Notes Campfire

Notes Campfire is the album that signaled a kind of resurgence of interest in Chicagos Souled American. The trio, already ten years old by the time of this recording, had already gone through an incarnation as a proto-insurgent country act. Souled Americans early, rootsy, Americana-plumbing albums such as Fe and Rubber arrived on the scene at around the same time Uncle Tupelo was beginning to be a known roots music commodity. Further exacerbating the interest in the band, perhaps, was the work of guerilla rock criticism "50 Posters About Souled American" orchestrated by writer Camden Joy. Notes Campfire, for its part, furthered Souled Americans unprecedented examination of the skeletal elements of country and folk music that the group had begun several years previous when the group lost and never replaced its drummer and its label, Rough Trade, folded. Guitarists Chris Grigoroff and Joe Adducci, with bassist Scott Tuma, manage with Notes Campfire to create the sound of American folk music, slowed to a molasses-in-February pace and delivered as gorgeous waves of guitar sound, texture, and raw emotion. Grigoroffs vocals sound like a man whos spent too long in solitary confinement or, rather, someone whos just come to an epiphany about the ugly, emotional truths of the world. Either way, in the strains of Souled Americans soundscape exercises in musical tone and shape, you can hear Appalachia and darkness stretched to its limits. Souled American manages to find man sublime moments somewhere between abstract terror and vague, lingering familiarity. ~ Chris Handyside