A take refers to successive attempts to record a song. The concept comes from the need to obtain a complete and at the same time acceptable take, which was especially important in the years predating multi-track recording and dubbing techniques. Musical takes were numbered sequentially. An alternate take refers to different versions of the same song from a single recording session. After the introduction of multi-track recording it's no longer necessary to obtain a complete single take. You can patch it up afterwards. With digital recording, you can refine or pervert the recording in infinite ways. Nowadays, an alternate take often refers to a demo or experimental version before the artists decides what shape and form the song should have and how it will be finalized. It's often very fascinating and instructive to listen to earlier versions and compare it with the original song. The original version is almost never outshined by an alternate take. However, it's the exception that proves the rule. In the rock music genre one such example is the demo version of "Candidate" recorded on New Year's Day 1974 by David Bowie (a.k.a. "Candidate 1" and "Alternative Candidate"). The original version of "Candidate" was released on the album Diamond Dogs the same year. The demo song was released as a bonus track on Rykodisc (RCD 10137). It's very elaborated for a demo. The versions are very different musically and lyrically. The demo version have only one line and a title in common with the original “Candidate”. The demo version is 5,05 minutes long, while the original version is only 2,40 minutes. Anyway, the demo version wipes the floor with the original version.

This phenomenon also exists within the "gothic country" genre. There are no shortage of candidates. The obvious choice is the early version of ”Cora” by Christian Williams (recorded in May 2006 and digitally released on "The Long Winter B-sides and Alternate Takes in September 2008). The original version of "Cora" was released in September 2008 on the debut album "For My Mind, It Was Flying". The song has the same rhythm and structure in both versions. However, there are important differences. The original version is catchy and upbeat, banjo-driven and ends with a fade-out. The song is 2:32 minutes long. The alternate take is slow and subdued, guitar-based and ends with a plucking chord. The song is 3:32 minutes long. You can listen to the two versions below and compare them. In which aspects does the alternate take outshine the original version? An answer would be that the original version is bad, but this is not really the case here, on the contrary. The alternate take is just as good as it gets. This version is made up by a perfect interplay between dark baritone vocals and restrained guitar strumming. The philosophical and thoughtful lyrics also becomes more prominent in this early version compared with the original version. The harmony sways and floats throughout the song. But, the attribute that is crowning this song, besides the vocals, is the simple but beautiful guitar strumming after the fourth and sixth (and last) verse. In my opinion, the sound board of a Martin guitar have never amplified a more deep and full-bodied sound. "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away". There is nothing to take away here. Of course, there's nothing to add or alter either.  

Here are the lyrics of “Cora” in its entirety: One mornin' 'bout the break of day/ I heard my loving pappy say/ By the Lord above this old oak tree/ Don't let me rest in no six-by-three/ No matter what your momma thinks/ I won't be bound by no chain link/ And when it's time for soul to die/ I want my ashes to fill the sky/ You can spill me from a moving train/ Or let me fall from an aeroplane/ However you do it, I don't care/ Just promise me I'll be in the air/ My eyes'll see New York's skyline/ While my legs stretch past the Great Divide/ My ears'll hear Congress debate/ while what counts is already in the Pearly Gates/ I asked, What of the preacher man/who says that we belong in the land?/ Ashes to ashes and all that stuff/ that we gotta go back to where we came from? / He said, The way I see it my curious son/ in heaven this old body won't serve no one/ If all I need is my heart and soul/ why not let these old bones circle the globe?

