The Shins “New Slang (Live Feat. Iron & Wine)”
Iron & Wine/Calexico “He Lays In The Reins”
Townes Van Zandt “Waiting Around To Die”

One more missive begun on the highway strip, this time on the 15 South, heading back to L.A.

I got to thinking a few moments ago about the weeklong trip through the desert the little lady and I were going to take this past summer. It was aborted for one reason or another, but our plan had been to load up her nano with “desert music” to match the atmosphere of the trip. This all came back to me when a Shins song played as we passed some of the high lonesome majestic desolate that fills up most of the current drive.

I feel like the Shins, maybe the biggest Amerindie pop band, have been victims of a mini-backlash tied to the reaction against Zack Braff’s KCRW/wuss rock tastemaker persona. I mean, having someone write you into a script as a band that “will change yr life” is a lot to live up to.

But that’s another matter. The group was formed in Albuquerque, N.M., and one of the things that’s always set them apart for me is the sense of place that’s seeped into their music. I think it’s somewhere between the plaintive harmonies, the understated melodies and the mostly sparse, heavily-separated arrangements. I’ve provided here, from the “Fighting In A Sack” single, a b-side live take on their biggest song. You know, the one about dirty fries that somehow made it to a McDonald’s commercial.) They’re joined here by labelmate Sam Beam, aka Iron & Wine.

(It’s coincidence that has Iron & Wine in here twice. Florida is, as best can tell, the opposite of desert. I&W is that state’s greatest export, although there’s not a lot of competition, really.)

Calexico’s border-town approach more clearly articulates a Southwestern style–country heavily flavored with elements of mariachi and Spaghetti Western soundtrack music. There’s that keening, heavily reverbed steel work that stands out from the typical C&W style, but somehow my attention is always drawn to the dry, crisp snap of the drums.

The group’s collab with Iron & Wine, In the Reins, is one of my favorite records of last year, so I’ve also included the title-ish track. Around 1:47 Salvadro Durn comes in with a Spanish-sung part that really couldn’t differ much more from Beam’s bedsit whisper. It’s a neat effect, like driving through a town and having a competing signal break in on the radio station you’re listening to, but somehow the transition is nigh-perfect.

Finally, there’s Texan Townes Van Zandt, both widely heralded by other musicians as one of America’s great songwriters and yet somehow not recognized as such by the wider public. “Pancho And Lefty,” as interpreted by Willie Nelson, was sort of his career apex, but there’s rich material spread from the 60s through the 80s.

Although I’d often heard his take on the Stones’ “Dead Flowers” (closing credits of The Big Lebowski), I didn’t get into his music till earlier this year, when I saw the excellent doc Be Here to Love Me. The movie seems to honestly explore the various sides of his life–post-Beat/proto-hippie wanderer, glue-sniffin’ waste case, musical genius, absentee father, etc., etc. His hard living caught up with him in 1997 at the age of 52. His music strikes me as having a dusty desert atmosphere, and I ordered his best-of in anticipation of the road trip that never happened. “Waiting Around To Die” was his diatribe against domestic life, minor-key, raw and emotionally desolate.

“Fighting In A Sack” at Newbury Comics.
In the Reins at Newbury Comics.
The Best of Townes Van Zandt at Gemm.

…in Flak Magazine, write-ups of “New Casablanca” by Shivaree and “I Turn My Camera On” by Spoon.

BONUS: An “outtake,” about “Sixteen Maybe Less” by Iron & Wine/Calexico, after the jump.

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Mountain Goats: All Hail West Texas (Emperor Jones)
It’s not like I can be totally “critical” or “objective” about West Texas… I lived inside this disc for months as I got over the dissolution of my first long-term relationship and fumbled my way through the single life. You see, concept aside, it’s three-quarters a breakup record. This is simply the most human album to come out in… a long time. And it’s mostly yelped vocals, strummed acoustic, tape fuzz and machine noise. The man responsible would probably string me up for saying it, but here is proof positive why lo-fi still matters.

Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (Warner/Nonesuch)
Is this cheating? YHF also made my 2001 list in its MP3 form… Anyway, this record sounds less and less “weird” to me over time—the “experimental” angle is really unfortunate, because it confuses the issue regarding an album chock-full of great, diverse folk-rock songs dripping with pop dada and more often than not emnating a uniquely American dread. As for the backlash: like Chuck and Flava said, “Don’t believe the hype.”

Iron & Wine: The Creek Drank the Cradle (Sub Pop)
Iron & Wine snuck up on me… I was content to write the project off before even hearing it in the “just another singer-songwriter” category. But there are just too many gorgeous moments on this disc for me to sustain cynicism. I’m convinced that all the old-timey country trappings here are a ruse. It’s all about the songs, the harmonies.

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