This is a strange, strange album, although not obviously so.  It’s like a slightly croonsome, quite country album was being listened to through a pair of earphones which might have been built by someone in the Flaming Lips.  It’s not that there’s anything Flaming Lipsy about the album at all, it’s just there’s clearly something funny about it, in a manner in which I sort of think they might approve. Maybe it’s because this feels a bit like a pleasant alt-country album being delivered by someone in one of their giant stage bunny costumes.

I guess if you wanted to be brutal about it and just slap down a label you’d have to call it an album generally consisting of lovely alt-country laments, where the session musicians all turned out to be from a lost Chillwave band somewhere.  The vocals are ghostly and distant, and there is enough production fudgery to justify this rather shonky description, but it’s still vague.

The Cotton Jones Basket Ride started as a side project of Page France, based generally around a sort of gospelly Americana which, although lovely, didn’t have the extra nuance and intrigue of this album.  The hazy, lo-fi production, instead of making the album more distant, gives it a layer of warmth, which judging from this band’s earlier work was there in abundance already.

Rather interestingly, they bookend two of the dreamiest songs, Place at the End of the Street and More Songs for Margaret, with a couple of jaunty little instrumental numbers, almost as if they know that these two songs threaten to turn the album from dreamy to downright soporiphic, and although I am not hugely keen on either of the two aforementioned dreamy songs in their own right, as the album is sequenced they work really well.

Dream on Columbia Street brings a touch of cinematic French pop to the album, giving it a really strong finish, but for all I’ve rattled on about what happens from about halfway onwards, it is really the first half of this record which makes it a cut above most things I’ve heard recently. The first five songs really are excellent – fascinating, welcoming, the kind of song which make you want to peer more closely at the odd little flea circus orchestra which seems to be playing them, from a shoebox in the corner of an odd little bar in a town from a book you remember your Grandma reading to you when you were small.

Cotton Jones – Man Climbs Out of the Winter

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Cotton Jones – Song in Numbers

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Well, kids, it’s been a strange old sleepless week & a bit. Of course, what with the Presidential pageant all a hoo-ing & a hah-ing at every turn, I managed to mince about pretty much unnoticed for the most part.

The weather has been atrocious to say the very least. Did I pack for ground frost? Torrential rain? Near hurricane-strength winds? Like fuck I did. Added to that, I’ve been averaging 2am to bed (a foldout in the livingroom of the rented space – sharing with 4 others) & 5.30am wake up calls.

Ed, my (un)usual USof travel companion, has insisted on cooking breakfast for us every morning at 5-cunting-am. The smell of slowly charring bacon has gagged me awake every fucking day – including my one & only day off. On Monday, at 6am, he set the smoke & fire alarms off in the whole apartment complex as he set fire to the electric oven hob with another of his dodgy homegrown concoctions.

The cooker was ruined &, as the rental is billed to my credit card, I’m expecting a sizable bill in the near distant to repair or replace. I’ll go into the finer details of our latest adventure on next week’s show.

So, then, to this week’s show, which has been done on the hoof, via laptop, as I flitted about the States like a ninny. There’s not so much chatter – I was knackered most of the time & the mic I had wasn’t up to much & I am to much of a tight arse to buy another just for one show – but the music more than makes up for it. Some of it, in my humble, is nothing short of astonishing.

Expect, then, many brand new tracks from as yet unreleased albums by the likes of: hillary & the democrats, brooke waggoner, little boots, anna kramer & the lost cause, pete & the pirates, meursault, babian, the welcome wagon, hurray for the riff raff, the cotton jones basket ride, andrew bird, plants & animals, raise high the roof beams, jolie holland, bobby bare jr., hari & aino, the kazoo funk orchestra, warpaint, climber, alela diane, anya marina, the decemberists, basket of figs, miss emily brown, ragged claws, clem snide, & samantha crain & the midnight shivers.

You know what to do.

The Waiting Room: Wednesday 21st January

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I was saying in the pub recently that it’s been a while since I’ve heard anything new that’s really grabbed me, so this was a very welcome discovery as I browsed the sites on my blogroll. The Cotton Jones Basket Ride is the new project of former Page France singer Michael Nau, and if I recall, that band fell from grace somewhat once their overly Christian lyrics became obvious.

I find Nick Cave’s somewhat distorted religious subject matter a little tricky at times, so I can see how this sort of thing could be a problem. I’d have a problem listening to a song whose lyrices advocated the dismantling of nationalised healthcare or neutering spastics as well, so it’s silly to pretend that this sort of thing doesn’t matter.

Consequently when I listen to the Cotton Jones Basket Ride I find myself trying to maintain just a little bit of ignorance as to exactly what they might be singing about. The music is a beautiful mixture of folk, soul and gospel and I don’t want my enjoyment of it to be ruined by religious messages which, frankly, I find tiresome and annoying.

Musically there is so much to enjoy, however, that this line of thought is rendered pretty superfluous. The gently whispered female backing vocal, the easy confidence of the rhythm section – it’s all brilliantly executed, and wonderfully satisfying. It soothes and calms at the same time as it cheers, like an unexpectedly sunny evening.

They’re in the middle of releasing a series of EPs with Quite Scientific Records, the latest of which can be purchased here, and the next of which appears to be slated for release in early 2009.  As soon as I get paid, I am going to be there with bells on.

The Cotton Jones Basket Ride – Had Not a Body
The Cotton Jones Basket Ride – Once Again, She’s a Window Hog