DEWOLFF – MUSCLE SHOALS

(Mascot)

It takes a bit of chutzpah for a trio from the Netherlands to stride into the legendary Alabama studios and not only make an album there but to name said album after it, and completely stick the landing.  Guitar/vocalist Pablo van de Poel, brother Luka on drums, and Robin Piso on Hammond organ, now in their seventeenth year as DeWolff, bring their unique, gritty brand of Rock ‘n Soul and R&B straight to your dinner plate, chicken fried.

No doubt the ghosts hovering around FAME and Muscle Shoals Sound Studios such as Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Etta James, Percy Sledge, the Stones, Duane and Gregg Allman were looking down in approval as Dewolff decamped from Dutch shores for 18 months to make this record.  Blue-eyed soul meets swampy rock in an irresistible stew.  On tracks like “Out on the Town,” the fellas conjure up a sprightly Allman Brothers-inflected groover with a bit of Steely Dan thrown in.  It took a couple of listens before I realized what the album DOESN’T have that you’d expect from something coming out of this musical cathedral in northwest Alabama – horns.  For all Dewolff’s soul, R&B and the storied legacy of Muscle Shoals, there’s hardly a horn in sight (there’s a sax solo on “Truce”), and yet they still somehow pull off a corker of an album.

As you might expect, the production is amazingly tight, and the sound is full and expansive.  Dewolff’s songs are highly melodic and accessible.  As a Terrascopaedian, I tend to gravitate more towards their rocky side, and there’s more than enough of that to go around.  Whether it’s the aforementioned “Out on the Town” or “Ophelia,” which sounds a little like The Black Keys meet Booker T. and the MG’s, Dewolff boogies and rocks on down the Tennessee River while you can just feel the humidity in the air.

On “Book of Life,” Robin Piso channels his inner Dr. John, Nicky Hopkins and Jon Lord all on the same track, while the song recalls a passel of vintage soul classics.  “Fools and Horses” stomps its way through until Pablo van de Poel ties a ribbon on it with an excellent guitar solo.  My favorite track, “Snowbird” starts off conventional enough, then takes flight in the second half of its eight-minute-plus running time into another Allman Brothers-like jam with Pablo van de Poel and Robin Piso trading guitar and organ licks while Luka van de Poel holds down the beat perfectly.  The album concludes with found sounds of cicadas from deep in the Alabama night in case you were wondering what part of the world you were in.

The record sounds every bit like the result of the loving care that went into recording every instrument, and Dewolff’s deep love for the music that made Muscle Shoals famous.  It’s simultaneously professional through-and-through, and oozing with the greasy local victuals they likely consumed while making it.

(Mark Feingold)

VARIOUS ARTISTS – COME AROUND TO THE BACKDOOR:  BLUES, COUNTRY, JAZZ & GOSPEL FROM 1924

(Tompkins Square)

Tonight we’re gonna party like it’s 1924.  This collection was released with zero fanfare by Tompkins Square, and you’ll find nothing out there in yer internet in the way of descriptions or reviews.  So once again, the Terrascope gets the scoop.  It’s a collection of old 78s unified by the singular theme of having entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2025.

Seemingly no expense was spared – correction - no resources were spent to restore the sound quality of the eleven tracks.  What you hear is what you get.  Even on high quality streaming services, tracks come replete with scratches, skips, crackles, pops, hiss – heck, you’d think these records were a hundred years old or something.  How and why did the curators select these particular tracks?  Hell if I know, and they’re certainly not spilling the beans.  But it sure is a hoot of a listen.

Highlights, they are a-plenty.  On leadoff track “Memphis Bound,” Viola McCoy, who recorded for a number of labels between 1923 and 1929, and was also known as Gladys White, Amanda Brown, Fannie Johnson, Daisy Cliff, Susan Williams, Bessie Williams and Clara White, sings a bluesy number about heading home to Memphis.  It sounds like the exact distillation you’d imagine of a 1920s blues arrangement, with clarinets, trumpets and trombones wailing.  It even has an adorable kazoo solo which skips repeatedly at the 1:38 point until it’s somehow corrected.