Cora (original version)

Cora (alternate take)

Annus Horribilis is here. This is namely the year the cd really died. It was just apparantely dead before. The death cause was unnatural death induced by a combination of new technology and a change in consumer demand. However, CD sales peaked worldwide already in 2000 and it has been a very long and painful death struggle. An inevitable gasp, wheeze and death twitch could be noticed last year. This was particularly noticeable in Sweden, a country full of anxious early adopters, and supported by sales statistics. In 2014 3 895 000 cd albums were sold in Sweden. That means 0,4 cd albums per capita. I bought 133 cd albums in 2014 (I admit, this was a poor year). In 2013 and 2012 the sales figures were 5 795 000 and 8 440 000 respectively. In 2000 as much as 23 838 000 cd albums were sold. The interesting thing isn't the sales decline in itself, but the pattern the last three years. You would since 2000 expect some large shifts in sales and then a proportional decline. You would also expect smaller and smaller decreases, when you reach the segments of hard core buyers like myself. But this is not the case, on the contrary. Calculated as percentage change versus previous year, the drop in sales has actually increased the last three years, despite lower and lower absolute sales levels. The change in sales is -15 percent 2012, -31 percent 2013 and -33 percent 2014 (!). I'm a full-blown reactionist when it comes to formats, but I have reluctantly come to accept that the cd format is dead. However, I'm not going to change format. The master plan, until now, has been to buy uncompressed physical files and then burn them on long-lasting and high-quality cd-r. I have to force myself back to the drawing board again, since digital sales also is dropping rapidly but have now stabilized. The change in sales is -25 percent 2012, -23 percent 2013 and 3 percent 2014 (!). The revenues from digital downloads now accounts for less than five percent of total sales. Who knows how long uncompressed digital downloads will be available for sale until streaming takes over completely. Let me for the sake of clarity declare: I hate streaming very deep and intensely, especially Spotify. Ugliest music streaming service I ever seen, no fair reimbursement to the artists and the sound quality is terrible. I don't know what I will do when there's only streaming left. In worst case scenario, I will decelerate and only listen to music that has been released in cd format and join a group of cd death conspiracy theorists. CD is a highly slandered format. In my opinion, it's a practical format by which you can to listen to an album in its entirety without any break (just as the artist intended) with adequate sound quality (most important no scratches or hissing). Annus Horribilis is here. If you want peace, prepare for war.

Uncle Sinner has now released his second proper album with the title "Let the Devil In". Hereby the concept of "firmly arbitrary deadline" got a new and deeper meaning. The exact phrase was formulated in the summer of 2011 as "I think I will set December 2011 as a firmly arbitrary deadline for "let the devil in". Since then, the schedule for the release has been postponed several times due to external and internal factors. However, deadlines are only deadlines and must be changed when reality takes over and you can't control all the variables. Uncle Sinner also dislikes deadlines and the feeling that he owe people something. The factors beyond control and the attitude towards deadlines and other peoples expectations means that the album will be ready when its ready and not before. However, six years have elapsed since the release of the debut album "Ballads and Mental Breakdowns" on legendary but now defunct Devil's Ruin Records. Uncle Sinner did actually release a collection with outtakes and rarities, "A Pocketful of Glass Eyes" (digitally only) as a fundraiser in March 2014. However, Uncle Sinner's opinion was that it varied in quality and didn't form a proper album. Anyway, it was rough and stripped down to the bone. In another context Uncle Sinner expressed that “Let the Devil In” will sound much better than the tracks on "A Pocketful of Glass Eyes" and for the most part the tracks will be a bit more complex (but not too complex). The moment of truth is now here.   

