This one was flown in direct over the Atlantic from Random Acts of Vinyl, which I found out was formed by Palm Springs, a UK band with a major DIY attitude. This single is one of their latest releases from the band Fire Eyes a duo with Sally Megee and Paul Beat, who are both dishing out the back and forth vocals over this basic, lonesome western package.
The A-Side's "Cherry Black" is definitely evoking a Suicide cowboy sound, or a country-alt Dirty Beaches without the sonic medium textures, a really clear version of that spirit of sadness. Sally begins this conversation when she asks "What're you doing with that gun in your hand?" and Paul answers her back in his deep JAMC style vocal. They even introduce a massive glitchy synth solo in the middle of this slow bluesy stomper. I'm even thinking about a country fried Prinzhorn Dance School...a similar absence of crazy layers, just a heavy tom rhythm and tambourine, long distance reverb dusty guitar, and a couple of chords. This abstractly seems to be about a Bonnie and Clyde story, setting the scene, like the Neil Young Deadman soundtrack....one of my favorites...if I could only find that on vinyl...
The B-Side, "Out of Dust" is heading even further into the desert with a simple mic'd acoustic guitar, steel strings and all...and Sally is massively reverb'd into another dimension, like a mescaline dream, in the bottom of the grand canyon, a surfy sustained guitar wavering in out of the dust. A violin creeps into the background and those tumbleweeds really start to blow. It's a subtle vision with Fire Eyes, no distractions from recording technique, they've managed to create all this kind of imagery out of elements which individually shouldn't necessarily add up to this neo-country. The convertible rusted classic cars and sunglasses...a Julee Cruise Calexico sound.
How'd they do that.
Get it from Random Acts of Vinyl, preview the tracks, here on their Soundcloud page.
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