Jon Byrd - Byrds Auto Parts

1. (00:04:03) Jon Byrd - Jackknife
2. (00:03:28) Jon Byrd - Reputation
3. (00:03:51) Jon Byrd - In A Perfect World
4. (00:02:48) Jon Byrd - Freightliner Fever
5. (00:03:26) Jon Byrd - Don't Let Me Down
6. (00:02:34) Jon Byrd - Be Real
7. (00:03:35) Jon Byrd - Stay
8. (00:04:50) Jon Byrd - The Losing End(When You're On)
9. (00:02:52) Jon Byrd - Mark My World
10. (00:03:14) Jon Byrd - One Final Round
11. (00:03:20) Jon Byrd - Blistered

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Rose Kemp - Unholy Majesty (2008)

"Rose Kemp is a mock debutante: she started recording and writing for her mother's band, Maddy Prior And The Girls, and released a first solo album in 2003, 'Glance', which was typically folk and totally acoustic. But with 'Unholy Majesty', she obviously wants to take a new - electric - departure to make something novel, and it is undeniably a felicitous attempt.

The folk influence remains of utmost importance, especially through the use of strings, and of seemingly traditional melodies. But Rose Kemp has clearly been raised in the rock age, she listened to Black Sabbath as well as to Tom Waits and knows how to play the electric guitar. This time, she produces a new genre, some kind of folkish prog-metal, witty and bittersweet. And it sounds good.

Her voice is perfectly mastered and used with both boldness and sharpness. In the opening track 'Dirt Glow', vocals are high-pitched, witch-like and contribute to building a strange, tribal atmosphere, where the violin, paradoxically, is the sign of an outburst of violence. On the contrary, on 'Wholeness Sounds', Kemp goes down to a lower, rounder note, more powerful than ever.

Though the general mood of the album is definitely dark, eerie and nervous, there is also in most songs a touch of wit that has to be taken very seriously. 'Nanny's World', for instance, is full of black humor, the kind that makes you feel slighty uncomforable. But good as well.

The simplicity of some compositions, almost a capella, recall the latest sacred music of El Perro Del Mar - 'Flawless', with disharmonic chords stroke on a piano, or the very calm and beautiful 'Nature's Hymn'. But it is when Rose Kemp becomes gothic that she is the most powerful. 'Milky Way', one of the best tracks, is terribly impressive; vocals are incantatory, painful and counter-nature. It leaves you breathless."

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Robyn Ludwick - Too Much Desire

"Three years previously, Texas songwriter Robyn Ludwick's debut album, For So Long, appeared like a stunning blast of central Texas summer heat from the hill country outside Austin. It stands as one of those shocks to the system that makes a listener sit up, take notice, and get slain by. It is sophisticated but uncompromising; it's as sensual as the moisture from a lover's lips on a hot humid night, and as raw as a fresh tattoo. It can't hurt that her brothers are Bruce and Charlie Robison, her sister-in-law is Kelly Willis, and her husband is bassist John Ludwick. But the songs are all hers. Too Much Desire mirrors its title perfectly: its songs are full of the extremes in human emotion and behavior, reflecting the thoughts that occur to us while keeping the night watch restlessly awaiting the dawn. Ludwick's songs are rooted in Texas country music, folk, and even country gospel and rock. Her voice is full and rich, a deep contralto that is as Southern and rugged as the terrain she comes from; it goes deep like Lucinda Williams or Rosanne Cash, yet is as lonesome, rich, and expressive as Stevie Nicks at her best. Husband John and brother-in-law Mike Hardwick (who play bass and guitar, respectively) produced the set, with Eddie Cantu on drums and guitarist Andrew Nafziger completing the band. There are one-offs by friends and more family. Michael Ramos, Warren Hood, Willis, Eliza Gilkyson, Thomas Robison Ludwick, her brothers, and Eleanor Whitmore also appear.

Ludwick is among the most searing, confessional songwriters out there, and the bravery in her approach to delivering these revelatory lyrics-as-exposed-secrets is made possible by the group that backs her. Very few songwriters, male or female, can pull off a lyric as naked as ."..I know it ain't cool/How you play with my heart/But it hurts so good when you tear it apart/You're gonna make it alright tonight..." on "Alright," the album opener. It gets more intimate from here, but vulnerability -- expressed with acoustic and electric guitars, mandolins, a fiddle here and there, and some backing vocal support -- shouldn't be translated as weakness. Despite the whining steel and unplugged six-string in true Texas waltz style, one can hear the truth of Bessie Smith's "Empty Bed Blues" in "'72 Texas," when Ludwick sings: "Now I'm lookin' for love/But it ain't lookin good/You see the boys that I like/They don't treat me no damn good...." Ludwick's characters are women who've been deeply disappointed by love, life, and empty promises, but refuse to surrender. No matter how beaten, her protagonists always roll the dice again. They have no way out -- as expressed in the amazing song of the same title -- but don't care, because the horizon is empty and what's available is right now. "Boulevard," a rocker, is a "bad girl"'s anthem of desire laid bare -- it knows the cost and is more than willing to pay it. Yet this is only the beginning of this magical record. Ludwick is a poet and storyteller ("Sweet Marie") whose art pours truth from a broken-necked bottle; it's there in spades. Her aesthetic strength comes from, to paraphrase W.B. Yeats, "the rag and bone shop of the heart." Too Much Desire is strong yet beautiful stuff. It aches and staggers, struts, crumbles in tears, then rises to do it all again throughout. It's as elegant and graceful as a straight razor; it takes no prisoners, makes no apologies. In other words, it's just drop-dead gorgeous. Thom Jurek, All Music Guide"

1 Alright 3:34
2 '72 Texas 5:06
3 No Way Out 3:18
4 Big Fall 3:58
5 Boulevard 4:11
6 Monte Carlo 4:15
7 Lolita 3:51
8 Sweet Marie 5:34
9 Pleasure and Pain 4:56
10 Desire 5:27
11 Lullaby 0:55
12 Julia Odessa 5:09

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Rivulets - Debridement

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