Further Details

Title: To The Races
Condition: New
Format: CD
EAN: 0648401009521
Description: EDITORIAL REVIEWS
His first Saddle Creek release is an unadorned and unapologetically forthright collection of songs. Whereas Bachmann's/Crooked Fingers' 2005 effort, "Dignity And Shame" was his most poppy and immediately accessible album, this one is his most sparse and reflective. Eric's warm vocals and deceptively simple arrangements keep the songs' quiet elegance ardent and complete, only occasionally augmented by Miranda Brown's angelic harmonies or Tom Hagerman's (Devotchka) haunting violin. The record tells stories of self-imposed or unintentional isolation and the common search for, or escape from, some kind of sanctuary.

In the early 1990s, Eric Bachmann achieved a modicum of success by playing decent, fun, and derivative indie rock that borrowed heavily from music that groups like Pavement, Versus, and Superchunk had made a year or two earlier. It's a touch ironic, then, that today Bachmann's records sell fewer copies, even though he himself was ahead of the whole hippie folk shtick by at least a few years. The songs are lovely and unapologetically retro; if you dig Phil Ochs, Tom Rush, and solo Steve Earle, you have a new favorite artist. The arrangements are subtle and stark at once. Most songs begin with deft acoustic finger-picking, and slowly other instruments and vocals are brought in. There's very little freaky about this folk, but that doesn't mean it fails to strive to be visionary. "Man O' War," a six-and-a-half minute tale of Man vs. Nature, might be the best thing this artist's ever done. --Mike McGonigal
No Of Discs: 1
Artist: Eric Bachmann
Record Label: SADDLE CREEK RECORDS

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