Bill Callahan & Bonnie Prince Billy – Blind Date Party – Album Review

Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com 

 

Bonnie Prince Billy - Lie Down In The Light

For Lie Down In The Light, released in 2008, Will Oldham appeared to have loosened up considerably.   It opens with the jaunty, countrified strum Easy Does It.  The album is hardly party central though.  You Remind Me of Something is more typical Bonnie Prince Billy, a dark, folky tune featuring fiddle with a nice backing vocal from Ashley Webber.  The songs here are generally of high quality, So Everyone is a fine duet between Webber and Oldham, and the gently picked guitars of Missing One make it an undoubted highlight.  A little quirky instrumentation can lift a seemingly run of the mill track to greater heights, the clarinet solo in For Every Field There's a Mole is a case in point.  Country influences cone to bear on the laidback duet What's Missing Is and the gentle steel guitar in the background of the electrified Where Is The Puzzle?

But it's not till late into the album that the strongest material appears.  The title track harks back to the simple, skeletal folk of 2003's Master and Everyone, with the piano part in particular acting like a welcome blast of chill air.  Willow Trees Bend crawls along charmingly at a snail's pace, gorgeous sighing guitars seemingly taking an age to not really get anywhere.

So not quite a standout Bonnie Prince Billy album, merely a pretty good one.

Bonnie Prince Billy - The Letting Go

The Letting Go, released in 2006 is perhaps the lushest album in Will Oldham's career.  Recorded in Iceland, it features sweeping melodies and sumptuous strings, not something you'd usually associate with him.  The strings that open the album on Love Comes To Me threaten to be overpowering on what is (on the surface) a relatively 'sweet' song, but Dawn McCarthy's high-pitched backing vocals and Emmett Kelly's guitar keep things on an even keel.  Indeed Kelly's guitar is what really lifts the following track Strange Form of Life from being just another run-of-the-mill Bonnie Prince Billy track, with some really fine, clean guitar licks.  Wai appears to be a return to the austere folk of Master and Everyone.

The centrepiece is undoubtedly the five and a half minute Cursed Sleep, with a guitar figure and string arrangement that is highly evocative of Nick Drake's Bryter Layter.  It's definitely the track on the album that showcases Nico Muhly's string arrangements to the greatest effect, but it's not a particularly relaxed track, more an exercise in building tension.  No Bad News is more stately folk, with gently plucked guitars, muted drums and a low undercurrent of strings.  After this the album does a complete about turn with Cold & Wet, a slice of throwaway blues.  Later into the album, almost title track Then The Letting Go is a highlight, chiefly due to McCarthy's exquisite, almost 'Call of the Wild' backing vocals and wintry, picked guitars and lyrics.  God's Small Song, is more impressionistic, a bit like something label-mate Bill Callahan might do in his looser moments.

A fairly atypical Bonnie Prince Billy album, but a pretty strong one.

Matt Sweeney and Bonnie Prince Billy - Superwolf

For this album, released in 2005, Bonnie Prince Billy teamed up with Matt Sweeney, who had recorded with Zwan.  The results are among the fullest sounding, and most musical produced by Oldham.  My Home Is The Sea is a kind of rollicking, rock song, lurching back and forth across riffs.  It's followed up by the gentle, melodic, shimmering Beast for Thee, then more moody guitars introduce What Are You?.  This latter track contains lyrics with 'ear-grabbing' lines like "to take you over my knee and spank you mercilessly", sung so sweetly by Oldham and Sweeney you end up doing a WTF, a kind of double-take.  It's a hugely tuneful and melodic opening three songs.

After this the quiet lulls and crashing guitars of Goat and Ram move the album in another direction momentarily.  The musicianship on this album is a joy, Lift Us Up features a terrific guitar solo, while the harmonies on Rudy Foolish, unlike Oldham's work as Palace, are almost wilfully in tune.  Only Someone Running is more rustic, featuring country fingerpicking, with some jaunty whistling thrown in.

Towards the end, Blood Embrace, the penultimate track on the album is something of a centrepiece.  At nearly eight minutes long, its creeping, tension-building guitar figure gently unfurls in a manner evoking Neil Young's Down by the River.  The album finishes with the blues-folk of I Gave You.

