The Music Court

Huck Rose

Anna Rose is dedicated to music.

Once, after getting into an argument about whether Eric Clapton or Jimi Hendrix was the better guitarist, she physically removed the Clapton supporter from the car. “I’d rather have innovation than interpretation any day of the week,” said Rose.

Rose does go on to say how great of a guitarist Clapton is, but, her pure passion (as described above) is just a treat. I mean I would like to think that I would defend great music to the death, but, I don’t know if I would throw someone out of a car if they did not agree with me. Well…maybe.

Anna Rose is a 25-year-old singer/songwriter from New York who just released her debut album Nomad. The 12-track disc features a great assortment of Rose’s multifaceted music style. This style was accomplished by Rose through hard work and many great music influences. Heck, her dog’s name is Joplin. Listen to track five “I’ll Be Gone” and hear how much sense this makes.

“I’ll Be Gone,” displays Rose’s bluesy side and her voice is a powerful example of good blues singing. Plus, it’s different and original. It has an old feel but it is not a superannuated piece of music. It is fresh and exciting and Rose’s voice is a tour de force.

“Music,” Rose says, “More than anything, I have always straight-up just totally and truthfully loved it.”

And, her love for it shows. Her inspirations range from Jim Morrison (who she would like to look like on stage) to famous guitarists like Buddy Guy. “From the beginning, I was a guitarhead,” said Rose. She started playing the guitar when she was five and even received lessons from Arlen Roth, the guitarist who has performed with Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, and who wrote the book ‘Masters of the Telecaster.

Guitar is quite prevalent in “Picture,” one of my favorite tracks on the album. In it, a gritty Rose lets loose her rocker side and plays a powerful song with a well-placed, neat electric guitar solo which wraps the song together. Her voice displays such fantastic emotion and the fact that the song comes after two less powerful tracks portrays great album organizational skills (an art that often goes overlooked).

Rose said, after playing a show in L.A., “It was like I had found a place in the music world,” and this debut album affirms that sentiment. It is a sweet blend of warm rock n’ roll music with a youthful vigor injected into each song. And, best of all, at 25, Rose still has room to grown…in a music sense that is.

For Information:

http://www.myspace.com/annarosemusic

http://www.annarosemusic.com/

The Show Must Go On

Robert Caro, an American biographer, once said,”You come in off the street, through the doors of the theater. You sit down. The lights go down and the curtain goes up. And you’re in another world.”

So Runs the World Away

“Curtains,” the first song on Josh Ritter’s fifth LP So Runs the World Away, prepares listeners for their 13 track journey into Ritter’s world. As “Curtains” ends, and the symbolic curtain rises, a flash of white light envelopes the listener and entraps them in a state of sensory paralysis where listening is the only option. A hyperbole, yes, but, not by much. Ritter’s new conquest is pure music gold. The album has a wonderful diversity of songs that combine ethereal sounds, bare acoustic riffs, Ritter’s keen sense of the existential lyric and his Springsteen-like croon (and troubadour status). Each song is engaging and brilliant in its own way, never repeating the same musical concept twice. Ritter has proven his ability to create skilled music before, but, as Bob Boilen of NPR’s “All Song’s Considered” program said, “this one took my breath away.”

In the album’s expansive “Another New World,” Ritter tells the tale of a polar explorer who is forced to sacrifice his beloved ship in order to survive the cold. It is a maritime love story; a type of lyric that Ritter has mastered. The explorer’s ship is called the Annabel Lee. Now, quick English lesson. Who has a poem named “Annabel Lee.” The only difference is the poem is not about a ship. Edgar Allen Poe wrote the story of Annabel Lee who is frozen and killed by angels. Ritter’s story is similar. His guitar picking sounds like the trochaic rhythm in Poe’s poem. This is a wonderful touch that may often go unnoticed. It is important to realize how intelligent Ritter, the son of two neuroscientists actually is…in English? What? Anyway, the song is euphonious and the lyric is masterful. It almost sounds like an optimistic dirge which I understands makes no sense at all. I believe the Annabel Lee can be used as a working symbol for Ritter’s album. Ritter himself is the mariner, and his companion, the ship, is his work on this album. In order to fully understand the album’s intimate intricacies, we must take apart the boat and, in a sense, use its contents for their potential warmth. So, let’s explore the inner portions of Ritter’s Annabel Lee.

