Chatham County Line "The Carolinian"

I wholeheartedly enjoy bluegrass music. Having thoroughly surveyed the foggy nebulous of a genre that people categorize as alternative country, it was only a matter of time before the jangle of banjos and sweet swell of fiddles lured me in.

Chatham County Line is among my favorites when it comes to bluegrass. The quartet out of North Carolina possess a sound that does not seem to belong with this current generation. The banjo, fiddle or mandolin, and guitar meld and compliment each other in a fashion that is nothing short of anachronistic. That worn feel of years past is compounded by everything from their lyrical diction to their dress.

"The Carolinian" is a wistful recollection of a providential meeting upon a train, relating an unspoken, futile love and pensive pining for what might have been. The notion that the encounter occurs on a train itself seems out of place, and couplets such as "She smiled and said 'Richmond' when I asked where she was bound/I began to wish my life away to be born in that town" inflate the old fashioned, Americana sensation. Nowadays, bands like The Head and The Heart write with a nostalgic look at our country's past ("I wish I was a slave to an age old trade/Like ridin' around on railcars and workin' long days"), but Chatham County Line songs "The Carolinian," "Wildwood," "Crop Comes In," and "I Got Worry" illustrate something beyond ruminating nostalgia. It is that unpolished and unpretentious rusticity which Chatham County Line draw from the American folk tradition that make the group so endearing.

And one more for luck...

Okkervil River: Golden Opportunities 2, Overboard & Down...

At the end of November, Okkervil River released another free EP of covers titled Golden Opportunities 2, which included the wistful and buoyant "It Is Nice To Get Stoned." Since that time, I have been on a steady diet of Will Sheff and company. In my process of rediscovering Okkeril River's catalog, I sought out rarities I had previously missed, chiefly Overboard & Down EP, a small collection of tracks from the group's Australian tour in 2006. I marveled at the rawness of emotion and melancholy in "Love to a Monster," the sad jangle of the mandolin completing the tender wound. The song begins with a verse that is as stark and distressed as any: "Lover, now that you've left me, I'm glad you're unlovely/Because if you could take all the heat in your heart and just hang it from you/I wouldn't be able to bear the way you cannot love me/It's much easier of me to make a monster out of you."

Far and away, the album I enjoyed from start to finish and enjoyed time after time, was Black Sheep Boy. Those eleven tracks encapsulate what I find so captivating and appealing about Okkervil River. The album drifts between frantic, steep layers of vigor and more hushed moods in "Get Big" and "A King and A Queen." In each instance, however, Sheff's vocals are delivered with palpable feeling of distress and grief, hovering on the edge of hysterics. Simply put, it is the perfect introductory album to initiate your love affair with Okkervil River.

Sharon Van Etten "A Crime"

For whatever reason, when I hear Sharon Van Etten I am transfixed, straining forward to listen with a heightened inspection. With talents that stretch far beyond the cookie-cutter folk singer formula, Van Etten's lyrics are simultaneously robust, uncomplicated, and gut-wrenchingly personal. Her 2010 album Epic is filled with intimate narratives that are both remarkably beautiful and staggeringly heartbreaking. One can only hope that her upcoming album Tramp features more of the same.