WELCH, GILLIAN Soul Journey (Acony) cd 12.98
Why do I love Ms. Welch SO much? I dunno. Love is like that. Maybe 'cause of her careworn, exquisite voice, which she puts to such good use on songs that channel Appalachian woe and slacker angst. Maybe because she's so smart and charming and talented. Maybe 'cause she's so funny in concert... Ah, yes, she's wonderful. And so of course people like me are gonna be thrilled to hear her new album. While the title "Soul Journey" might sound corny this record isn't. Much of this sees Welch with a full backing band (including one guy from Son Volt), but it still sounds real intimate. And don't worry, Welch's partner, guitarist David Rawlings is on board too. From slow, rocking numbers to old timey ballads, Welch, Rawlings, and co. mesh rootsy "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" stuff with an indie-rock, alt-country perspective. Her songs are sad and forlorn, but also so gorgeous and comforting. What a treasure.
MPEG Stream: "Look At Miss Ohio"
MPEG Stream: "No One Knows My Name"

WELCH, GILLIAN The Revelator Collection (Acony) dvd 19.98
Who doesn't love alt-country songstress Gillian Welch and her musical partner David Rawlings? I kinda feel sorry for you if you don't. Anyway, chances are you're a fan, it seems most AQ-customers are. And fans should be pretty happy with this release, a DVD featuring the three videos shot for Welch's last release "Time (The Revelator)", plus nine songs filmed live in concert last year, five of which don't appear on any of Welch's albums! It's about an hour's worth of music total, and best of all -- it's in black and white! That's just perfect. Welch and Rawlings are wonderful live performers, so charming and funny that they make what they do seem easy, when of course it's not. Rawlings' impressive guitar solos, the duo's lovely vocal harmonies, Welch's brilliant lyrics...so good. See 'em live if you can -- checking out this DVD should definitely inspire you to do so. If it's not too early to start thinking about Christmas gifts, this seems like an idea...

WELCH, GILLIAN Time (The Revelator) (Acony Records) cd 16.98
The third album of (alternative is it?) country-folk from singer/songwriter Gillian Welch, following up 1998's "Hell Among The Yearlings", which became a big favorite here at Aquarius (and elsewhere too of course!). Primarily focused on lonely acoustic guitar and Welch's lovely voice, "Time" is generally slow, quiet and melancholy, but perhaps with less of the dark Appalchian death ride vibe that "Hell" possessed -- Welch mixes things up with the very pretty Patsy Cline-ish track "Dear Someone", and there's a couple of other more up-beat numbers on here too, but the achingly beautiful, old-timey downer Welch-songs that we love so much aren't neglected. Heck, the album closes with the nearly fifteen-minute long (!) slow-mo lovesong "I Dream A Highway".
RealAudio clip: "Everything Is Free"
RealAudio clip: "Dear Someone"
RealAudio clip: "My First Lover"

WHIP Atheist Lovesongs To God (Resonant) cd 17.98
There's a certain kind of voice that we're just sucker for. That frail, fragaile, about to crack keening sad boy, dusty, dusky, twangy croon. You know it as well as we do. Will Oldham (Bonnie Prince Billy, Palace), Jason Molina (Songs:Ohia), Joel Phelps, Sam Beam (Iron & Wine), Chris Grigoroff (Souled American). Take any of those voices, back them up with just the barest of instrumentation and you've got a dark and devastating, soul baring smear of ultrapersonal songcraft that just breaks your heart. A few years back, we stumbled upon a group called Timesbold, who trafficked in the same sort of dark twang as the above mentioned artists and ended up becoming a huge favorite around here. One member of Timesbold was and still is moonlighting as the sole member of Whip, taking Timesbold's sound in an even more spare and ultra personal direction. Hushed acoustic guitar, banjo, jaw harp, clanking clattery Tom Waits-y junkyard percussion, delicate brushed drumming, haunting theremin, strange ambient loops, and that anguished, whiskey soaked, sweet and sorrowful drawl. If you didn't know better you could certainly be forgiven for thinking this was some lost Palace or Songs:Ohia record. Fans of those guys, as well as groups like Rex, Calexico, Sparklehorse, Red Red Meat and like minded mournful twang will have yet another perfect record for those long and lonesome nights.
MPEG Stream: "One For Fire"
MPEG Stream: "Oh Why"

WHISKEYTOWN Pneumonia (Lost Highway) cd 16.98
Ryan Adams took a few years off from his band Whiskeytown, and made quite a splash during that time with his solo album "Heartbreaker". I wonder if it was fun dating Winona Ryder. Now he's reconvened the quintet for their fourth full-length of earthy, rootsy Americana. Mr. Adams deftly wields his songwriting pen, shading in the same wooded path as Uncle Tupelo or the Jayhawks, but perhaps a bit more accessible to the main highway of popular music like Tom Petty.

