Hampton Phish – 2009 Hampton, VA Phish Video and Audio Clips

Trampled By Turtles

With four self-released albums to their credit and a word-of-mouth reputation that draws legions of die hard fans to their live shows, northern roots music outfit Trampled By Turtles are set to release Palomino, their first album through Thirty Tigers/RED, on April 13.

With a sound that’s a bracing hybrid of classic American songwriting, bluegrass and folk, this is forceful acoustic music from the land of ice and snow – of dark winters, isolation and numbing cold – delivered at breakneck pace with the fervor of religion.

The five members of what would become Trampled by Turtles formed in 2003 in Duluth, Minnesota. While they never set out to be a bluegrass band, the band employs the same time-honored tools of the trade – guitar, acoustic bass, banjo, mandolin and fiddle – as their grass-fed country cousins. But their soul-deep differences in influences, attitude and attack, from their quicksilver, deadly accurate picking to their lonesome, hauntingly spare ballads, make for a very different musical beast indeed.

Crisply produced by TxT lead singer, guitarist and primary songwriter Dave Simonett, Palomino leads off with a pair of plaintive, up-tempo ballads. “Wait So Long” offers gorgeous, high lonesome harmonies by bassist Tim Saxhaug and banjoist Dave Carroll, while “Victory” is a lament about persevering through loneliness and heartbreak, with Simonett singing “all of us lonely… it ain’t a sin; want something better than the shape we’re in…” and urging the listener to carry on, with the words “and the stars they whisper blessings babe, as you walk by.”

Simonett strikes gold yet again with “New Orleans,” a wistful time-tripper that evokes a dreamy 19th-century reverie. With the fare-thee-well track “Again,” the album’s closer, he and the boys deliver a bruised-but-unbowed fireside lament of longing and loss that will stick with you and brings to mind Uncle Tupelo and Jay Farrar’s solo albums. It’s a song that yearns for another chance and begs for another listen, a song that blends the band’s virtuosity with the emotionalism that connects them with their audiences.

Trampled By Turtles hits the road in early February; dates available here.

Read JamBase’s recent review of their 1/22 show at The Independent here.

Railroad Earth

Railroad Earth is considered everything from jam-grass to bluegrass, to Americana to a jazz influenced string band. The original five members of Railroad Earth are welcoming new bassist Andrew Altman from Georgia. Having played in the Codetalkers and Blueground Undergrass, Altman isn’t a stranger to the “Hobo Scene.”

The Codetalkers opened up for Railroad Earth a few years ago in North Carolina. When Altman heard that Johnny Grubb had departed from Railroad Earth and auditions were being held a month later, he traveled up to the Garden State and met with the Railroad Earth family and had a killer audition, landing him the spot. With the new bass player, Railroad Earth is working on a new CD and has announced a number of tour dates for February and March.

Railroad Earth Tour Dates

2/26/2010 Friday – Boulton Center for the Performing Arts – Bay Shore, NY

2/27/2010 Saturday – Mexicali Live – Teaneck, NJ

2/28/2010 Sunday – Mexicali Live – Teaneck, NJ

3/06/2010 Saturday – Penn’s Peak – Jim Thorpe, PA

3/26/2010 Friday – Toad’s Place – New Haven, CT

3/27/2010 Saturday – Spartan Arena “snoe. Down” – Rutland, VT

Jamie Lidell

Warp Records has announced the release of Jamie Lidell’s third full-length album Compass on May 18, 2010. The album was recorded in Los Angeles, New York and Canada, Jamie’s fellow travelers on Compass include Beck, Feist, Gonzales, Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear and Pat Sansone of Wilco. Musically and lyrically this is very much a Jamie Lidell production reflecting not only his exhilarating, diverse tastes, but also a year of change, love, longing and arrival at a new place.

Undoubtedly, Compass is his most eclectic album yet. Songs shift, chop, change and mutate genres and forms before our very ears. It’s got funk in spades; the jaw-dropping power of the vocals is stronger than ever; it rocks, it pops, it’s sweet, angry, hard, soulful and soft, often within the span of a single track. It’s the restless album that finally matches the soul of its creator.

Sessions began at Beck’s Hudson Studios in Los Angeles, where he gathered Jamie together with Wilco, Leslie Feist and veteran drummer James Gadson (who’s hit sticks for Bill Withers, Quincy Jones among many others) for Beck’s Record Club project (where a group of musicians cover an album in a day). Inspired by the chemistry of those jams, they shifted to the legendary Ocean Way Studios. There, they were joined by producer/keyboardist Brian Lebarton, singer Nikka Costa and Justin Stanley. All would have an important impact on the album. Pat Sansone from Wilco and Chilly Gonzales (who s played on both Multiply and Jim) were present as musical meta-spirits, recording their parts remotely and delivering them via the internet. As Jamie says of this formidable lineup of brilliant collaborators You don’t fuck with them!

Back in New York he began to make sense of this great big mess on the hard drive. Then it was up to Feist’s ranch in the Niagara Escarpment with Chris Taylor, producer and member of Brooklyn avant-pop sensations Grizzly Bear.

“I wrote every song in a month,” Jamie says, “It’s been an emotional couple of years, so I tapped into what I wanted to say and started writing. There was a lot to draw on.” When he takes to the road in 2010, he’ll be bringing a band again, but stripping it back; keeping it lean. For both newcomers and initiates, this will be an experience. And no, he won’t stop.