CD Reviews

Migrants: Migrants
Planet Noise Records, 2001

Who of us didn’t get in touch with our deeper feelings after hellfire rained down on New York City? But it’s a dicey proposition. Most of us fall back on the emotional equivalent of stuffed animals, like the ones helplessly lashed to the fences in sympathy around Ground Zero. Steering clear of mawkishness in this frightened new world separates good music from the flimsy anthems currently choking the airwaves.
A local band known as Migrants has successfully struck a sober but sensitive tone on their self-titled debut album, released by the Kingston-based label Planet Noise (www.planetnoiserecords.com). While this is no sampler of September 11 post-mortems, many of the 12 cuts offer a vulnerable, reassuring tone to soothe a sense of loss. Migrants opens with a tone poem of failing romance (or maybe not) called “Kim and Mark in the red car,” which is as spare and aching as the famous William Carlos Williams poem, in which so much depends upon a red wheelbarrow.

I could have waded through an entire CD of such delicate meditations. But Chris Cubeta and Brian Cassidy need to exercise their artistic muscles. They follow this acoustic simplicity with a bit of showing off. The cut “Employee X” is more wayward art rock than honesty; it is stuffed with clashing metaphors and fuzz-box voices. So much for pronounced meditations on the alienation of our mechanized world. There is another misstep: Are we to glean anything but echoes of terrorism in the clunky “New Years in NY,” which tells of devastation in Lower Manhattan? More of a balm to the perennial teenage heart are “Battle Hymn” and “Popsicle Man.” They shudder happily, all smashing drums and frenetic guitar licks, and conjure up the tuneful self-indulgence of Jonathan Richman or the Violent Femmes. Rejuvenating.

Migrants are lovers, not fighters. The strain of clarion calls or striking a combative stance shows in feigned anthems like “New Years in NY” and “Revolution Song,” the latter which is all empty slogans. (A final, untitled and unlisted cut echoes the themes of war and conflict, albeit more tunefully, but just as unconvincingly.)

The boys return to unabashed romance in “She Cries.” And they capture the ache that confirms you’re really alive in the ballad “Love Growing Old.” Only then do the vocal tricks and rock star poses recede from their voices, leaving behind the profundity that comes from honest emotions.
Raspy harmonies and simple compositions enhance the imagistic lyric poetry of Migrants. Each number hovers a few decibels above coffeehouse folk, but several decibels below arena rock. The Migrants CD yields increasing pleasures after the second or third spin, like heartsick teens reluctantly giving up secrets. For when did we last really understand love except when we were teens?

Migrants hasn’t played in this area since last September. When they show up again, go and commune. Reassure them that it’s okay for them to be bleeding bravely from the heart, not standing on their hind legs in impotent defiance. Love remains the answer, and love is what Migrants do best.

—Jay Blotcher

Califone: Roomsounds
Perishable Ltd., 2002

I first discovered Califone in the most unlikely of places. I was doing research on The White Stripes, an up-and-coming band from Detroit, when I landed on Amazon.com’s list of the 10 Best Alternative CDs of the year.

Surely, I thought, The White Stripes would be at or close to number one, considering the amount of hype their album White Blood Cells has elicited both here and in the UK. But, surprise, surprise—The White Stripes were all the way down at number eight, behind such alternative standbys as Bjork, Sparklehorse and Rufus Wainright.

What surprised me the most on the list was the number one album. It was by a group I had never heard of called Califone, and according to Amazon, not only had it been voted best album of the year by their own critics, but it was also the number one seller of all of Amazon.com’s alternative CDs. With props like that, I had to check it out.
At first listen, I have to tell you—I couldn’t quite figure out what the fuss was all about. The music, which combines down-home guitar, fiddle and banjo with reverberating piano and drum loops, initially seemed drone-y and unfocused. The singer seemed beyond stoned, with pianos, bird sounds, you name it, floating in and out of the mix. And the lyrics, geez—charcoal mothers, cataracts, satellites that grow vines …

Yep, I thought, an album for stoners. And I prepared it for my “to be resold” pile.

But then a funny thing happened. As I often do before I get rid of a CD, I taped it for use in my car stereo, and one day while driving through the Catskills, I put it in the player. And the second time I listened to it, I started to get it. And then the third time I heard it, I discovered it was beautiful and mysterious, and the fourth time I heard it, I couldn’t help but make comparisons to Pink Floyd’s classic, Dark Side of the Moon.

Yep, this is one hell of a record, but it isn’t technically rock, it’s some weird hybrid between country, electronica and space music. But that’s okay by me. Suffice to say, my copy of Roomsounds by Califone never did make it to the used CD bin at my local record store.

—David McDonald

Epiphany Project: Epiphany Project
Epiphany Records, 2001

I first discovered the Epiphany Project during a freak snowstorm—an experience that turned out to be oddly metaphorical for this musical duo’s enchantments. I was en route to catch the Woodstock-based duo Bet Williams and Jon Hodian in their debut local performance at the Center for the Performing Arts at Rhinebeck back in February 2001. Intrigued by the recommendations of friends—who had enthusiastically struggled to describe Epiphany Project, calling it everything from “haunting” to “magical” to “cerebral”, and categorizing it as avant garde, improv, folk, classical, pop, Celtic and New Age to boot—I decided that, rather than pull over like the lone car ahead of me did, I’d keep driving. To put it mildly, I’m glad I did.
It’s rare to hear songs that are equally intelligent and passionate, playful yet complex, stark but rich, or as stirring yet lulling as those of the Epiphany Project— or simultaneously dark and bright, which is what made Williams’s and Hodian’s music the perfect thing to hear after emerging from blinding snow into a bitterly cold, starlit night. What singer/songwriter Williams and Emmy Award-winning pianist/composer Hodian manage to meld together musically is something that, if you listen hard enough you’ll be at a loss for words to describe.
If you haven’t heard Epiphany Project’s self-titled CD before, here’s why you should—no, must—give it a listen. First, its 14 songs are each and every one of them exquisitely beautiful. Epiphany Project has that rare ability to take somber subjects (“Lockerbie”, “Long Gray Line”) and render them shimmering with beauty, and to dive deeply into joy (“Tubwahun”, an upbeat, ancient Aramaic translation of the Beatitudes, and “Goth”). Williams and Hodian are joined on this CD (as well as live) by bassist Kevin MacConnell and percussionist M.B. Gordy. A host of electric guitarists, cellists and violinists along with an udu and set of talking drums (“Walkin’”) add to the exotic interplay of sounds, and a moving trumpet solo closes “Long Gray Line,” a song written by Williams about her grandfather’s life in the military. Each composition is as contagious poetically as it is rhythmically. These songs are dreamy but substantial, contemplative but meaty. They’re artful, they’re folky, they have an undercurrent of pop and at times recall Celtic ballads and New Age landscapes, but ultimately, this is one classy, classical, class act. And if you ever saw the way Williams’ hands dance before her as she sings, you’d know what else this duo does: they rock.
Bet Williams will be performing solo on Thursday, March 28 at 10 pm, part of the Women Making Music Series at New World Home Cooking in Saugerties.

—Susan Piperato