WILCO Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (Nonesuch) cd 17.98
Gosh there's a lot to say about this record.
[1] THE MUSIC: The sonic trajectory Wilco seemed to be on with their last album, Summerteeth, led us to believe the new one would be even more perfect pop-like. But they've gone and thrown us a curve ball. That's right, this is Wilco's weird experimental record. OK, it isn't *that* weird; and if you're an AQ customer then you have far more experimental records in your collection, but it *is* unusual for Wilco. Like a mix between the doleful Giant Sand and the fanciful Latin Playboys (Los Lobos' weird experimental side project), this new Wilco record doesn't have half as many hooks as previous efforts. While it certainly has the tried and true strummed acoustic guitars, lyrical piano, sad fiddles, and alterna-country tone that the group is famous for, they make you wait and wait and wait for the hooks and the melodies, or else they bury 'em in a scattered, cathartic wash of melancholy. Jeff Tweedy, leader of the band and one half of the late great Uncle Tupelo, is a-wanderin' and a-thinkin' out loud and he's a-lettin' the songs write themselves, so they meander a bit, but it's ever so heartfelt. If you can handle the assorted odd sonic elements that pop up all over -- wooden bonks 'n clonks, piano plinks, toys, static and scrapings, feedback, stereo separation novelties, strange rumblings that threaten to overtake the music, etc -- then you'll like this record. (Rumor has it several members of Wilco *couldn't* handle the weirdness, and quit the band.) And even though the ubiquitous Jim O'Rourke mixed the album and you'd think he brought in all random noises, actually the band claims the record was way more weird *before* O'Rourke worked on it. Huh.
[2] THE EXTRAS: Comes with stuff you can play on your computer: a video for one of the songs, plus links to the trailer for the upcoming doc being made about 'em, plus special access to a hidden webpage that's only for folks who've bought the album.
[3] THE SAGA: Wilco's shortsighted major label Reprise decides that sales of 162,000 copies of Wilco's last album isn't enough, and they don't like the new album, so they want the band off the label. Wilco buys back the masters for less than it cost to record them, and sign with Nonesuch (who btw also signed Magnetic Fields). In a nice example of corporate stupidity, Nonesuch and Reprise are owned by the same corporation, so in effect AOL Time Warner paid for the album twice. Ha. Before they signed with Nonesuch, Wilco made this new album downloadable from their website, and thus it even showed up, without ever having been officially released, on a few rockcrits' top ten lists from 2001. Ironically enough, now that the album's saga has been latched onto by the NY Times and NPR, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot will sell more copies than all of Wilco's previous albums, and someone at Reprise will get fired.
[4] CONET PROJECT ALERT: Hey all you fellow Conet lovers! Didja notice the title of this record? Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Yankee... Hotel... Foxtrot... Yes folks, this record was named after a track on the infamous Conet Project, the 4cd set that collects mysterious shortwave numbers station broadcasts. (We're kind of proud to have sold more copies of this than any other store -- 387 and counting!) And yep, there's a Conet Project sample buried near the end of the record. It's uncredited, which is kind of lame -- I mean if Wilco are such ardent fans of the Conet Project, wouldn't they want to turn other people onto it? Nor did we find Conet credit given on Boards of Canada's Geogaddi, for that matter, but the makers of Vanilla Sky did!
MPEG Stream: "I'm the man who loves you"
MPEG Stream: "Ashes of American Flags"
MPEG Stream: "Heavy Metal Drummer"

WILLIAMS, LUCINDA Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (Mercury) cd 15.98
The composer of the alterna-country hit "Passionate Kisses" is back after long hiatus with new album featuring her trademark rough warble of a voice, which some fans find addictive. Hear why Emmylou Harris considers Lucinda Williams one of country's finest songwriters.
MPEG Stream: "Can't Let Go"
MPEG Stream: "Still I Long For Your Kiss"

WILLIAMS, LUCINDA Live At The Fillmore (Lost Highway) 2cd 22.00
We've had difficulty with Ms Lucinda's past albums for being overly slick. While we loved many of her songs, the smooth AOR production has left much to be desired, often obliterating the immediacy of her fine songwriting. So this live recording is certainly welcome for its grittiness, but it's an unexpected sort of grit. In fact, this is a totally transformed Lucinda Williams. We caught a startling glimpse of her in a raucous duet with Elvis Costello on his Delivery Man album last year, but thought it to be an isolated excursion. This 2003 performance here at the Fillmore proves otherwise. It comes across as much less melodically inclined and more snarlingly aggressive -- her voice bristling with a near-Tom Waits throaty, throttled hoarseness. In fact, the very first time we played this in the store, three of us separately exclaimed, "Holy shit what is this?!" To boot, her early faves are sorely absent (y'know the ones you look forward to in live encores such as "Passionate Kisses"), but then again those songs aren't really suited to her new singing style as is made apparent in the lone oldie here "Changed The Locks". On a sticker attached to the front of the shrinkwrap, Costello compares her "rock and roll vocal style... to Keith Richards' guitar playing". We're not so sure about that. Perhaps a more direct and appropriate comparison would've simply been between their voices. However, while we're on the subject of guitars, there's plenty of lengthy solos and 'break-it-downs' (prime time for a spoken word interlude that we think she could've taken more advantage of). Nonetheless, the fans in attendance don't seem to mind one bit, fully captivated by her blistered and blistering bluesy Americana, and maybe you won't either. Approach with caution.
MPEG Stream: "Joy (live)"
MPEG Stream: "Changed The Locks (live)"

WILLIAMS, LUCINDA s/t (Koch) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Quite possibly Lucinda Wiliiams' best album. It contains her alterna-country hit "Passionate Kisses". Despite the slick production (which seems very oddly out of place with the grit and yearning of her voice), this is simply wonderful, rootsy and earnest.

