Search - Califone :: Roomsound

Nearly Perfect

Professor DADGAD | Pennsyltucky | 10/29/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"There are days when I think that this album is as close to perfect as any I own. The songs are smart, original, and well rendered. The instrumentation is an understated and erie blend of acoustic roots music, early electronica, and blues-inflected guitar work. The melodies are interesting, and stay with you, even when the words don't. The textures are delicious and hold up to repeated listening. The best thing about the album, though, is that there is nothing quite like it out there, at least that I have heard. These guys found a sound that is beautiful and creepy, edgy and slinky. I've had it in fairly heavy rotation for a year now. If you ever get a chance to see them live, do it."

" . . . we'll play a Stones' song, sittin' on a fence . . ."

Steven Kosakowski | West Coast Jazz | 02/18/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I've followed this shambling Chicago indie country-blues outfit from Red Red Meat's Jimmywine Majestic through sidewinding projects like Loftus, oRSo, sin Ropas, and the earlier Califone ep's.



There are fewer folk involved in this one (pretty much Rutili-driven, I think), and it doesn't wander off the path into thorny thickets of tape loopery as these things sometimes have in the past - what we have here is probably as focused and confident a set of fuzzed-out folk-blues as they'll ever care to release.



Think Lou Reed and John Cale playing a not entirely acoustic set with the Glimmer Twins through Ike Turner's busted amp at Sun Studios.



Highlights: bottles and bones, slow rt hand."