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| Editor: Will Robinson Sheff |
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Best of 2003
1. Bob Dylan - Love and Theft - (Columbia)
2. Robin Williamson - The Seed-at-Zero - (ECM)
3. M. Ward - End of Amnesia - (Future Farmer)
4. Edith Frost - Wonder Wonder - (Drag City)
5. Ron Sexsmith
Blue Boy - (SpinART)
6. Craig Ventresco - The Past is Yet to Come - (Origin Jazz)
7. Alasdair Roberts - The
Crook of My Arm - (Secretly Canadian)
8. Richard Youngs - Making Paper - (Jagjaguwar)
9. Mark Kozelek - What's Next to the Moon - (Badman Recording Company)
10. v/a - Poet: A Tribute to Townes Van Zandt - (Free Falls Entertainment)
2001 brought a wealth of excellent folk releases, from both seasoned old hands and young indie comers. Top of my
list
- of course - is the originary figure of terms like "folk-rock" and "singer-songwriter," Robert Zimmerman. There's
really no reason for me to go on and on about Dylan; let it suffice to say that Love and Theft - a record that,
in
his classic tradition, spans in mood from playfully absurd to apocalyptically overcast - does Time Out of Mind
one
better. Existentially musing beneath his creepy Vincent-Price mustache, he may not be the Dylan of Blonde
on Blonde, but he's a far cry
from Tainting the Memory. Like Bob Dylan,
Robin Williamson was also a young man back in the 1960's. Though he never quite made his first million,
Williamson's
work with the fearless psych-folk outfit the Incredible String Band places him almost on level with Zimmy in my
book. Now an older man with a haggard voice and a purist aesthetic, Williamson has delivered one of 2001's most
ambitious releases in The Seed-At-Zero, which sets the poetry of Dylan Thomas to music alongside work by
Henry Vaughan
and mythic celt bard Taliesin. Williamson punctuates these adaptations with stark reworkings of songs from his own
back catalogue and, amazingly, they fit. Williamson is an amazing songwriter whose passionate seriousness of purpose
always seemed out of place in the world of pop music, so it makes sense that his elegant language fits best alongside
that of kindred spirits like Thomas and Vaughan. The complete and utter anachronism of this project (who cares about
long-dead celtic poets, right?) makes it all the more mutedly poignant.
M. Ward is a relative newcomer. I gave his debut, Duet for Guitars
#2, a number 6 slot on my overall top ten last
year. In 2001 he brought forth End of Amnesia, which mixed his woodsy John
Fahey and Neil Young-isms with a kind of
Jim O'Rouke-y avant-easy sheen. This dreamy, hypnotic album has landed Ward slots on many more top ten lists
this
year. Another indie folkie with a place on my 2001 list is Edith Frost. Wonder Wonder is Frost's most
traditional -
and most upbeat - record yet, and it finds the winsome Chicago chanteuse trying her darndest to write new standards and
frequently succeeding. It's a mellow and thoroughly charming release.
Blue Boy is talented songwriter Ron Sexsmith's first release for the indie label SpinART. A refreshingly
Mitchell-Froom-free Sexsmith release (am I alone in assessing Froom as a purveyor of faux-indie soundtracks for
the
Pottery Barn set?), the Steve-Earle-produced Blue Boy presents a tighter and more playful Sexsmith
songbook. It's
nice.
Two unabashedly old-timey folk releases, though from entirely different traditions, fill my 6 and 7 slots this
year. Craig Ventresco got his mild degree of quasi-fame from an inclusion on the equally excellent Crumb
and Ghost
World soundtracks. On The Past is Yet to Come, Ventresco showcases his vibrant take on several
forgotten racy ragtime
classics from America's earlier days. Meanwhile, on The Crook of My Arm, Appendix Out frontman
Alasdair Roberts
presents affectingly simple renditions of 12 beautifully sentimental and melodic Scottish Folk songs.
Even simpler than Roberts is Richard Youngs - also working out of
Scotland - whose label bills him as "King of the Folk
Minimalists." In between extremely experimental avant-garde releases (and the occasional vegan cookbook), Youngs still
finds the time to record his little collections of 15-minute drone-folk mini-epics. Sound boring? Well, seen from one
angle, it is. On another level, though, Youngs is creating some of the most personal, meditative music out there,
incidental accompaniments to self-discovery.
The last two albums on my list are tribute albums of a kind. On the first, What's Next to the Moon, Mark
Kozelek makes
a weirdly convincing case for Bon Scott as spiritual brother to Nick Drake. In his heartfelt tribute to
AC/DC's
classic work, the terminally wistful Red House Painters singer covers classics like "Bad Boy Boogie" and "Walk
All Over
You," plumbing melancholic depths you never knew they had (OK, that they never had). The revelation of What's Next
to
the Moon isn't so much that Scott was secretly sensitive and thoughtful, but rather that Kozelek has so much
sadness on him he can't help smearing it all over everything he touches. For sheer soaked saturation of tears, though,
Kozelek is no match for Townes Van Zandt, the deceased Texas songwriting master who is paid tribute by
Lucinda Williams
and Willie Nelson, among others, in Poet. Though Poet has its share of clunkers (Robert Earl
Keen should be locked, for all eternity,
in the TX frat-house closet he crawled out of), it's nonetheless a vital document, pointing towards a folk master who
should never be forgotten.
Honorable mentions: I would have loved to include Leonard Cohen's Ten New
Songs on this list, but its R&B-lite
production is pretty far removed from "folk". I regret not having room for Mark Lanegan's alt-folk release
Field Songs
or the Sixth Great Lake's breezy stoner-folk trip Up the
Country. Like clockwork, David Grisman put out another pure
and pretty folk set this year in New River, his record with pianist Danny Zeitlin, but, again, there
wasn't enough room
for that, or for Last Man on Earth, the new release by Loudon Wainwright III,
which drips with the same wounded and
angry sorrow the singer/actor should be congratulated for secretly smuggling under network noses in the TV series
"Undeclared."
Write me: will@audiogalxy.com
Previous Editorials: Talk Back to the Flesh Waste, Live Music
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