Search - Nels Cline, Andrea Parkins, Tom Rainey :: Downpour

Essential Nels

Pharoah S. Wail | Inner Space | 06/08/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Buy it. Andrea Parkins on accordion and laptop computer, Tom Rainey on drumset, and Nels Cline on electric guitar. (You already know the line-up if you're reading this on the product page, but I've noticed that now if you read a person's reviews from their personal page, no artists/band names are given, just the album title).



If you're coming at this from the perspective of Nels being a brilliant improvisor who doesn't need songs to guide him...buy this. A couple months before Ash and Tabula: Out Trios, Vol. 3 was released I was waiting waiting waiting for it, and then it came out when my mood had passed, and I haven't gotten around to getting it yet. Then this came out, so I bought it because I was still curious about this band, and now I wonder how the Out Trios album could possibly top it.



Recorded: 5/20/06 at the Victo de FrenchityWhatever Festival in Canada (what has always seemed to be a great festival, based on the label, line-ups and past releases). Now that Nels has the big Wilco fanbase, I don't know what you'll think of this if that is you, but if you're the Nels fan who loves him in wide open environments where imagination is King... you know, big time sonic painting, where songs and changes and pre-determined meters aren't required... you should love this. On my first listen I didn't have time for a 35+ minute track (track 1), so I decided to spend 18 or so with track 2. Psychic devastation! I was sold on Downpour right there. The final 13 or 14 minutes of track 2 are worth the price of the cd. You could listen to this track and think Nels had sat in with Slayer earlier that night and was in the mood for more. It's not all that way though, if that's scaring you away. Somehow this band also manages to paint your brain with dreamland carousels in fractured fairytales. When track 2 ends, my heart breaks. They are killin right then!



I find track 1 has a couple short lulls and the last few minutes kinda fall apart, but it's twice as long as track 2 and when it's happening it's really happening, and alot of it is happening. It travels completely different territory than track 2. There's some delicate beauty to go along with the freaked-out intergalactic Transformer beams of darkness. This album is a whole band effort, and Andrea and Tom deserve big hugs all around. Still, Nels... good lord. More well-known Nels albums like The Giant Pin and Instrumentals (save for Lowered Boom) wilt in the light of this performance. He is an endless fountain of hallucinatory creativity. His playing here will surprise and delight you all over again, in whole new ways. It's unlike anything I've ever heard him play before, and right up there as some of the best he's ever released.



This had to be one of the premiere sets of the whole festival. 1 listen to this and you know people were blown away by it. Thankfully those of us who couldn't be there still get this fine, essential document of it to enjoy at home.



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