Highly recommended for anyone curious about Will Oldham, definitely one of the more 'musical' albums he's been involved with.

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Ease Down The Road

Will Oldham released this album in 2001.  It's considerably more 'musical' than any of his previous albums.  It opens with May It Always Be which features a muted electric guitar, piano and Oldham actually singing 'properly', before a full on guitar solo midway through the song.  Many of the songs on the album are catchy and feature tunes you can really sing along to, such as the trio of Just To See My Holly Home, At The Break of Day and After I Made Love To You.  

A King At Night has a pleading, plaintive yet muted quality to it, a sweet tune distracting from lyrics concerned with "going down on me".  It's an incredibly melodic album in comparison with anything which came before.  The title track is an amiable shuffle, with the just the 'right' amount of each instrument, even the banjo doesn't overshadow anything.  Languid tunes such as Lion Lair and the country-tinged Mrs. William are the order of the day, making the album a great listen.  Grand Dark Feeling of Emptiness and Rich Wife Full of Happiness are bluesier, a bit like a very sparse Nick Cave.  In fact, not a bad place to start with Will Oldham.

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – Best Troubador – Album Review

Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com

https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2017/05/03/bonnie-prince-billy-best-troubador-album-review/

Will Oldham - Joya

Joya was released in 1997 under the Will Oldham name.  From the opening track O Let It Be, the album features a much fuller sound than any of the Palace material, with prominent electric guitar from David Pajo and more of a band feel.  The creeping, lurching Antagonism is muted and interesting but doesn't really go anywhere.  And so it goes for the album.  New Gypsy has a bluesy backwoods tone to it but Under What Was Oppression and Open Your Heart are more like what you'd expect from him but leave little impression.

Be Still and Know God is almost strident, with a straightforward guitar lick propelling the song along.  But for the most part this music is solipsistic and unremarkable.

Palace Music - Lost Blues and Other Songs

This is a compilation of singles and rare tracks from the various incarnations of Will Oldham as Palace/Palace Brothers/Palace Music etc.  As many collections like this can be, it's a bit all over the shop.  It opens with the dead slow but effective folk march of Ohio River Boat Song.  Many tracks here are, let's face it, hard going: the rough-as-fuck version of Riding, the completely out of tune singing on Stable Will to name but two.

But mostly downbeat folk is the order of the day on tracks like Valentine's Day, Trudy Dies and Come In.  Some of the stronger material is towards the end: O How I Enjoy The Light is a fairly typical Oldham lament with a neat line in warped guitar.  The two essential tracks are the relaxed, warm West Palm Beach which features some gorgeous electric guitar lines, and then the Stones-y lazy blues Gulf Shores, a bit like an updated No Expectations.  This latter track actually features soothing vocals from Will Oldham and a nice bit of piano.  But overall, not a collection for the fairweather fan.

Palace Music - Arise Therefore

After the leap forward of Viva Last Blues this is something of a regressive step.  It's a sparse collection of songs with the prominent addition of a drum machine (!).  Most of the songs simply have a slight rumbling bass, Will Oldham's whiny voice, drum machine and little else.  Some of the highlights are the very muted A Sucker's Evening, and the title track, which features a welcome drop of guitar.  No Gold Digger is probably the closest thing to any kind of 'proper' song with a kind of full sound on the album.  On other tracks like Kid of Harith and Disorder, Oldham's fast-and-loose-with-any-form-of melody vocals are inclined to grate.  For the uninitiated, this is really no place to start!

Palace Music - Viva Last Blues

Viva Last Blues represents a considerable leap forward for Palace Music.  Released in 1995, it has far more a full band sound than anything previous.  The band have a kind of loping, slightly warped country sound, exemplified by the opening two tracks More Brother Rides and Viva Ultra.  Some tracks have a darker, moody feel to them such as Brute Choir and the vengeful Tonight's Decision ("when he comes for me I will fuck him o, I will waste him in my own way"), and these songs are pretty effective.  The Mountain Low attracts attention for his lyrics about "if I could fuck a mountain..." etc but it's the kind of easy melody that Will Oldham would make his name with as Bonnie Prince Billy.  Later, New Partner has a lazy, relaxed easy charm, Oldham drawling "you were always on my mind".

