The Playlist: Americana

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2014/jun/30/the-playlist-americana

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The Dickens Campaign – As I Went Out for a Ramble

Down among the comments recently, one of you mentioned the Dickens Campaign, a project that unites drummer Deric Dickens, cornet-player Kirk Knuffe, and guitarist Jesse Lewis in a melding of blues, jazz and free improvisation. I’ve particularly fallen for this, the opening track of an album that pays homage to the great musical archivist Alan Lomax. There’s a brightness to it, a quality in its range and rhythm that stirs something of my love for the American landscape. I’d say this is probably because of the railroad skiffle of its drumbeat, the train-whistle call of the cornet, and in and around and over them both the guitar seems to rove about. Gorgeous stuff. (Side note: contrarily there are moments — around one minute 50 seconds onwards — where the brass carries just a whiff of Van Morrison’s Celtic Soul too).

Dan Michaelson and the Coastguards - Bones

Dan Michaelson and the Coastguards have made a belter of a break-up record (set for release this August), and Bones is one of its absolute gems. Michaelson’s voice has always been a bare and beautiful thing, but here it appears stripped to the rafters, making a half-croaked appeal for a lover to return: “Come on home I want you/Come on home I need you here,” he sings, as behind him the music strays from rich, sweet surges, to quiet restraint, and back again.

Stephen Steinbrink – Now You See Everything

Steinbrink hails from Olympia, Washington, and releases the album Arranged Waves this July on Manchester’s Melodic Records. At just 25, this will be his sixth album (with various other EPs and work with French Quarter also to his name) and what makes this track really shine is his dedication to his music — there is something polished and fastidiously-crafted about it, and for all the dreamy harmonies (with a whisper of the Shins about them) it’s the type of gleaming pop sound that takes real skill and precision.

Richard Reed Parry – Music For Heart & Breath

Begun in the midst of a furious tour with his band Arcade Fire, multi-instrumentalist Richard Reed Parry’s compositional debut was an attempt to find a stillness amid the chaos of travelling the globe and playing arenas to thousands of people. The idea behind it is really quite magical: every musician involved creates his or her own tempo by listening to their own pulse during each performance, in the hope that they will find “the quietest little impulses, and the quietest little sounds, and the delicate little rhythms going on inside their own bodies and translating that into music.” For the listener, too, the effect is to be strangely quietened, while still somehow rousing the curiosity. Drawing contributions from Kronos Quartet, Nico Muhly, and Aaron and Bryce Dessner, it makes for a stunning record.

Hiss Golden Messenger – Saturday’s Song

Yes, I included a Hiss Golden Messenger song on this list a couple of weeks back, but this little number is from the new album, Lateness of Dancers (one of my favourites of the year) and is one of the happiest songs of the past month or so. It sets off at a kind of sunlit free-wheeling pace, the gleam of Southern Rock about its shoulders: “Yeah when Saturday comes, I’m gonna lose myself,” MC Taylor sings in his warm, easy fashion, before adding a caution: “I might get a little crazy/ I’m gonna drink some whiskey.” A song that’s spoiling for a drink, certainly, but one that also spies the simple, restorative quality of "rocking the soul" and "losing control"; a kind of working man’s gospel, perhaps, and a testament to the uncomplicated joy and sacred promise of the weekend (and since I’m writing this on a Monday, we all need a little something to look forward to).