LIZ JANES & CREATE(!)
S/T
Asthmatic Kitty
·Experimental Traditional sounds better on paper.
With each successive release, Liz Janes has put as much thought into her chosen accompanists as her songs. Working first with Sufjan Stevens (who produced, arranged and left his handprints all over her debut, Done Gone Fire), Janes now collides with jazz improv collective Create(!) for these drastic re-interpretations of traditional public domain antiquities.
At times, Janes holds too much back – most often the effect is one of missed release in favour of hazy atmosphere. The group’s run-throughs of "Be My Husband" and "Lonesome Valley" float by so ineffectually, it’s a wonder these songs have been remembered for so long. It’s not until the album’s final two numbers that things finally take off. Driven by group hand-claps "Run, Old Jeremiah / Keep Your Hand on the Plow," is one-part chain gang, another part soulful revival. Finale "Careless Love" succeeds at a hypnotic drone of gentle guitar and Janes’s lovely vocal repetition, "see what love has done?"
Overall, however, it comes down to an intriguing idea more interesting on paper than in action. A bit of a shame, really.
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