CD Odyssey Disc 1559: Red Tail Ring

Getting in a mid-week review with my current work schedule is not an easy feat, but I decided I was ready to move on from this next record as soon as possible.

Disc 1559 is…. Mountain Shout

Artist: Red Tail Ring

Year of Release: 2015

What’s up with the Cover? It would appear, my dear Frodo, that after encountering a cyclopean antler high in the mountains, you have panicked. And in that panic you have forgotten Uncle Bilbo’s advice and donned the Ring of Power. And as peer through the tines you see you are not alone in the shadowy world of the Ringwraith – for two creepy figures haunt the alter-dark with you. Flee this weird realm while you can, lest they spot you and play you…a FOLK TUNE!

How I Came To Know It: As I noted when I reviewed “the Heart’s Swift Foot” back at Disc 923, I learned about Red Tail Ring through an article on obscure folk music. This caused me to search out the rest of their catalogue, at which time I decided that "Mountain Shout" must also be in my collection.

Finding the CD was nigh impossible, and I eventually broke down and downloaded the digital version from Bandcamp. I then turned it into a CD, with cover and all, because I’m a middle-aged man and I like my physical media. Damn it.

How It Stacks Up: I have just two Red Tail Ring albums, and if you are following along, then you know which two. Of those two, “Mountain Shout” is not nearly as good as “The Heart’s Swift Foot” and so it is second or - in this case - last.

Ratings: 2 stars but almost 3

Sometimes you’ll find Heavy Metal enthusiasts getting excited about just how HEAVY a band is. Sometimes the heaviness ranking clouds their judgment about whether the music is any good. This is true for folk music as well, as we folk devotees go out searching for music as authentically FOLKSY as we can possibly find. Raw and real is how we like it, but like with the search for metal music, sometimes the purity of the cause gets in the way of good judgment.

Which is what led to me to “Mountain Shout” which is incredibly folksy, but beyond that one identifier, just OK. This is disappointing, and I can only assume I was still basking in the glow of “The Heart’s Swift Foot’s” 4-star brilliance when I gave it a listen. But with a bit of time and distance in the relationship, I have to conclude this record is not at that level.

Don’t get me wrong, however, because the duo of Michael Beauchamp and Laurel Premo have some serious talent. Premo on fiddle is particularly good on this record, in part because she does one of the hardest things, which is to play slow as well as she plays fast. She also plays with a lot of power. Near the end of the instrumental, “I Wish I Wish/Vamp For John” you’re convinced she’s going to saw that thing in half she’s hitting it so hard.

Both Premo and Beauchamp are masters of the banjo as well, so while these songs often didn’t generate a lot of interest, the very amateur musician in me was thrilled to just hear them wail away.

The record opens and closes strong, starting with “Pretty Polly”, an old school murder ballad of a man taking his girl for a walk in the mountains so he can murder her and drop her into a grave he dug the night before. In some versions of this song, the killer explains his reasons, but here he just stabs her, buries her and walks away. It is dark and creepy, but that’s the idea.

And for a closer, we get a lovely fiddle-forward waltz in “the Blackest Crow” that would fit nicely on a Gillian Welch record. It features the finest vocals on the record as well, aided by the timeless beauty of stanzas like this one:

“The blackest crow that ever flew would surely turn to white
If ever I prove false to you bright day will turn to night
Bright day will turn to night my love the elements will mourn
If ever I prove false to you the seas will rage and burn”

That’s some quality action right there.

Unfortunately, while the musicianship is strong throughout, I found the stark production was too stark even for me. Even that classic “every folk band does it” songs like “The Cuckoo” had me thinking of other versions in my collection (notably versions by Outlaw Social and Hem) and finding it wanting by comparison.

As for the other tracks, they aren’t terrible, but few stand out, and while I wanted to soak in the resonant wonder of all that flatpicking power, sometimes it felt a bit too much like a technical lesson, and not enough like it was telling me a story.

So while I like the record overall, I don’t see myself picking this down from the shelf when sitting just to the left is the amazing and inspiring “Heart’s Swift Foot”. And for this reason I’ll keep my electronic copy (since that’s how I bought it) but I’ll bid adieu to my burned CD and makes some much-needed space on the shelf.

Best tracks: Pretty Polly, I Wish, I Wish/Vamp For John, The Blackest Crow

CD Odyssey Disc 923: Red Tail Ring

This next album was one of a number of obscure albums I ordered on line after despairing to ever find them locally. My apologies to the local record stores, but they have received (and will continue to receive) lots of my money, so they don’t have anything to worry about.

