168. Califone - Roots & Crowns (2006)

Califone's Roots & Crowns is like a tribute to the kind of music found on Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music: wild hoedowns and slower, banjo-picking tracks. True enough, there's more than enough of this kind of music out there, but what separates this from the rest of the pack is an uncanny ability to recreate the unknowable creepiness of listening to a recording that's 80+ years old. Everything on this album is soaked in a kind of fuzzy hiss, and the vocals are distant and emotionless: the effect is unsettling, like a Jandek album but with better melodies. There are no hamfisted attempts at "emotion" here: everything is dropped to the side for the sake of a somewhat forbidding atmosphere that's uncommon in folk records, which are usually designed to be as "warm" and "inviting" as possible. There's nothing "warm" or "inviting" about this record. It's creepy and weird, with song titles like "The Eye You Lost in the Crusades" and "3-Legged Animals", little snatches of radio static seeping in and out of the songs, weird and possibly electronic percussion effects. The album is like a direct channel to the unpalatable, odd, and strange folk music made all those years ago: the real stuff. There is no ego on this album at all: everything is bent upon constructing that atmosphere. A real achievement.

MY RATING: 8.6


Califone - "The Eye You Lost in the Crusades"