Tendrils – Soaking Red

Description

Format: CD
Label: Half A Cow Records
Catalogue: HAC 71
Barcode: 0 637377 007129
Country: AU
Year: 1998

Condition: Used

As new. Promo. Hole punch through barcode. See second scan. The album is housed in a cardboard gatefold sleeve, with the CD separated in its own a card sleeve (no hole in this printed inner). Deleted CD.

01. Soaking Red
02. Goat Curry
03. The Prune In Heat
04. Gulp
05. All Stunk Up
06. Hands Are Tied
07. Raw Feeling
08. Easter Mongrel
09. The Time It Is Come
10. Glass Antenny
11. Whittling
12. Do What You Have To
13. Wednesday The 22nd

Tendrils Soaking Red is the first release from Joel Silbersher & Charlie Owen as a duo under this name. It is not, however, their first collaboration. In 1995 they released an album entitled Tendrils as ‘Joel Silbersher & Charlie Owen’ on the Dog Meat label.

The music that Joel & Charlie make together is hard to categorise. The ‘psych-folk’ angle that some have taken in describing Tendrils deals with only one aspect of their sound. It’s not ‘indie pop’ or ‘slowcore’ or any such franchise, & it’s not country (though at times it does convey the same kind of glorious heartbreak as the best country music). It’s not ‘the blues’ though it is organic, darkly beautiful, sparse & intense. Comparisons are difficult because there’s not another album like this one.

Based around the duo’s intriguing & highly emotive guitar work, supplemented with a frugal use of drums & a brooding, at times unnerving, organ presence, Soaking Red is a collaboration of major influence. It does not follow or ‘give the nod’ to any prevailing musical trend. It is the music that Joel & Charlie make when they are together, & it is something very special. If that is not immediately apparent to you then you need to play the CD again.

Joel

Joel Silbersher is the frontman for Melbourne based outfit Hoss, who redefined rock’n’roll for this scribe on their last album (their fifth) Do You Leave Here Often, where they juxtapose the heart-wrenching with the heart-starting. He also performs solo & releases albums under the name Melonman which reveal his predilection for idiocy & a wide variety of diverse & distinctive sounds. He is also known to play live as part of Tex Perkins band.

Charlie

Where do you start with someone like Charlie Owen? Dobro player with the Working Class Ringos. Guitar player with the Beasts of Bourbon. One third of Tex, Don & Charlie on the Sad But True CD. Charlie has made albums & toured throughout Europe with the New Christs & with Louis Tillett, & released an instrumental solo album, Vertigo. In a recent interview with Juice, Paul Kelly stated ‘I’ve always admired the spirit in which he plays music. It’s to play from your heart – what’s inside you – & not worry whether its going to make you a million bucks’.

(from Half The Cow Records website)