In my mind there has never been any doubt that "Let the Devil In" would see the light of day. It has only been a question of when, how and what. The new album follow the modus operandi associated with Uncle Sinner. That is, take a couple of songs you adore from the copious well of root music, bring them to the smithy and forge them into a new shape and form, but still possible to discern. The songs are, as I have explained in the main article about Uncle Sinner, not covers in a traditional sense. They are something more and something else. Within the boundaries of total artistic freedom Uncle Sinner both add and subtract and takes liberties in changing the tune and lyrics. The album "Let the Devil In" is released in cd format and digital download will follow. The album is released at his very own Stomp the Bug Records (see bottom left for how to order). Kudos to Uncle Sinner for releasing the album in this doomed format. The physical disc is placed in an envelope-like album cover together with a 12-page booklet. The booklet contains notes about the songs, track credits and, last but not least, extraordinary photos of which some are from the Interlake region between Lake Winnipeg and Lake Manitoba (a.k.a. ”Sinterlake” in the world of Uncle Sinner). The album art is designed by Gal Stark Arad-Kabiri. A sinnerific painting was designed and intended for the album cover, but it wasn’t quadratic (see the cover here) and you don’t cut in a work of art in order to fit it within a frame. The album contains 13 songs of which one (the title track ”Let the Devil In”) is an original song. The selection of songs is almost faultless. In my opinion, two of the songs (”Little Girl in Rome” and ”Milkcow Blues”) could and should have been left out. They are not bad choices per se, but there are definitely more interesting songs in the well. However, it’s a peripheral remark. The rest of the album is solid. The album is similar to the debut album in terms of content and themes. However, some of the songs shines brighter than others. The songs with the highest luminosity are ”Blow, Gabriel”, Wolves A-Howling”, ”Jesus Was a Dying Bed Maker”, ”900 Miles” (a.k.a. ”Train 45” or ”Reuben’s Train”), ”Black Betty” and ”Oh Death” (not to be confused with the better known ”O’Death”). The original song of Uncle Sinner ”Let the Devil” stand the test of comparison with other songs on the album. No doubt about that. 

Uncle Sinner considers himself as an idiot when it comes to recording, mixing and other technical issues. But, with a little help from his friends he pulls it through. The arrangements and performance are wellproduced, but a bit raw. On the other hand, you don’t want an overproduced album from Uncle Sinner, if that’s even possible to imagine. The sound quality on the album is brilliant. Uncle Sinner is a multi-instrumentalist, but the songs are mostly banjo-driven (which is a good thing). On the new album he lives up to his previous artist presentation where Uncle Sinner “enjoys hollering, guitars, banjos, mandolins and rage." Uncle Sinner’s singing voice is at least as dark, raw and unpolished as on the debut album. The final song is ”Wayfaring Stranger”. This choice is associated with considerable vertical drop. I mean, there’s always room for another version of this traditional hymn, but at the same time what can possible be left to do with this overly covered song, especially after Johnny Cash once and for all raised the bar for how it should be done in his American Recordings series. However, Uncle Sinner surprise me, definitely you and maybe even himself in this very spectacular version. The song starts with a lingering and melancholic banjo loop for almost half a minute before the vocals start. Uncle Sinner give it all he got. No holding back or timidity here, on the contrary, it’s just brute force. The thing that makes this particular version of ”Wayfaring Stranger” so outstanding is the very long instrumental parts between the verses, where there’s only the banjo playing (and some muffled foot-stomping) slowly and majestically spreading out. It's also very gothic (which always is a good thing). The instrumental passages are moments when time almost stands still. The hymn "Wayfaring Stranger" goes smoothly over into ”Wabash Blues” after circa 5,35 minutes and the tempo increases markedly, but after a short while the song fade out quietly and in style. As you already may have guessed ”Wayfaring Stranger/Wabash Blues” is the clearly best song on the album. And finally, the overall assessment: does the album sound much better than the tracks on "A Pocketful of Glass Eyes" and are the songs for the most part a bit more complex (but not too complex). The answer is, of course, yes. The new album is at least as good as "Ballads and Mental Breakdowns". In fact, with "Let the Devil In, I can now wait six years for a third album. But then, I have been equipped with the patience that withstands a comparison with Job.  