What I do worry about is the rising cost of low production CDs. As the CD market dwindles mass produced albums are becoming cheaper and cheaper. However, low production runs of little folk bands like Red Tail Ring have a few copies printed and once they supply is depleted (within a year or two) the cost quickly skyrockets. Anyway, I got this next one in time, and here’s how it turned out.

Disc 923 is….The Heart’s Swift Foot

Artist: Red Tail Ring

Year of Release: 2013

What’s up with the Cover? Band members Michael Beauchamp and Laurel Premo continue the time honoured tradition of awkward folk album covers.

How I Came To Know It: I found this article from Paste Magazine called “10 More Obscure Folk Albums to Add to Your Collection” and Red Tail Ring was prominently featured. I liked the sound and so I ordered this album online (when the article said the albums were obscure he wasn’t kidding).

Of the ten albums noted in the article I only have this one, but I am on the lookout for three more, so it was a pretty sweet musical lead. I then went on to read his earlier article, “20 Great Folk Albums to Add to Your Indie Rock Collection” and found five more albums I’m now on the lookout for. Also, note the title of this second article, hipsters. Yes that stuff you call indie rock is very often what us old timers call ‘folk’. Everything old is new again.

How It Stacks Up:  I’m still searching for Red Tail Ring’s 2011 release “Mountain Shout” (missed the release window) so I can’t really stack this up against anything.

Ratings: 4 stars

Every now and then I warn readers that an album is “very folk” meaning if you don’t like folk, it isn’t for you. “The Heart’s Swift Foot” is one of those albums.

This record is folk down to the bones, and unashamedly so. I’ve become so accustomed to the pop production on modern folk music that hearing it stripped down again felt too raw at first. However after a few listens the record soaked in nicely.

The band is a duo with Michael Beauchamp singing and playing guitar, mandolin and banjo. His partner Laurel Premo sings, plays fiddle, banjo, dobro and something listed as “feet” which I assume is stomping. Obviously they don’t play everything at once (that would just be silly) but they manage to create a surprising amount of layers by creatively latticing in the instruments of the moment alongside their voices.

Neither is the most powerful singer, but they have very sweet tones. When they sing harmony they have a nice loose quality with enough separation that you can sway your focus from one to the other, or experience them as a single experience.

In terms of singing style, Premo reminded me a bit of a cross between a Rankin and a Wailin’ Jenny. She has the phrasing and sharpness of lyrics of a Rankin, but the sharp edge and understated authority feels like a Jenny. When she sings “A Clearing in the Wild” that voice takes you for a walk in the wild, where you lose yourself so completely that you’re sure she could break your heart with one unkind word. Of course, she doesn’t.

Beauchamp is no slouch either, with a natural storyteller’s tenor on songs like “Katy Came Breezing” and “Queen of the West and Other Stories.” The latter song is a series of thoughtful examples of how people change over time, and that this is OK. Drunks sober up, couples drift apart, life goes on.

There are a couple of instrumentals on the album, both of which showcase Premo’s skill on the fiddle. “J In the Broom Straw” is a lively jig that could probably develop a little further but developed just far enough to keep me interested. “Ladies Choice Waltz” is a slow waltz that evokes country dances and beautiful down-home country girls who can make you feel calm just looking at you. Hearing “Ladies’ Choice Waltz” will make you feel like you are dancing across a bare-wood floor with the most beautiful woman at the ball. In my youth I was a bit of an insomniac and I’d play certain songs right before I went to bed to help calm my spirit. “Ladies’ Choice Waltz” would have definitely been one of them.

The traditional “St. James Hospital” didn’t grab me, but I think it is because I’ve heard a hundred variants of this particular tune over the years and it has caused me to get very picky about how it ‘should’ go. The other cover song is “My Heart’s Own Love” originally by Hazel Dickens, a folk and bluegrass singer who played through the fifties, sixties and seventies. I don’t know the original, but Red Tail Ring do a hell of a good cover. On a very traditional sounding record, it was a fitting song to finish up with.

“The Heart’s Swift Foot” is an album that takes some getting used to, but is worth the effort. On every listen I got something new out of it, even to the point where songs I initially overlooked became favourites. On “Katy Came Breezing” Beauchamp sings “I’m flesh and bone with nothing to hide” and hearing his exposed soul hanging there on the edges of his partner’s sustained fiddle note, it is easy to believe. Don’t be fooled, though; this record has plenty to hide. Delving into all those tucked-away secrets makes it more and more enjoyable on every listen.

Best tracks: Katy Came Breezing, Queen of the West and Other Stories, A Clearing in the Wild, Ladies’ Choice Waltz, My Heart’s Own Love