Labels: Thrill Jockey
Review by: Captain Fidanza
In my life I have owned several Thrill Jockey albums, amongst them, Millions Now Living Will Never Die, Lost in the Glare, 94 Diskont and Party, Party by Black Lace so, correctly or otherwise, in my head, this label is inextricably associated with dense, avant-garde electronica, not Bluegrass, but that seems to be what this is and very good it is too.
However, far from the standard “front porch jug band” aesthetics in which so much of this music has mired itself since O Brother, Where art Thou? introduced it to a wider audience, sections of this album seem dedicated to blowing the cobwebs from the minds of remorselessly associative morons like me through the inclusion of a whirling ten minute composition called “Mandorla at Dawn” and chant-heavy closer song “Tough Soup,” which descends into a wondrous chanting cacophony reminiscent of that bit in The Blues Brothers where Cleophus James is delivering a sermon resulting in people turning somersaults in the air behind him.
Praise be.