If you click on the icons below they will open in a new window, from left to right: Uncle Sinner's Bandcamp page, main article on this website about Uncle Sinner, Uncle Sinner's Facebook page and Uncle Sinner's Myspace page

Three and a half years ago Slackeye Slim released his latest and criticallly acclaimed album ”El Santo Grial: La Pistola Piadosa”. Now he is back with a new album ”Giving My Bones to the Western Lands”. The expectations are high and the crucial issues are if it was worth the wait and if it stand the test of comparison. Let me start with a brief executive summary before I walk you through the whole album. Start of the executive summary: This is a gothic western album with eleven songs spanning over 48 minutes. Despite a considerable proportion of darkness on the album it's bursting of light, energy and lust for life. The performance is impeccable. The vocals are more direct and ingenuous compared to previous albums. ”Giving My Bones to the Western Lands” is a natural progression and maturation from "El Santo Grial: La Pistola Piadosa” and at the same time a marker of where Slackeye Slim is today (the word where have multiple meanings here). This development has also affected the lyrics which deals with romantic idealization of nature and poetic reflections within social realism. The supplied lyrics are more personal and sincere than on previous albums. At the moment the album is only available digitally, but hopefully it will be released on vinyl in a near future (you can forget about any cd). You can buy the album digitally in the format of your choice at Bandcamp, just click on the icon (bottom left). The price is set according to the "name your price"-principle. End of the executive summary.

The ”walking through” part of the review will slavishly follow the songs in the order they are positioned on the album. After all, it's exactly what the artist intended when making the album. Maybe this old-fashioned way to listen to music belongs to a bygone era, but this is the way it ought to be. Positioning of songs on an album is a difficult art to master and often a neglected area. I find it very disappointing when too little effort and careful thought have been put in this process. Sometimes, I feel an urge to intervene and brutally rearrange the order. But, in this case I have no objection at all. The album starts bombastic with ”Don’t You Bury Me”. The song has all the typical trademarks of Slackeye Slim. The song starts quite tentative and slightly unfocused with some initial stray guitar playing before the song changes mode and gets your full attention with guitar chords, basslines, drums and vocals. On top of that, a guitar loop with cerebral-cortex-sticking qualities follow the harmony closely. ”It makes no difference now just where it started out/I went off on my own one day and I never turned around”. The vocals and the accompaniment are perfectly calibrated. The songs ends with the refrain (only sung once) ”Don’t you bury me/ Don’t you bury me/Leave me in the sunshine/For the birds to pick me clean”. The mood for the album is hereby set. After this high intensity beginning the tempo slows down a few notches. The second song ”Don Houston” tells the story of a cowboy (Don Houston) in a palpable narrative way with dogs barking in the background. However, the song is the weakest on the album. It’s not a bad song, it just don't stand out like the other songs on the album. The third song ”Oh Montana” starts with simple guitar chords, lap steel and deep baritone vocals. The guitar and lap steel gradually increases in strength towards the end of the song. The song is a good example of the fact that a song can be simple and epic at the same time. You don’t need a string quartet or symphony orchestra to accomplish an epic sound. The fourth song ”I’m Going Home” pays homage to traditional country with just banjo and harmonica. The song manages to tell a whole life story in just four and a half minute. ”They handed me a hammer/And sent me off alone/With a name out of the Bible/To remind me where I’m from”. The best song on the album is without any doubt ”Where the Wind Will Let Me Go”. The song grabs you firmly and sweeps you away. The song starts with guitar chords then a saw is introduced. Saw is sometimes used in the country genre, but I have never heard a saw sounding like this before. It’s whining and, in lack of better words, almost singing in hollow way. Anyway, it’s the strangest and most beautiful saw I ever heard. The song is built up with thick bass lines, heavy drums and scattered guitar loops. In my opinion, the voice of Slackeye Slim have never sounded better. ”Like a bird in the wind will go the only way he can/I’m going where the wind will let me go”. But it doesn’t stop there. After circa 1 minute and 15 seconds in the song a banjo starts to pick. The banjo doesn't go away or fade out as expected but instead it starts to attack real hard, but never takes over. The banjo picking is exquisite. The tempo in the song increases even further at the end of the song with thundering and distorted guitars before it abrubtly ends with a ”zaaapp”. ”Where the Wind Will Let Me Go” leaves me flabbergasted. The next song ”San Juan Song” gives you an opportunity to calm down, arrange your facial expressions and recover. It’s a slow, dark and grandiose song including the aforementioned whining and singing saw. ”No one’s gonna find us here/Or come to claim our bones/We’re gonna live forever/Where the lonely San Juan flows”. It’s also one of the best songs on the album, but the track position means that it becomes a bit overshadowed. But on the other hand, there's no better position on the album for the song.   