Further into the album Work Hard / Play Hard rocks errr 'hard' with a full rocking sound and Oldham's squawked vocals. and the strutting, squalling guitars of Cat's Blues help to mix the sound up a bit, and stop the album from sounding too samey.  The rustic, bluesy folk of We All, Us Three, Will Ride and Old Jerusalem rounds off the album.   

Palace Brothers

The second Palace Brothers album, released in 1994 is if anything even more sparse and stripped down than the debut.  Most of the album is just Will Oldham and a guitar.  There are few moments as forlorn, and as dejected as the opening You Will Miss Me When I Burn, Oldham opens with the devastating line "when you have no one, no one can hurt you."  It's the finest song here and one the finest in his extensive back catalogue, just a shame it ends after three minutes.  After this we get standard issue acoustic songs like Pushkin, I Send My Love To You and No More Workhorse Blues as well as the dodgy Come A Little Dog.  But apart from the opening track, unremarkable stuff.

Palace Brothers - There Is No-One What Will Take Care Of You

This debut, released in 1993, was where it all started for Will Oldham.  It opens with its shortest and most jarring song Idle Hands Are The Devil's Plaything, featuring a very ropey vocal from Oldham over a spritely banjo and seemingly random percussion.  Though it's preferable to the six minute dirge that follows, Long Before.  I Tried To Stay Healthy For You sounds very close to the melody for Auld Lang Syne and sounds kind of bizarre.  The guitar and banjo The Cellar Song is a distinct improvement before the strange strum of (I Was Drunk at The) Pulpit.

The title track sounds more like a real band effort, but O Lord Are You In Need is the one song here which indicates where Oldham was planning to go in his Bonnie 'Prince' Billy persona, it's more relaxed and 'crafted' than anything else here.  Merida is a kind folky, backwoods blues and is one of the stronger tracks here, along with the slow, creepy Riding.  So, although there are some good, if a little basic songs here, it's not the ideal introduction to Will Oldham.

Album Review: Sun Kil Moon | Benji

Review for www.meg.ie

http://www.meg.ie/sun-kil-moon-benji/

Album Review: Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – I See A Darkness

This was Will Oldham’s first album recorded under the name of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy in 1999.  It kicks off with the singalong A Minor Place which features weedy organ in the background.  Better is follow up track Nomadic Revery (All Around), with gloriously undisciplined vocals where Oldham sounds like a 90 year old man.  The playing across these and other tracks is subtle and spare, nothing is too overdone.

The title track is the centerpiece, it’s a kind of a quiet, brooding, creeping song (covered a year later by Johnny Cash), and probably the most ‘backwoodsy’, quintessentially Oldham song.  Much of the material is quite dark, as evidenced by the titles – Another Day Full of Dread, Death to Everyone, Today I Was An Evil One, and the Appalachian folk-style Black – yet most have the melodies are highly memorable.

It’s not all downbeat, Madeleine-Mary rollicks along with a loping beat and the aforementioned Today I Was An Evil One is relatively sprightly.  This album is the one by which all Oldham’s future works have been judged, and as such, is a little overrated.  He was, however, doing that ‘log cabin’ thing years before Bon Iver brought it to the masses, and this album is a good example of this.

Album Review: Bonnie Prince Billy – Master and Everyone

The many-monikered Will Oldham’s 2003 album is one of his sparsest works, mainly consisting of skeletal folk, mainly Oldham’s voice and guitar.

Opening track The Way has a simple, wintry Nick Drake style melody and chorus imploring “love me the way I love you”, with a cello part which carries the song. Little else deviates from this template of gloriously depressed folk. With close up mics, you can here Oldham’s fingers sliding from fret to fret. There are some fine melodies here, especially Joy and Jubilee (where Oldham sounds anything but joyous) where he self-harmonises to great effect.

The proceedings are broken up with some backing vocals from Marty Slayton on several tracks (Ain’t You Wealthy, Ain’t You Wise?, Lessons From What’s Poor), but it’s very much a single-minded vision, with a consistent sound throughout. No superfluous notes are played here, every note has its place.

The hesitant, foreboding Even If Love evokes a dark night in the woods, while the coda of Hard Life rounds things off with some uplifting clean, electric guitar. For those who like their music austere and barely adorned, this is for you.