10.28.06
Two for love, people, two for LOVE
Jeffrey Foucault–Ghost Repeater
Hi. Yeah, I’ve been absent, but I was sick for, um, a month? Also, I have a lot of comic books to read and people to verbally abuse. [What? Keep up appearances, girl. We've been secretly on tour with a band all over Texas.--Cricket]
*sigh*
This album is good. You’ve been waiting to meet Jeffrey. Not just because his last name is fucking awesome, but also because he’s a solid musician with a clear, vibrant, expressive voice and he writes some poetic, cut-to-the-bone lyrics. [Just so you know, it's impossible to textually render how good this album is, so bear with us, read our paltry words, and then just go get the album, okay?--Cricket]
You can read on his website about how ghost repeaters are the radio towers that transmit canned radio across the country and how he made this album in a week with Bo Ramsey. High-tail it over if you want that info. His site’s nice, and some people in Nashville could really use a lesson in decent web-design. *sniff* [Really, it's so well done, why can't all bands do this? Don't they have, like, budding web designer friends to help them out?--Cricket]
I’m trying to decide who to compare Jeffrey to, but failing. Perhaps the guitar work on some of it reminds me of Mark Knopfler, particularly on “Americans in Corduroys,” which has very dreamy, syrup-sweet guitar and diaphanous percussion underneath Jeffrey’s wistful musings about his honeymoon and how it feels to acknowledge being American right down into your bone marrow and hair roots. [The comparisons are hard. He's not 100% original. The amalgamation of artists that he's fed on is there, but so mixed up and tied together that it's hard to pull a single name from it all.--Cricket] [Which is not to say that he’s derivative--only influenced the way we all are by the miasma of culture around us, that feeds us. Etc.--Salome]
The orange/rust/sepia overlay of the black and white of the cover art for this record is fitting in a way that rarely happens with CD art. The sound of the album is rounded with desolation. It’s the awareness of death even at the moment of birth and the brown blemish in a field of bright, green grain. Perhaps that is an intentional musical metaphor for the American political landscape currently–at our apex and our worst at once.
Even “One For Sorrow,” which is a song about getting married, is underlaid with a Hawaiian-sounding guitar that makes this up-tempo number sigh-inducing and bitter-sweet. I guess the name should be a tip-off there, but with lyrics like “We’re gonna have a hundred babies, a little house outside of town” and so on in the vein of the first blush of Big Love, the effect of making me really sort of sad all the same is strange. That’s pretty impressive song-construction. [Not only is his song construction incredible, but his phrasing is perfect and different to suit each song. Sometimes he sounds like he's a younger, emo, country boy, sometimes he sounds a million years old (in good way); sometimes more country, sometimes more blues. There's really an emotional depth to every song that is tweaked each time by the lyrics, the musical arrangement and how he uses his voice. I want to marry this record.--Cricket]
So, I’m relistening to this entire album now, needless to say, and I’m reading my email and just got this gem of a link sent to me. Yes, our other friends are just as wacko as we are, in case you were curious. [Meems, did you just include this to make sure everyone knows you have the attention span of a gnat? Or can you really just not keep the science geek in your pants anymore?--Cricket]
“Jackson” is a story song, of a sort–a Dylan-esque dream sequence of a story song. It has the word concertina in it! What more of an endorsement do you need? The first lines are “Dead before the sun could rise, I stole the silver off my lover’s eyes.” Here we have more of that slightly disturbing ghostly guitar work. I think this is as much Bo Ramsey’s album as it is Jeffrey Foucault’s. [Bo Ramsey is the excellent producer here and the guitar player, in case you readers were confused.--Cricket]
Considering how many of the songs on this record are about being in love, I’d say it would be a great listen when you’re well enough past a break up with an old lover and want to make yourself feel like shit missing them. Have at it, romantics (looking at you, Cric). [Thanks, I'm already drowning in the album. His voice is whiskey and tears and the lyrics could break hearts not already broken.--Cricket]
I think from now on I will do a whole “if you like X you will like C” segment in my reviews. In this case I am going to go with if you like Joe Purdy or early Lyle Lovett or Stephen Simmons (more on him when Cric finishes the new podcast), you will like this album by Jeffrey Foucault. [Hmm, maybe. If you like Waylon or ♥Steve♥ or Frank Black you might like Ghost Repeater.--Cricket]
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