If this album would have been released on vinyl this is probably where you would have to flip over to the B-side to continue listening. The seventh song ”It Wasn’t You” starts up in a captivating rumba style, but soon a spanish-influenced-machine-gun-sounding guitar come into play, which fits the dark lyrics. ”And no one’s gonna come looking for me/By the river in the cottonwood trees/While I’m burying your bones/The last time I saw you/There was someone in your shoes/But it wasn’t you”. The eight song is called ”The Cowboy Song”. The upbeat tempo is counterbalanced by the equally depressing lyrics. ”The birds all die of broken hearts/When he goes passing by/But he’ll hold them in his arms tonight/And bring them back to life/As long as he’s singing his cowboy song. The title song ”The Western Lands” is a true highlight on the album. In another context Slackeye Slim explained the background of the title: ”Mainly because I love the American West. It's sort of a nod to William S Burroughs too.” The seven minute song is almost hymnal in its structure with guitar, lap steel, and the aforementioned whining and singing saw and vocals. Slackeye Slim sings with a greater sensitivity, conviction, emphasis and emotional phrasing on this song. Maybe this particular topic lies close to his heart. “Leaving it all far behind I saddled my pony and went toward the western sky/I don’t mind if I don’t come back alive/And no one’s got to understand the reason why”. The songs ends with the refrain: ”And I gave my bones to the western lands/I don’t need ‘em no more”. Only a heart of stone is untouched by this epic song. You’re also excused if you lack a standard emotional setup, but not otherwise. You may now think that Slackeye Slim have burned everything he has to offer and there are no quality songs left. Statistically, this would be a reasonable assumption. But this is not statistics, it's gothic western music. The tenth song on the album is ”As Long as the Grass Shall Grow”. The song starts with guitar chords, then extreme dark vocals: ”As long as the grass shall grow/As long as the river runs cold/My heart will have no room for mercy for you/It’s blood I want/Nothing else will do”. A lonesome banjo starts picking and after a while a harmonica is introduced. The song gradually cranks up with bass lines and pounding drums. The singing becomes more and more dramatic and the songs ends in a crescendo. ”As Long as the Grass Shall Grow” is perhaps the next best song on the album. The last song on an album is both difficult and important. It concludes what the artist wants to say with the album. The song ”Juniper Tree” is as close to a love song you will get from Slackeye Slim. On his Facebook page in December 2014 he wrote ”Maybe it's the Christmas liquor talking, but if this was the last thing I ever wrote, that'd be all right with me I reckon.” The song ends ”Sit down for a while/In the shade of this juniper tree/No one’s wondering where you are/I’m alone, I’m alone but I am free/In the shade of this juniper tree”. Somehow these lines sums it up. A man in peace with himself, living his dream in Colorado and making headstrong quality music in his spare time. The ”walking through” part is hereby completed, but what about the overall assessment? This is a very solid album with well-crafted songs and no fillers of any kind. The arrangements and performance are exquisite (especially in the use of guitars). The album is fully coherent from a thematic point of view, which is quite of an achivement in our time with its lack of ideas, ability to focus and absence of stamina. And finally, the question that can’t be avoided: is the new album better than the masterpiece ”El Santo Grial: La Pistola Piadosa”? I'm almost inclined to say yes.

If you click on the icons below they will open in a new window, from left to right: Slackeye Slim's Bandcamp page, complete lyrics for "Giving My Bones to the Western Lands", Slackeye Slim's homepage and press kit for "Giving My Bones to the Western Lands".