The album, or ship for our purposes, consists of several of Ritter’s creative ideas. We are sent on a journey through an elegiac opener, to the odd affair between a recently awoken mummy and a pretty archaeologist (that is most similar to Ritter’s “The Temptation of Adam,” an unexpected lyrical chef-d’oeuvre documenting a romance in a nuclear missile silo), to a mock “Folk Bloodbath” that pins classic murder ballad names against each other, into a Paul Simon like “Lark,” and then back out again into a scientific/angelic “Orbital.” And, in the frenzy of travel, Ritter never misses an emotional moment. Each song has an underlying message behind its tender melody and wonderfully scripted lyric. This is what propels this album to a new level.

Ritter ends “Another New World” with a repetition of the verse:

“Sometimes at night in my dreams
comes the singing of some unknown tropical bird
and I smile in my sleep thinking
Annabel Lee had made it to Another New World”

And, this is absolutely true. Ritter’s own Annabel Lee, So Runs the World Away, reaches the a high pedestal of a jewelled release that, in my opinion, goes down as Ritter’s magnum opus at this stage of his career, and, is an early favorite for best album of the decade (to be compiled in December of 2019). It propels him to a symbolic “New World,” and Ritter should be proud and certainly smile at this. His, “Annabel Lee…made it to Another New World.”

“The Curse”

Well, if one thing, John Darnielle, lead goat in his clan of Mountain Goats, is quite creative. Let us surround our songs around biblical texts is not something that many folk rockers go to (unless they are trying to get into the Christian Music scene). While, yes, if this album was not done by such a skilled craftsman like Darnielle, it probably would have turned into a complete disaster, it was, and we get to reap the benefits of such skilled work.

There is a dark beauty to Darnielle’s ever-changing voice and lyric. The themes that present themselves (like death) are not uplifiting and won’t have you dancing around or singing along. There is a more likely chance that in exploring themes that everyone must deal with, listeners will relate, and shed tears to the sound of Darnielle’s pained croon. This, by no means, suggests that you not take a listen to the album. It would be a crime not to listen to these songs. Just like bible verses themselves, Darnielle’s songs simply portray situations; it is up to you how you respond to them.

My response was simple. Awe. I have always been impressed by Darnielle’s passionate and highly literate lyric. His immense feeling seeps through the speakers and entraps you. The music does not hurt either. It has improved in this album. Often lost in The Mountain Goats is the fact that there are two other members in the band who participate to the song sounds and harmonies. Simple chord progressions are backed by interesting riffs and keyboard in this album, as well as, a fantastic appearance of rising drums in “Genesis: 30:3.” So, shall we get into some of these most anticipated lyrics.

For Darnielle’s lyric I would like to focus on them beyond a religious perspective. I feel as if one goes Google searching for bible verses they may be disappointed in a fruitless search for connections between the verses and Darnielle’s “verses.” I love puns. The lyrics can very well be in songs without biblical titles.

Let’s take one song and I will demonstrate for you why John Darnielle’s lyric propels him above most musicians today.

There is something rather shocking about Darnielle’s lyric. He seemingly can take any topic and slow it down for a brief look into human emotion. In “Matthews 25:21,” Darnielle begins the song by singing:

“They hook you up
To a fentanyl drip
To mitigate the pain a little bit
I flew in
From Pennsylvania
When I heard the hour was coming fast
And I docked in San Barbara
Tried to brace myself
You can’t brace yourself”

The story is set. A fentanyl drip is the commonly used opiate for cancer patients or the terminally ill. We can clearly see that the song is about a character finding out that someone near to them is in their last stages of dying of cancer. Darnielle continues the song by saying:

“And I’m an eighteen-wheeler headed down the interstate
And my breaks are going to give
And I won’t know till it’s too late
Tires screaming when I lose control
Try not to hurt too many people when I roll”

This metaphor is suggesting that the character understands that the person will die; yet, he cannot bring himself to cry. He knows it will happen and he attempts to brace himself. And, when the song ends Darnielle writes:

“And you were a presence full of light upon this earth
And I am a witness to your life and to it’s worth
It’s three days later when I get the call
And there’s nobody around to break my fall.”

It is three days later when he learns of the person’s death and no one is there to catch him as he breaks down like the eighteen wheeler without breaks flying off into a visible night. Darnielle is a master craftsman and, once again, he has taken the untouchable topics of life and has molded them into beautiful and emotional music.

A Perfect 5 stars out of 5 stars

Performance of Ezekiel 7 and the Permanent Efficacy of Grace (Track on new album): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ-zZJu6LKI