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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MySpace | More mp3s | Buy from Suicide Squeeze Records

Given that this band has its roots in the lovely, borderline gospel, old-time Americana of the Cotton Jones Basket Ride, I’d say that Rio Ranger was a bit of a surprise, as an EP.

I don’t know if I’m just being perverse, because a lot of the same elements are still there, but this atmosphere seems a little different now.  Maybe that was the reason for the name change – maybe they felt they’d settled on the kind of band they wanted to be after the demise of Page France, and the sound had kind of fallen into place for them, rather than being a loose collage of elements familiar from other places.

Reverby vocals, omnichord (I think) and some rather tribal drumming on Nicotine Canaries make for a definite break from older things I’ve heard by these guys, whilst still retaining enough atmospheric mystery that it sort of feels related, somehow.  The keyboards have a touch of the doom-prophesying street preacher about them, creating an atmosphere which holds the EP together really nicely.

I’m finding this a really tricky EP to pin down actually – it’s just rather hard to describe.  There are old-fashioned elements (slightly gospel, slightly country, stuff like that) in the arrangement, but the production style is still quite modern, in that the vocals are shimmering and distant.

It’s not soaring or grandiose like you might imagine from the above description; instead it feels quite clipped and restrained.  At no point do they really cut loose and go for it, and that might be where I get the feeling of tension from.  I almost find there to be a feeling that the band are tied down in a sense, somehow held back from really attacking the songs.  That sounds like a criticism, but it really isn’t – quite the opposite in fact.

So yes, an enigmatic little record to have to try and review, but definitely one which I rather like and would recommend you have a look at.

Cotton Jones – Nicotine Canaries

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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