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Spotlight
on local musicians grows brighter with new releases
The Athens Insider (11/17/2005)
By Brooke Williams
Aside from New York or L.A., there are few places on earth with
such a high concentration of talented songwriters that a new
batch of four can be showcased every six weeks. Yet, Athens
grows musicians like an official city crop that grows in two
distinct varieties.
There is the seedling, the student or recent graduate armed
only with raw talent and the colorful blooms both of youth’s
optimism and its angst; then, there are the towering willows,
who have stood with their canopies of music on these same streets
for years or decades or lifetimes, whose albums and reputation
speak like the rings used to indicate their age. Bruce Dalzell
doesn’t discriminate: he compiles the saplings with the
older trees and doesn’t try to pretend the other doesn’t
exist, unlike most people in these parts. The result is another
striking compilation, one that speaks as much to the unique
place we inhabit as to the writers themselves.
This time around, Mike Elliott, Adam Remnant (frontman for Southeast
Engine but appearing soft and solo here with unreleased material),
Albert Rouzie and Laura Nadeau (of the recently disbanded Stella)
take their round-robin crack at explaining life as we know it.
Each song maintains the lo-fi production values that I Love
Brucie Studios values, and while even the CD packaging looks
bare bones and local, the sounds are well beyond their small-town
upbringings.
Elliott and English professor Rouzie bring a wilderness to their
songs in a subtle way, with undertones of bluegrass, especially
apparent in Rouzie’s “This Mountain” with
Mark Barsamian on fiddle, and Elliott’s “Zoom.”
In Rouzie’s case, there’s also a New Orleans sound
present, which makes for a listenable dichotomy.
Remnant’s tunes will delight Southeast Engine fans looking
for some unreleased material (particularly “Bound for
Nowhere,” which seems it could be a track that didn’t
make it onto their latest LP) but will also reel in new ears
with track two’s “VIP,” a masterful highlight
of the disc. His wife Amanda (herself chosen for volume two
of this compilation) joins him in a moving Christmas sentiment,
“Out of this World (Fateful Christmas Day).”
Nadeau shows off her unparalleled ability to pen a heartaching
ballad with an arresting simplicity and sadness.In her Texas
days, she rubbed elbows with Joni Mitchell; on this compilation,
it’s easy to believe they used to run in the same talented
circles. “Smoky” is a highlight here.
Local musicians and those passing through Athens will most likely
buy the bulk of these copies, given its self-produced look and
sometimes tattered-at-the-edges voices of those writers not
directly plucked from performing three times a week. Every song
isn’t a diamond, but all are listenable and in their own
way precious. If you find yourself saying you wish you knew
more about the local scene, start with these compilations.
They’re available at Donkey Coffee or at manassehrecords.com.
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Production
Notes
Produced and Engineered by Bruce Dalzell at I Love Brucie
Studios, Stewart, OH. Released November 2005
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