On “Hen Cackle,” fiddler Gid Tanner along with blind guitarist Riley Puckett play country music accompanied by some playful vocal hijinks, somewhat akin to the “aw haw” accents made famous years later by Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys.  A year after this recording, Tanner and Puckett would go on to form one of the first supergroups, The Skillet Lickers, who would become the most popular country band in the US from 1926 to 1931.  Puckett, who listeners of Atlanta radio station WSB christened “The Ball Mountain Caruso,” gets his moment to shine in the collection on “Just as the Sun Went Down.”  Sadly it doesn’t include any yodeling, for which Puckett was known to be prodigious, a few years before Jimmy Rogers made it famous.  And he doesn’t sound like Caruso either.

“Western Union Blues” is an entertaining blues song by Maggie Jones.  Known as “The Texas Nightingale,” she sings and sways here to some excellent trombone accompaniment, likely played by Charlie Green.  “Lismonise” is almost inaudible due to excessive hiss, but it’s your chance to hear Greek-American singer Marika Papagika ply her vocal talents.  “Turkey in the Straw” is probably the most well-known song in the collection, performed here by Fiddlin’ John Carson.  Carson was born in 1868 in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia, and had worked in cotton mills for over 20 years before his fiddling talents won him many contests, and eventually a recording contract with OKeh Records.  This is one of over 150 records he cut for OKeh, many of them with string band the Virginia Reelers.

Ida Cox was one of the most outstanding blues singers of the 1920s, and “Death Letter Blues” offered here, is considered one of her best-known songs.  On this blues dirge about her dying man, Cox is accompanied by female African American pianist Lovie Austin and Tommy Ladnier on trumpet.  Cox would later perform in John Hammond’s seminal Spirituals to Swing concert at Carnegie Hall in 1939.  And speaking of iconic, the set is closed out by “You Better Get Somebody On Your Bond” by the Fisk Jubilee Singers.  The celebrated African American a capella group was formed in 1871 at the historically black college Fisk University in Nashville, performing predominantly spirituals, and countless accolades later is still going.

This collection is available as a name-your-price item on Bandcamp.  To me it’s a fascinating snapshot in history.  If you enjoy programs such as the wonderful Centuries of Sound podcast, you’ll find much pleasure here.

(Mark Feingold)

THE RISHIS - THE RISHIS

(Available on Cloud Recordings[vinyl] / Primordial Void [digital])

The Rishis sophomore effort revolves around the songwriting duo of Ranjan Avasthi and Sofie Lute. Expanding to a full band and perhaps inspired by 4AD’s This Mortal Coil project, the pair are accompanied by members of the Elephant 6 Collective (including members from Terrastock veterans Neutral Milk Hotel, Olivia Tremor Control, and Elf Power) as well as like-minded Acid Folk/World travelers from the Primordial Void Collective (who released the digital version of the album). ‘Coloring’ starts things off with a rousing, countrified toe-tapper, featuring a twisty solo, barrelhouse piano, and brass pronouncements. ‘Buffalo’ is a tad melancholic as befits its lyrics, but Joel Byron’s subtle banjo licks, Robbee Cucchiaro’s weeping trumpet, and heavenly harmonies from Scott and Sally Spillane prevent the cautionary tale of the white man’s destruction of Native American culture from deteriorating into a maudlin rant. Considering the subject matter, as brilliant as this original is, it seems perfectly suited to a Buffy Sainte-Marie cover.

     We don’t hear enough Glockenspiel anymore, so Craig Landry’s subtle tinkling adds a spark to ‘Nite’, with Mellotron (Todd Kelly), Harmonium (Primordial Void owner Marcel Sletten) and Andrew Rieger (Elf Power)’s tasty solo joining in the fun.

     ‘Criminal Activities’ kicks the rock quotient up a few notches for a stomping good time with blazing feedback and soloing from Chris Byron and Mac McCaughan ensuring the neighbours won’t be falling asleep anytime soon! Lute takes the mic for ‘Robot Factory’, backed by a choir of multi-tracked voices adding to the party atmosphere. And when was the last time you heard a tuba in a rock song. As the gang suggests, “Stop by or spend some time and have a cup of tea.”

