Nina
EMMA
Filed under: New Music, Nina | Tags: alt-country, folk, Futurebirds, Honeycutters, summer
photo by Ryan McGinley
So it’s almost August again and there’s twangin’ in the air. The beloved New York City concrete jungle (with its skyscraper landscapes, dirty rivers, boiling hellhole subway platforms, and up-all-night rooftop shenanigans) where I spend my summers is worlds away from the sun-soaked, porch-sittin, beer-sippin, slow day south of the folk idyll.
Still, there’s something about summer that makes me gravitate to folk songs and simply strummed alt-country sounds. Maybe it’s an old affinity for Wilco and whiskey. Maybe isolated weeks in Tennessee and North Carolina have lodged themselves permanently under my skin like a deer tick (or like Deer Tick, for that matter). Maybe it’s the heat bleaching my brain to dissociate from city hustle and crave simpler things – a patch of grass, an old guitar, fireflies and lazy nights.
Whatever the cause, these days there are often relaxed Americana tunes keeping me sane throughout frantic urban adventures. Two new bands have stood out in particular.
Futurebirds are a great new band that hail from Athens, GA. They raised stray dogs, raised some hell, graduated college, cruised down to SXSW2010 in a ’98 suburban war wagon where they generated a good amount of positive attention, and put out a debut LP this July that sounds like a soundtrack to a Flannery O’Connor story. Their singalong harmonies and slide guitars are infectious and their twangy lyrics are genuine. Diverse moments on their debut LP Hampton’s Lullaby draw from a wide net of influences (for example, waves of reverb and the melancholy refrain of “the sun ain’t gonna save my life” on “Battle for Rome” recalls the best of My Morning Jacket) but it’s an honest album well worth checking out, full of wide roads, warm moments, and wondrous summer.
The other notable mention is a track by a band called the Honeycutters. From their name to their all-analog approach and near-total lack of self-consciousness, they run the risk of being too sweet. But “Irene,” the title song off their debut album, is completely charming. Lyrics about smoking Marlboros by the railroad tracks, sipping dandelion soup, and being a kid in North Carolina are wrapped in thick nostalgia and vivid imagery. The “Goodnight Irene” refrain references an oft-covered country ballad by the same name – a whiskey-soaked wistful ode to lost love. Lead singer Amanda Anne Platt’s beautiful voice is tinged with a similar longing (in her case, for simpler childhood times), but the Honeycutters’ lullaby leaves you not with a hangover but with a sense that everything just might be okay.
Street cred it ain’t, but what can I say? I’m a sucker for Southern hospitality.
Tom Waits – Goodnight Irene (for comparison and because Tom Waits is a G)
