Puck

I’ve been listening to Clothesline Revival’s Of My Native Land for a couple of years now and I love it. Clothesline is Conrad Praetzel and Robert Powell, some fine guests and a bunch of public-domain field recordings by the legendary John Lomax and others. The field recorded vocal tracks are by Leadbelly and others.

Unlike, say, Moby’s effort to go old-timey,which comes off like, well, a house DJ trying to go old-timey, Praetzel and Powell are true musicians–they never push the originals places they don’t want to go. Praetzel is responsible for the beats and he’s correct to refer to himself and Powell as “neo-traditionalists.” Instead of fast-forwarding the country, roots and blues tracks into the future, the duo take downtempo electronica and psychedelia into the Wayback Machine. The result is lush, understated and emotionally intense. The intensity hits its highest peaks in “Turtle Dove,” with its gorgeous vocal by Wendy Allen, and the slide-guitar vs harmonica smackdown “Wade in the Water.” (If anybody can clue me in about where to get more Wendy Allen–much, much more–I’d be grateful.)

In short, Of My Native Land is highly recommended. Check out the samples, along with a couple full songs in mp3 format, on Praetzel’s site, Paleo Music.

Almost as good is Long Gone, the follow-up to Of My Native Land. Almost as good, in my opinion, though a lot of reviewers went even ape-ier over this album than the first. But it strikes me as derivative where the first was original or, maybe, I just don’t like the grooves as much. Things are a little harsher here, with more emphasis on early rock’n'roll, with all the head banging that implies. (If, in fact, early r’n'r implies head banging to anyone but me. Roland Barthes once said music can only be spoken of in adjectives; I’d add that some of those adjectives are so subjective as to speak to an audience of one.) That said, this is a fine album and is also highly recommended. Again, the Paleo Music site has samples and many full songs for free download, as well as downloads of some of the source field recordings.

One of the source recordings is Ora Dell Graham’s “Pullin’ the Skiff.” The recordists (could it be Lomax?) asks to hear “that last part again,” apparently because the audience(or whatever the nature of the crowd there gathered) nosily joins in. She sings it again and, again, the crowd joins in. “Now hush!” scolds the recordist, clearly not getting it. The song is an irrepressible call-and-response: unputdownable.

Praetzel and Powell are well-versed in “paleo music,” and if you like Americana, roots, alt or acid country, Clothesline Revival is a must. Joe Allen, in Wax Poetic, got it right:

Praetzel has gone deeper into the American archive of recorded music than anyone, and his startling juxtapositions reveal a collective view of a century of American music.

The rest of Conrad Praetzel’s catalog digs into the roots of the rest of the planet. Clothesline revival may have a clearly identifiable (if diverse) “native land,” but Praetzel (often with guitarist Powell on board), like Diogenes, is a citizen of the world. Of the four Praetzel solo albums, I like Receive the best, with its Asian underground vibe and Sukhawat Ali Khan’s Qawwali-like vocals.

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