Search - Ha Ha Tonka :: Novel Sounds of the Nouveau South

Ha Ha Tonka
Novel Sounds of the Nouveau South
Genres: Country, Alternative Rock, Pop, Rock

Track Listings (13) - Disc #1
1. Pendergast Machine
2. Hold My Feet to the Fire
3. The Outpouring
4. What Shepherds of These Hills?!
5. The Horse in Motion
6. Walking on the Devil's Backbone
7. Close Every Valve to Your Bleeding Heart
8. Word Climbing
9. Giant Strides
10. A Siege of Sorts
11. Surrounded
12. So Quiet, They're Loud
13. Thoreau in the Woods

CD Details

All Artists: Ha Ha Tonka
Title: Novel Sounds of the Nouveau South
Members Wishing: 5
Total Copies: 0
Label: Bloodshot Records
Original Release Date: 1/1/2009
Re-Release Date: 6/16/2009
Genres: Country, Alternative Rock, Pop, Rock
Styles: Americana, Indie & Lo-Fi
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPC: 744302016429

Synopsis

Product Description

Confident and cohesive, the record is a dark treaty on the violent and self destructive tendencies of society at large. Investigating morality and individual responsibility, Ha Ha Tonka take listeners on a complex tour of the South through lynchings and mob violence, sacrifice and reconciliation. On the two trails of life, how does your history affect your present, and how much can you change the future?

It's dense subject matter for any artist, but delivered beautifully on this record by Springfield, MO native sons. This record, driven but contemplative, mysterious but clean, delicate but much more guitar-heavy than the previous effort, is the next logical step in their musical journey and an amazing step, we think. From the junebug-like humming guitars that open the record on "Pendergast Machine", to the tent-revival spiritual a capellas complementing several tracks, this record is a product of whence it came. From religion ("The Holy Ghost, Brother. It's a weapon. I'm walking on the Devil's backbone" on the eponymously named "Walking on the Devil's Backbone,") to retribution ("We know that history will be the harshest judge and we are all condemned", on "What Shepherds of These Hills"), Ha Ha Tonka tackle bleak material with a sense of lightness and perseverance, and a lyrical sensibility that s sharp as a tack.

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CD Reviews

Washed in blood, and rinsed in repentance.

loce_the_wizard | Lilburn, GA USA | 07/07/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

""Novel Sounds of the Nouveau South" is, as I have discovered, an album that draws its themes from a 1907 novel, "The Shepherd of the Hills," by one Harold Bell Wright, described as "an Ozark classic." I mention this fact to set expectations a bit as this CD is a song-cycle, steeped in tradition and history, washed in blood, and rinsed in repentance.

The music is dark, Southern, and sometimes tense through the grace of understatement. Consider the opening track, Pendergast Machine, which consists of constrained guitars always on the verge of cutting loose, no drums, and a nearly spoken vocal. Perhaps I am hindered in not knowing the novel that forms the basis for this CD, but I can appreciate the stories these songs tell, infused with primal images from southern Protestantism, the echoes of the Civil War, violence and woe, and responsibility.

Before driving you away with the aura of gloom that may be coalescing about now, I would recommend you give this CD a few solid listens to enjoy what's here. I'm sort of surprised to find out this is only Ha Ha Tonka's second release (and I have not heard the band's first recording yet), as these guys seem unafraid to take chances, sometimes underplaying the solos or throwing in a bit of saloon piano or trying out some interesting percussion. Great vocals throughout and high energy guitar really keep things lively--most of the time. (I have no idea who plays what in this band or who sings---the liner notes just lists names.)

A few times the gloom and doom are nearly stifling and drag a song down to the point where I have to skip it (depending on my own frame of ming), and I'm not sure if this morality play has a happy ending or leads to transcendence. But it doesn't matter as long as I keep the volume pegged.

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