Gillian Welch - Hell Among The Yearlings

While I am here, bored, and desperately trying to avoid doing any of my very important college work and exam revision, I figured I may as well use the time to add to Big Static since it has been so quietly recently.

I have seen Gillian Welch perform multiple times, and I think it was the last time we saw her that my dad proclaimed that it was "one of the closest things to perfection" that he had ever witnessed, which is a powerful statement when it comes from the mouth of Mr John Ralph, believe me. I just went through my Microsoft Word thesaurus to find a word that could describe Gillian's music but the most accurate adjective I could find is "haunting". Her music is dark, chilling, archaic but still relevant to our times. There are the occasional more modern twists in this album, Honey Now for example, but apart from these brief breaks of the more traditional style, you could easily be forgiven for mistaking this music as genuine 1920s Appalachia. The lyrics play disturbingly with images of rape, whiskey, the devil, death, coal-mines, murder, bleak biblical imagery:

"In the black dust towns of east Tennessee
All the work's about the same...
Now there's something good in a worried song
For the trouble in your soul..."

Yet despite the chilling images that Welch throws around, the music is often gentle and possibly what Cat Power would sound like if Chan Marshall had grown up in a swamp-shack in Tennessee in 1920 and was one tenth of the musician that Gillian Welch is. Just Gillian's obvious talent alone is mind-blowing, but the magical way she has taken very traditional American folk music and sculpted it into something extremely beautiful is worth more praise than I could ever award her. In short, this is a stunning album and a sparkling example of traditional Appalachia still being as powerful today as it was generations ago.

Caleb Meyer
Honey Now

Buy this album on Amazon

A Silver Mt Zion - Horses In The Sky

I feel terribly guilty for not having pulled my weight in Big Static for a while, but once again my excuse comes with a suitable update - last week I was lucky enough to see A Silver Mt Zion (or "Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band" if you prefer the technical terminology) at The Bierkeller in Bristol. I would give the history of this band but most of you probably know it already, and it is largely irrelevant as they have become such an accomplished band in their own right. They actually opened with this song, also playing 2 other tracks from their latest release, Horses In The Sky. I was led to believe beforehand that the venue was "a church" but my informant turned out to be a liar and it was in fact a large Wedgewood Rooms styled affair, only with less fairy lights and more beer barrels and long banquet-style tables. But that didn't matter because in fact it turned out that this band in a sticky-floored beer den are still every bit as numinous as standing in St Peter's Basilica while angel's play post-rock to you from the firmament, or something equally as poetic.

I have seen many many shows in my life but I could probably count, in all honesty, on two hands the number of bands I have seen who have truly put shivers up and down my spine. A Silver Mt Zion are most definitely up there at the top of my list. Their records do not do justice to this band's energy and electricity at all - they have unbelievable presence onstage and obviously a very connected understanding of one another; instinctively following one another through elaborate 20-minute soundscapes and grinning at eachother over their violins or drumkits. Speaking of which - I never noticed the drumming when I listened to A Silver Mt Zion in the past, but the drummer actually deserves more attention as one of the finest rhythm sections I have ever seen in action. In fact, the entire band were one of the finest group of musicians I have seen full stop, and I can honestly say that their live show will stick with me forever.

Like I said, this is the track they opened with - but I still say that if any of you ever get a chance to see this band play live then make it your utmost priority to do so, because you could listen to their records a thousand times over but it won't stick in your mind like their live show does.

God Bless Our Dead Marines

Buy Horses In The Sky on Amazon

And we're back

I guess I should apologize for the lack of updates but I really doubt the three of us taking time off has affected you in any severe emotional way. As far as I know, Alice is in some other country at the moment and I have no idea where Kieran is. As for me, I've been struck with the same realization that a number of bloggers seem to have come to. It's summer! The weather is nice, no one's wearing much clothing and being outside is no longer a painful exercise in seeing how much of a very low temperature you can withstand. So few people have the desire to sit in their dark little rooms and type out their thoughts on the new Gomez album or whatever.

So with my general lack of use of the internet I haven't been digging through the usual sources for anything new. Mainly I've been revisiting a few records that A) I had a vague recollection of being great and B) I figured would suit the current mood. Mainly it came down to the one Brian Jonestown Massacre album I own and a bunch of old hip-hop records that I found in a box under my bed. Whilst my A Tribe Called Quest and The Roots records did serve me well, it was Brian Jonestown Massacre's "Their Satanic Majesties' Second Request" that ended up going on repeat through the better part of the last week. The formula behind the record is fairly simple. Take a bunch men who are fairly musically talented yet very prone to debauchery and casual violence. Put them in a recording studio. Tell them they can have whatever drugs they ask for and they have full use of every instrument they can think of. What do you get? Something that's one part a concept album with no real concept, one part drug induced delusions of divine realization and one part solid Spaceman 3 influenced slab of drone meets hippy rock 'n' roll.

Brian Jonestown Massacre - In India You
Brian Jonestown Massacre - Jesus

You can buy a solid copy of Their Satanic Majesties' Second Request from Amazon for a ridiculous sum of money or you can download it from Emusic for about $4.