O'death are a great live band, playing stomping americana that sometimes takes abrupt turns into alleyways full of darkness and mystery. The melodies are memorable too, and I sometimes find myself humming them at random moments. I notice that they released a collaborative track with Hungry March Band on May 1st, so I guess I'll be buying that on June 5th, which is the next Bandcamp day. Guitarist/vocalist Greg Jamie has his own Bandcamp page too, as well as another band called Blood Warrior, so I'll link to those as well.
Where to go from there? How about Calexico? Calexico offer a mellow, southwestern take on American music. You can almost feel the grit of desert sand, and envision that long line of blacktop vanishing arrow-straight to a point on the distant horizon while the ground shimmers with rising heat. There is something cinematic in their sound. As you can see, it paints pictures in the mind.
That brings me to Cordelia's Dad, another American band who vacillate back and forth between folk and folk rock, and do both quite well. There is plenty of tragedy in the songs they play, but room is left for humor. Bandleader Tim Eriksen also has plenty of solo offerings. Links below.
Cassie Morgan hasn't released anything in awhile, but what she has on her page is worth checking out. DIY singer-songwritery americana.
Bug Guts are a bit of an oddity. They started out as a quirky noise rock band, and before that, singer Rosebud was in a great punk band called Night Soil Man who released a couple of albums back in the eighties. Currently, Bug Guts write acoustic songs that could be classified as folk or americana, or even pop. The lyrics are still pretty damn punk though, at least most of the time.
One more for the day... Jesca Hoop apparently is based in Manchester now, but she used to be local (since the accidental theme of today's post is american folk/americana). She used to be in a band called Majesty's Monkey with Kirana Peyton, who went on to form a band/project called Black Bird Stitches. Jesca Hoop now has a number of releases behind her, and they're all beautiful. Go listen:
My train of thought is going to enter the station for the evening. More tomorrow.
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