     Haunting Eastern inflections permeate ‘Dharamsala’ with bells, harmonium, tuba, pedal steel, Tanpura box, and Avasthi’s throat singing making this a true East-meets-West musical collaboration with a soothing, hallucinogenic vibe. There’s also a heavy-lidded atmosphere up in the ‘Stratosphere’, with harmonium, Glockenspiel, and Taishogoto (Todd Kelly) anchoring us from floating off into the, well, stratosphere. The almost spiritual vibe hovering over instrumental closer ‘Rishikesh’ will fill your head with relaxing sensations, fuzzy visions, and a physical numbness to match your over-sensitised brain waves. Just don’t forget to get off the floor to turn the record over and start the experience all over again!

(Jeff Penczak)

MINORCAN - ROCK ALONE

(Self-released)

Ryan Anderson has been self-releasing albums under his own name for 25 years. In 2010 he formed Minorcan and the North Carolina trio recorded three albums before COVID put paid to more live performances. Ever the adventurer, Anderson began exploring new ways to perform live by jamming in his basement with a drum machine and his trusty six-string. Along with a set of tunes he wrote on his acoustic guitar, he set out on the road and worked the new material into his live performances. Realising he had enough material for a new album he assembled the self-descriptive Rock Alone with new recording software (his 30 year-old Tascam cassette having bit the dust) and improvised setups in his living room, on his mum’s dining room table and back in the basement.

     ‘Shapeshiftin’ Demon’ is a melancholic, piano-driven ballad with hints of Elliott Murphy and Tom Petty. Personifying “love” as a demon that can cause us harm instead of the traditional feeling of love=happiness. Maybe holding each other and dancing in the darkness will help us discover what “love” means to each of us. The title track offers us hope that even if we feel alone, if you share your creations with others you’ll find there are others out there who dig what you’re doing. As Anderson sings, “You are not alone/You found rock and roll/Alone in your basement/With your cassette 4-track/you found your home.”

     I love the idea of ’Ghost Heart’: what if Prince and Roky Erickson wrote a song together? It might be about a couple whose friendship turned romantic, only to go sour over time. But years later, one character is invited to the former lover’s wedding, but they keep their prior relationship secret. Anderson twists this faux Prince/Roky co-write into a tale of someone haunting their old lover at their wedding from beyond the grave with his ‘ghost heart’. Maybe we can make it work out after all these years?

     ‘Burial Insurance’ might be a disguised sequel to the previous track (?!) and it does begin with a funereal vibe about it. But Anderson perks up the tale of a songwriter who hopes his latest hit will earn him enough to pay for his burial! Until then, he can’t afford to die! If you hear Tom T. Hall coming from a mile away you’re on the right track. Death never sounded so perky and most of us guys can sympathise with Anderson’s hope that his wife won’t pass before him so he doesn’t have to spend his last days sitting around with a bunch of old men rambling on about them good ol’ days!

     ‘Memories Rerun’ suggests we can still have fun as we get older and don’t have to live in the past because “things were better back then” and ‘Nightmare Rider’ circles back to ‘Shapeshiftin’ Demon’, our hero having discovered more about love and how much we need others to help us through this crazy thing called Life. Being, rocking alone is terrifying and living without that special person is the worst nightmare we could imagine.

     For fans of Robyn Hitchcock, Graham Parker, Elliott Murphy, Garland Jeffries, Anton Barbeau and other like-minded introspective pop explorers with a great sense of humour and the ability to couch it in a catchy melody and an honest lyric that comes from the heart.

(Jeff Penczak)

Ryan Anderson is performing solo shows (as Minorcan) in the Southeast USA in April, May, and June. Dates are on his website. If you’re near the area, it’ll be worth the trip based on what we hear in this engaging, brutally honest album about life, love, fear, and loathing in these crazy, contentious times.