There was a time when I thought that visiting "the South" could be lethal. The reason for this was the movie "Deliverance" in which an unnamed mountain man without any hesitation states “This river don't go to Aintry. You done taken a wrong turn. See uh, this here river don't go nowhere near Aintry”. It clearly defined the meaning of not having control over the situation. Movies can thus be a strong influence, but I like to believe that I have developed a less prejudiced view over time. However, you have to tread lightly when approaching the subject "the South" since it's overwhelmed by myths, history and interpretation. Not only what is interpreted, but also who is the interpreter (southener or non-southener) are important. In fact, I have come across an academic thesis with the formal title "Capturing Southern Identities: Auto-Ethnographic Documentaries of the Southern United States" which among other issues dissects the movie "Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus", pp 40-49, which you can find here. There's a putrid odor of "authenticity fetishism" in the text that can not be attributed to purpose, scope or problem statement. Jim White (an ”imitation Southener”) challenged strong conventions when he went looking for the “gold tooth in God’s crooked smile” in "Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus", a BBC award-winning road-movie by director Andrew Douglas exploring Southern culture through its music and stories. Jim White's role was as a narrator and guide. In the movie he drove around in a 1970 Chevrolet Impala with a sculpture of Jesus sticking out of the trunk. In the movie he passes juke joints, junkyards, mysticism, Christianity, trailer parks and prisons. Of course, the film really pissed off some purists. In an interview for Paste Magazine in 2008 Jim White calmly said: “My role in the movie has certainly provoked some interesting responses among Southophiles,” White says. “I cherish my role as lightning rod! Hopefully I'll get assassinated and my album sales will skyrocket into the tens of thousands and my family will finally be able to afford soap and toothpaste.” You can watch the trailer for the movie here.

One who got at least a little pissed off was Colonel JD Wilkes (frontman of Th' Legendary Shack Shakers). In an interview for Staythirstymedia in 2006 he said: ”I'd seen the movie Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, and felt that it kind of left me a little wanting and I thought it was kind of half the story, or half the picture and the other half was somewhat damaging to people's concept of the South. So I thought I would do a little damage control and make my own movie, even if it meant I would do it black and white with a shaky camcorder, I was just gonna try to set the record straight. To explain the South, to the BBC - what (Jesus) was. In LA, New York, and Chicago singer-songwriters were trying to explain the South to the BBC, rather than southerners explaining the South to the world. I thought that the important thing to clarify was that it's not this ignorant cesspool of filth and it's actually a haven for art and creativity and there's actually a lot of intelligence there. The South does not corner the market on ignorance. And as our scientologist friends on the West Coast prove, it's kind of one of those things that needed to be said and needed to be said by a southerner.” In the movie Wilkes nails up seven signs, each of them representing an apocalyptic theme (plague, famine, earthquake, the sky will turn dark and oceans will turn to blood. Antichrist will emerge followed by final battle between good and evil). A (deliberately?) misspelled church sign “There's no LIE in what we BELEIVE” becomes a recurring theme throughout the movie (and on the movie poster, see right). By its very nature, "Seven Signs" received none of the criticism that hit "Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus". Instead the movie was described as "profund, emphatetic statement", "an admirable work of portraiture, capturing the humanity, complexity and wisdom of figures who land along a continuum of piety, mysticism and iconoclasm" and "dignified and disarming" among other poetic adjectives.

I don't understand the indignation and the "country beef" counterpart. "Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus" and "Seven Signs" premiered in 2005 and 2008 respectively. Both movies deal with "old weird America", but approach the subject in slightly different ways. Despite the controversies around "Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus" (which is by no means a freak show) there's more that unites the two movies than divides them. For instance, the format and narrative techniques are similar. There are colorful people and great dark country music in both movies. However, in "Seven Signs" there's a stronger focus on stories told by the people that are interviewed. On the other hand, the music in "Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus" is far better. "Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus" is 82 minutes long and reaches 7,7 points in the IMDB-rating, while "Seven Signs" is only 53 minutes long and reaches 7,9 points in the IMDB-rating. In my opinion, there's plenty of room of different interpretations of "the South". There is no such thing as "one and once and for all pure and true interpretation". It's more complicated and that's also what makes "the South" so intriguing.