WILLIAMS, VICTORIA Musings Of A Creekdipper (Atlantic) cd 16.98
Country-livin' girl Victoria made this record out in the desert with husband Mark Olson of the Jayhawks, and with the musical contributions of Joey and John from Calexico and Wendy & Lisa (we kid you not.)

WINFRED E. EYE A Bottle, A Dog, Some Milk, A Bottle (Luckyhorse Industries) cd 14.98
This is Aaron Calvert (of the L.A. band Evergreen) and Mikel Garmendia of Cars Get Crushed. Which is why I was surprised by this cd. I was expecting that post punk late 90's sort of thang. Instead I found some good ol' Americana with a healthy dose of No Depression with interesting production, at times reminiscent of Tom Waits or Vic Chestnutt. EP length at 35 minutes.
There is nothing groundbreaking here but it's done really well. Totally captivating and charming. The vocals are slurred and lazy and drunk sounding, maybe even a bit too much... Really pretty nice.
RealAudio clip: "Keep The Bed Warm"
RealAudio clip: "Bury It!"

WOVEN HAND Blush Music (Sounds Familyre) cd 14.98
Seems like only moments ago, my favorite record of last year came out. Maybe that's just because I still listen to it almost every day!! It's that good. If you read the AQ list you know I'm talking about the totally amazing Woven Hand record, a solo project of David Eugene Edwards from Sixteen Horsepower. Let's quickly recap for those who don't know what the hell I'm talking about. Sixteen Horsepower make weird backwoods gypsy folk, augmenting normal instrumentation with fiddles, accordions and mandolins. Dark and swampy tales, campfire stumps and lugubrious dirge folk crawls. Sound good? Well that's 'cause it is!! A huge AQ favorite. We weren't sure what to expect from Edwards solo record. We certainly weren't expecting it to surpass 16HP in every way, but it did!! Darker and creepier, tales of apocalyptic doom and Biblical salvation rendered in dreary, droney folk, lit by the fire of a bayou campfire. SO SO SO GOOD!!! One of the few records that really moved me. Seriously, like to tears. It's so gorgeous and passionate and sinister and perfect. Yes, PERFECT. So here we are a year later and a new record from the Woven Hand. Blush Music is music composed for a modern dance performance by the Belgian dance troupe Ultima Vez. It's about half re-worked songs from the first record and half new material. At first I was a little disappointed that it was different versions of old songs, until I heard the new versions. GOD!! This record perfectly complements the songs on the first record. One of the highlights from the first record was the cover of Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine", a perfectly gut wrenching, tear jerking slow motion valentine to lost love. On Blush Music, "Ain't No Sunshine" reappears as the 12+ minute "Animalitos", with the original stretched out into an entirely new shape, complete with dark, mornful ambient passages, wheezing organs, bombastic percussion, rumbling drones, bird calls, and forest sounds, with the vocals and melody occasionally surfacing only to be immediately overwhelmed by the turbulent soundscape. A couple songs from the first record get this treatment and the results are sublime. The new tracks, while not as immediately catchy as a lot of the tracks on the first record, still capture the same dread and dark hope. A good way to imagine this record in relation to the first, is imagine the first record as the -soundtrack- to an epic biblical southern love story equal parts Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, Southern Comfort and All The Pretty Horses. Now imagine that Blush Music is the -score-, all the incidental music, the theme reworked and stretched out to hover emotionally beneath dialogue, or to guide the viewers emotions. I think this record works better if you already own the first one (thankfully the first one was just released domestically), but that isn't to say Blush Music is not a perfect slice of dark and droney, fire and brimstone, forlorn and forgotten, gorgeously damaged, gypsy psych-folk. 'Cause it is!
MPEG Stream: "Cripplegate"
MPEG Stream: "Animalitos (Aint No Sunshine)"
MPEG Stream: "Snake Bite"
MPEG Stream: "Another White Bird"

WRIGHT, CORBI Bang Bang Bang - Songs From Corbi (self-released) cd-r 8.98
Despite the jarring loudness suggested by this release's title, Corbi Wright's music is utterly hushed and contemplative. Her voice swoops from a withery whisper to a raw PJ Harvey-esque emotiveness. The loose weave of her barebones, unstructured folk sits well alongside the recent likes of Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voice or The Alps. We know this to be true 'cause we've played them back to back a few times, and it made for a very enjoyable listen that flowed exceptionally well. So there. And to tie things neatly together, AQ pal Mr. Jefre Cantu (member of The Alps, Tarentel among many others) assisted Ms Wright in the recording of these songs. Very nice.
MPEG Stream: "Last Night We Walked Past Small Lights"
MPEG Stream: "Come And Lay Your Body Down"