Micah Blue Smaldone

Christmas Grab-bag, 2012

Sam

Will it fit?

Giving local music for the holidays

I always give local music for Christmas [this was 2012, back when people still had CD players and stuff. I don’t do this anymore, which sorta makes me sad, but all the music lovers I know just have spotify now, so what’s the point?]. It’s like giving twice: Once to the gift receiver, and once to the band who get a little revenue for the holidays. Sis used to be an underground hip-hop kid, so she generally gets something recent from the Milled Pavement catalog. The three musically inclined brothers-in-law get a hand-made CD-R out of Strange Maine, the latest Sidecar EP, and whatever Chris Moulton’s latest project is, respectively.

Hmmm, might have to get creative this year for those last two.

If you’re feeling like you need to get creative this year, I’ve pulled out a bunch of stocking stuffers that I didn’t get around to reviewing this past year, but which will likely be a great fit for your special someone:

For anyone who hit the Avett Brothers, Old Crow, and Mumford shows in the past year: You’ll definitely want to grab them North, the debut EP from the Ghost of Paul Revere. A talented group of acoustic pickers with old souls and a nice feel for multi-part harmony, this is a band that can get touchy-feely (“Kodiak”) right before they blast right through a barn-burner (“Wolves”), and the closing “Spirit” has a real thump to it before an a capella finish that will keep you guessing.

For your uncle, who recently showed up wearing a leather jacket and a sarong: Make sure to pick up Philip Carlo Paratore’s Bronx to Bali, a record for adventurers. Tracked over six years, it’s got big rock elements, Latin swing, Caribbean rhythm, Pacific Rim melodies, and a vocal delivery that’s somewhere between Zappa and Transylvania 6-5000. There can be a simple seductiveness to instrumentals like “Kembali,” and the waterfalls of chiming digital bells might be just right for the holidays.

For the cousin to whom you gave a William Gaddis novel last year: For dense, smart, lyrical songs that you can consume for days, give Post Provost’s Ancient Open Allegory Oratorio, album that uses 14 musicians to create 11 tracks. One of the best albums released locally this year, it’s full of beautiful surprises, like “The Walking Cadaver,” a jazzy tune full of brushed snare, a walking bass from Johnny Venom and a close-out that includes a dire piano from Michael McInnis.  “Tall and Strong” has a “Girl from Ipanema” thing going on that’s hard not to like a lot and “Ping Pong Dash” is a delicious gypsy polka.

For your little sister, who just started at UVM: Sure, you could get her that Bob Marley box set, but think how cool she’ll seem to the kids in the dorm when they get a load of Maine reggae, thanks to Royal Hammer’s My Bubble. Fronted by Michael Taylor and with local lions all over the place – David Noyes, Jerusha Robinson, Gary Gemiti, Tyler Quist, Lucas Desmond, Ryan Zoidis, Stu Mahan – these guys have been at it long enough now that they’re super tight and locked in on the easy vibe that makes for great reggae. Add in the closing track, where they put a reggae cover on Micah Blue Smaldone’s “Mule,” and this is probably the best-every locally released album of this ilk.

For your aunt, just up from Memphis: You gotta make a gal feel at home, right? Well, for decent blues in this town, turn first to Bob Rasero (of Renovators fame). His latest, Not Gonna Worry, sees him turning in his electric for a mean acoustic guitar that lets him get more breathy with the vocals and more subtle with his delivery. The recording, done down in Bronxville, N.Y., at the Loft, is mint – the solos are so crisp you can hear every hammer-on and slide and it feels like Rasero is right across the room from you. My favorite is “Who’s to Blame,” with a solo that spits right in your eye even as it fades out, but there’s plenty for everyone here, even a Christmas tune.

For your friends with kids: Maybe they’re not hip to Laurie Berkner and they’re playing Wiggles drivel? Hand them Rob Duquette’s Love Is Contagious, a charming EP of five songs targeted at a decidedly younger audience (although I think “Brush Everyday” is solid advice at any age). Unless you’ve got an aversion to xylophone, songs like “Friends Forever” and the title track are very listenable, which is pretty crucial for parents who enjoy their sanity.

For anyone who’s been around a little bit: An underappreciated album by a local supergroup that came and went awfully quickly, Army of Squirrels’ Pirates Vs. Temperature is a sneering, sarcastic, hard-driving rock album that pokes fun and revels in our local scene, from “Break up the Band” to the closing “The Skinny,” which sadly might not even resonate much with people nowadays. “Your Life is Like an Emo Song” is worth the cover charge, and contributions from Brian Chaloux, Nick Lamberto, Walt Craven, and Neil Collins are easy to hear. Great stuff.

Aleric Nez: Aleric Nez

Sam

Ramblin’ Man

Aleric Nez needs no accompaniment

In this age of increasingly affordable technology [this originally ran in fall 2010], anybody can have a band. That’s no secret. For any songwriter, the urge can be great to add in that string section, that trumpet piece, that bit of backing vocal that’s so easy to hear right at the edge of consciousness.

And so it is interesting when a guy like Vince Nez, who plays all kinds of instruments, chooses to record an album like his debut Aleric Nez (also the name he’s performing under) that uses virtually none of today’s recording techniques. Much of the nine songs over 33 minutes seems like nothing more than Nez singing and playing his resonator guitar in front of your standard Sure SM-58.

Nez manages to evince passion at its most base level, laying it all out on the line. The recording is as naked as the emotion — often there isn’t even a touch of reverb to warm the guitar and vocals. It hard not to sound horrible when you’re recorded in such a raw fashion, with only the room and the floor and the atmosphere to act as a buffer between you and the diaphragm that makes up the microphone, but Nez sounds anything but.

It shouldn’t be surprising that it was recorded at Dave Noyes and Pat Corrigan’s Apohadion, which is just as unadorned with pretension.

When Nez opens the disc with Neville Livingston’s “Dreamland,” it is almost impossibly pretty, the resonator’s sweet finger-picked melody like a too bright light, like bells that ring to break glass. His voice is wobbly, elegant in its not-quite-rightness. And the tape hiss makes it all seem 50 years old: “We’ll count the stars in the sky/ And surely will never die.”

Like a Nick Drake album, there is a timelessness to this, surely, replacing that Drake dreamlike quality with an abrasive smirk, Drake’s crystalline falsetto with something more like a cry of pain. “She said you can’t run from me,” he sings in “Witch,” “She said you cannot fight.”

Nez definitely shares an aesthetic with Micah Blue Smaldone, as well, though he doesn’t here get into any of the real fast-paced fingerpicking that Smaldone can bust out. Nor is his voice quite so imbued with wobble and lurch. Same kind of vibe, though, like he’s playing anywhere but in modern-day civilization.

Except that the crooning “Daydreamin’” stands up with anything Bon Iver’s doing, just without all the layers; and “My Yuselda,” done electric like a pedal steel, is not dissimilar to M. Ward’s “Roller Coaster,” just more stripped down — more stripped down than anyone really. Very few solo artists go quite this solo. It’s like Jack Johnson for kids who can’t surf and wear cut-off jeans and who burn pretty easily.

Nez also sounds at times just a little bit crazy, which adds to the album’s allure.

Probably the best track is the short catchy almost-rocker “Butter,” where Nez is like a circus ringleader: “Take the edge from your voice, my dear/ There’s no reason to use it here … save it for someone who actually threatens you.”

Just as he sings on the Hank Williams cover the closes the disc, Nez is a “Ramblin’ Man,” a loner, but you sure hope he takes a swing through your town.