Farfetched Tangmo Band
The Farfetched Tangmo Band exemplifies connectivity, with collaboration and contributions to the collective sound coming from studios and players from Alabama to Illinois, from Manhattan to Manchester, England and back across to Texas and Ohio via PA and... well, you get the picture, and it's a pretty one for music-- especially considering it's almost impossible to pejoratively refer to "home studios" now, given advances that can turn a PC into Electric Ladyland or Abbey Road. It goes without saying that you have to know what you're doing, of course, but not without saying that the Farfetched musicians are adept with the technology. Phil Close, Trev Brown, Dave "Bluesman Deluxe" Brimlow, Skip Moore, Frank Teidemann, Lee Cusenbary, JC Kercheval, John Kerruish, Jay Jackson, Steve Blizin and company are all artists in their own right; they have the chops and the studio skills as instrumentalists, arrangers, and songsmiths to work supersonic magic of a kind that can't be duplicated with a studio budget. Think Neil Young's TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT, the wizardry wrought by Todd Rundgren, the intimacy of Springsteen's NEBRASKA, and you're beginning to see the light.
The group works-- and like the "supergroups" of yore it works because of musical mastery and shared focus, which will be the hallmarks of the coming "wave" of connective music. Genres are ignored, everything is explored, and collaboration becomes carnival with Tangmo in the center ring, directing and reflecting, while everyone involved plays numerous musical and production roles. Consider the title track, with its eerie, Appalachian ballad form and twilight ambience courtesy of Phil Close; note the contrast with JC Kercheval's work in the cool, brightly lit and rocking "Solitaire". Then catch the emotional expansiveness of Jay Jackson's "Mountain, Move" and "First Snow" as illuminated by Trev Brown against the bluesy rambunctiousness of "Borned Stoned" and "Handle Me", and it's obvious that everything is in synch around Tangmo's lyrics and vocals, that it's all coming from the same shared intrinsic feel for the music... and that "two of a kind beats everything".
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Close To The Ground
Fourteen original songs in roots,
blues and rock. Melodies to hum
later, lines to quote, voice as sweet
as a squashed hornet, "...fine as
moonshine chased with branch
water somewhere in the clouds
over Memphis."
1. Mountain Move
2. Black Haired Girl
3. Solitaire
4. Talk To Me
5. Handle Me
6. Hold Her Right
7. Close To The Ground
8. Tea On The Lawn
9. Take
10. Where Are You Now
11. Opposable Thumbs
12. First Snow
13. Borned Stoned
14. When The Water
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Tangmo is an artist in the sense that art is a representation of reality, and the reality represented by the artist is one of personal experience and perception; he writes and sings of universal and individual truths as opposed to common and selfish things. CLOSE TO THE GROUND delivers an artist's perspective, one which is fashioned out of open eyes and ears as well as blood and bone and nerve, a point of view loaded with grace and wit and ironic distance as well as self-knowlege and the poignancy that comes with a deep appreciation for life and the sounds of folk music, rock and blues. These are songs that reflect the human condition with grit and sweat and laughter, laden with the sonic force of musical traditions brought into the twenty-first century-- and made new again. .
In a connected world there are no longer limits to time and space in the pursuit of new music, and sounds and stories found outside the realm of mass-production and industrial hype will become more apparent as the future unfolds. Where once were unexplored territories will be found vistas of fertile ground that will change everything. Unfettered by superficially manipulated popular tastes, artists will breathe freely and deeply, and the benefits will be shared by those who hear and understand. CLOSE TO THE GROUND is meant to be explored and enjoyed in just this way, as a positive musical force as well as a collection of striking, imagery-laden tracks. Tangmo takes his raw material from his rambles and wanderings here and abroad, turns to the task of wringing meaning out of experience and events, and lifts up his songs and characters with the understanding that they matter, that they're real and that they, too, will reach out to embrace the wild sadness and the uproarious roll-and-tumble that is life.