uses it on The Orion Songbook to add a peculiar depth to Milia’s disjointed visions.
“What You Are” is a good example. Milia delves into the soul of someone who seems to be waiting around to die. The saw wails like a cold winter wind insinuating itself between the unseen cracks in an old house to raise goosebumps on the back of your neck, while Milia’s forlorn vocals and Jones’ bone-clattering banjo dance sadly across the room like ghosts. The saw is more subtle and melodic on “The Back-Lot World”, but just as haunting. The song harks back to the murder ballad tradition of the Southern mountains. Milia and Burch blend their chilling harmonies to the fragile whistling tones of the saw while Etzcorn’s muted rumbling percussion adds a disquieting feeling to the track. The singer confesses the slaying of a former lover in a direct tone that’s meant, perhaps, to impress his new girlfriend, but probably leaves her looking for the fastest escape route.
But most of the songs here are less dramatic, steeped in the hopeless melancholy of a spirit caught in a boring personal hell that seems to have no beginning or end. “Animals Need Animals” likens love to starvation, with Milia’s minimal acoustic guitar and forlorn vocals supported by Burch’s dejected harmonies and that crying saw. Jones alternates between simple clawhammer-style banjo and blue meandering lead lines on “Dark Autumn Hour”, another ode to dashed hopes and broken dreams. “Foggy Lilac Windows” is a meandering ballad, simply delivered by minimal guitar and banjo and Milia’s weary vocals. The lyrics spin a dizzying web of dreary images until Nichols’ R&B trumpet flourishes come in, promising a release of tension that never comes. The album closes with “The Deep-Yard Dream”, a song reminiscent of a childhood that seems as bleak as the singer’s present-day reality, full of crumbling neighborhoods, lost friends, and lost dreams. The sad ululations of the musical saw drift through the air like softly sobbing angels as the music ends.
The songs on The Orion Songbook are full of distorted mirrors, deserted farmland, dusty cracked sidewalks, dead stars, empty stomachs and emptier hearts, abandoned houses, brambles and crucifixes, graveyards, backyards and train yards, violent nightmares, merciless chilling winds, and tattered clothing, both actual and metaphorical. The only refuge is the desolate beauty of Milia’s poetry and the quiet intensity the band brings to every note it plays.
disc 1
| 01 | Animals Need Animals | 50 | |||
| 02 | The Latter Days | 1 | |||
| 03 | What You Are | 1 | |||
| 04 | Dark Autumn Hour | 9 | |||
| 05 | Mount Marcy | 3 | |||
| 06 | The Blood | 1 | |||
| 07 | Bethlehem | 1 | |||
| 08 | Foggy Lilac Windows | 1 | |||
| 09 | Orion Town 2 | 1 | |||
| 10 | The Back-Lot World | 1 | |||
| 11 | Rosemont | 1 | |||
| 12 | Orion Town 3 | 3 | |||
| 13 | Adirondack Amish Holler | 1 | |||
| 14 | The Deep-Yard Dream | 1 |
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