Artist.......: Bruno Green
Album........: The Blue Void Trilogy
Label........: HastaLuegoRecordings
Genre........: Indie
Catnr........: n/a
source.......: CDDA
rip.date.....: Jun-26-2006
str.date.....: 2k6
quality......: VBR/44.1Hz/Joint-Stereo
Url..........: n/a
track title time
CD1 (Horse Mood)
01. Riding to my death 03:13
02. On a rope 03:04
03. In the moonwash 02:12
04. Down sunside 02:25
05. Animals 02:56
06. A ferriswheel 02:50
07. Life on the trail 03:24
08. At the Rocky Motel 01:26
09. Shelter to the bees 03:01
10. Golden dust 02:32
11. Lean & bitter 03:15
CD2 (God's Country)
01. Hard countr 03:25
02. Pine box 03:40
03. A dead body 03:19
04. Sunflowers 04:31
05. Old blade 02:28
06. All will be known 02:33
07. Bad blood 03:24
08. The reaches of the Earth 03:39
09. Clouds never lie 03:50
10. Clouds never lie (r) 01:22
11. The Luckless Man Tune 01:41
CD3 (Father and Son)
01. Every thought in me 02:50
02. Blue is my mind 03:10
03. Dead sure 04:29
04. Ragged love songs 02:25
05. Shake me awake 03:16
06. Iron shoes 03:39
07. Chosen of the lord 02:36
08. Nebraska 03:37
09. I don't need a gun 03:00
10. Riding to my death 03:23
11. All them white ponies 02:49
Runtime 99:24 min
Size 146,9 MB
Release Notes:
It is a significant achievement of this trilogy
that though it is ambitious in its scope and
execution it remains an intimate and humble
experience. There are no grandiose statements, no
bombast, no attention is drawn unduly towards it,
no great claims are made for it - is on a human
scale and it is intensely humane. Musically you can
separate the three discs:the first, æHorse Mood,'
has previously been released and reviewed on this
website and it has the maverick ambition and craft
of Sparklehorse. He is joined on the second, æGodÆs
CountryÆ by Pascal Humbert from 16 Horsepower on
bass and the Morphine drummer Billy Conway - here
the sound is sharper and less personal, as though a
prototype has been taken and built by experienced
craftsmen. The third still contains Conway but he
is joined by musicians from the Boston Table Top
collective and the result is more of a return to
the folkier sound; there is workshop dust still on
these recordings. Put them all together and you get
a journey across America, a bit like SufjanÆs 50
states projects condensed into 95 minutes.
æHorse MoodÆ is full of gentle strums, swirls of
pedal steel, the songs full of images of nature and
despite their electronic style seem like a natural
part of the landscape. Things move calmly;
organically the songs are somewhere in the deep
brush of folk in a clearing where it borders with
country music, genres unimportant, they just exist,
with gentle instrumentals swaying like a wild
meadow full of natural colour and movement -
parched vocals and naked banjo join together and
pedal steel sounds like a hymn. There is the
backwoods genius of Mark Linkous and the grizzled
world play of Howe Gelb in these songs: they have
that sort or presence, swelling and subsiding as
easy as breathing, uncommon noises co-existing
happily, details sketched where nothing is too
polished. These are celebrations of nature in
miniature, a glimpse that reveals insects at play -
sunlight rain, horses, cattle, people, a playground
where saws sing and birds twitter, where the
weather is changeable and dominates the landscape.
æGodÆs CountryÆ starts with much the same theme as
æHorse MoodÆ - the mood is different, there is more
rhythm and propulsion, and the guitar too sounds
anything but natural as it squawks and bends, but
this is more of an elegy than a celebration. There
are themes of death and loss, of things coming to
an end, the music slapping rather than caressing,
more dust bowl than nature's bounty. Surfaces are
hard, lines straight - weÆre moving towards urban
spaces, the music more mechanical, electrical, the
Arcade FireÆs country cousins coming to town, banjo
dueling with electric guitar, backing vocals
removing the solitary from the equation. This is
more of a collective effort; harder, sparser and
prone to catching fire.
The main difference found on æFather & SonÆ is how
it feels much warmer than its immediate predecessor
- the guitars are softer and less brutal, the drums
less precise, and here it seems a more social
record, more generous in tone. You can sing-along
at times; it is the sound that has reconciled the
two previous themes and sounds. He also moves from
major themes around nature to songs that are more
personal in nature and that address that other
universal theme, love. Here again it is handled
with loving care - there is a spiritual and musical
warmth that flows through the songs. Things do turn
towards the second half where death becomes a
central motif, the music loses the warmth and
replaces it with a more funereal sound, and
SpringsteenÆs æNebraskaÆ is ingested and becomes
part of the narrative like a snake swallowing a
mouse. As we reach the end we return to the
beginning to another version of the opening song
from æHorse MoodÆ and so we come full circle, which
is an entirely fitting ending to this song cycle.
This is an excellent and important work and one
that neatly sums up all that is good about
Americana.
ly fitting ending to this song cycle.
This is an excellent and important work and one
that neatly sums up all that is good about
Americana.