LULLABY FOR THE WORKING CLASS

4:48 AM / Posted by strgzr /


















'Lullaby For The Working Class (the name is taken from a Tolstoy essay) is a combo from Lincoln (Nebraska) that combines mandolin, guitar, violin, cello, banjo, pedal steel, piano, hammer dulcimer, glockenspiel, drums, standup bass, and whatever else acoustic instrument to compose fragile, postmodern folk songs that expand on Palace Brothers' melancholy alt-country concept. Vocalist and guitarist Ted Stevens and multi-instrumentalist Mike Mogis complement each other, the former delivering poetic lyrics and the latter providing arrangements worthy of classical music. The sounds of the instruments are scattered like ambient sounds on Blanket Warm (Bar/None, 1996), turning each song into an impressionistic painting. It takes three minutes of delicate counterpoint among guitar, mandolin and violin before a majestic crescendo propelled by contrabass and trombone lets the vocals in for the few closing seconds of Good Morning. The surreal serenade of Queen Of The Long-Legged Insects is composed by juxtaposing a Rolling Stones-ian shouting blues, bluegrass finger-picking and a droning accordion (a` la John Cale's viola in the Velvet Underground). The Drama Of Your Life and Eskimo Song Due exhibit the graceful posture of a renaissance madrigal.
The album barely scratches the surface of the ensemble's capabilities, as they constrain themselves to the format of the country ballad and to the domain of earthly events. The rhythms and the arrangements are completely off-key, though, as in the frantically syncopated Honey Drop The Knife, or the Band-esque Boar's Nest (folk-rock meets gospel music), or the passionate hymn of Three Peas In A Pod (a rowdy shuffle that borrows the refrain from Eric Burdon's San Franciscan Nights), or the bluesy dirge of February North 24th St (halfway between Broadway show tunes and New Orleans funeral bands). Here and there one can hear a philosophy that transcends cowboy music, although it is still inspired by the cowboy's daily endeavours: Spreading The Evening Sky With Cows is a prayer that reconciles the human and the divine within the sphere of nature. The album ends on a domestic and pastoral note with Good Night, ten minutes of cricket noises, Christmas bells, gospel organ, and, again, crickets. The album is a sober, intense, realistic fresco of ordinary (and non-ordinary) life that sort of summarizes the civilization of the American Mid-west. ''



BLANKET WARM

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