domingo, 30 de noviembre de 2008

16 Horsepower - Olden (2003)


16 Horsepower - Olden (2003)
Mp3 @ 192 kbps -89 MB


A peculiar release for a band with only four full length albums, one E.P. and a live album. "Olden" marks the 10th anniversary of the band's first recording sessions.
12 tracks recorded over a two year period, 6 live tracks and two interview snippets. Despite being a hodgepodge assembly, "Olden" is remarkably coherent. 16 of the tracks made it to later albums and only two songs "Train Serenade" and "Slow Guilt Trot" make their debut here.
While many would consider this an unnecessary, redundant release, it is actually superior in many ways to the major label versions that would appear later. These versions are much more gritty, earthy and unpolished, a sound that suits 16HP creaky bandoneon, jangly guitars, plunking banjo and haunting vocals quite well.
Standout tracks include the apocalyptic "Coal Black Horses", the hypnotic "My Narrow Mind" and the driving "Slow Guilt Trot."



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domingo, 23 de noviembre de 2008

16 Horsepower - Folklore (2002)





16 Horsepower - Folklore (2002)
Mp3 @ VBR kbps -60 MB

Alternative Country Gotico?

Suena raro, pero de alguna manera encaja más que nunca con los 16 Horsepower que nos encontramos en Folklore. Dos años después de Secret South - su disco más celebrado y tras el paréntesis "Hoarse" en forma de directo, el trió de Denver conmemoró su decimo aniversario con la lúgubre sobriedad de lo que seria la banda sonora ideal para un western crepuscular en blanco y negro en el que no ganan los buenos.


David Eugene Edwards, Pascal Humbert y Jean-Yves Tola mezclan composiciones originales con unas muy personales adaptaciones de Hank Williams, la Carter Family y temas tradicionales de Hungría, Tuvá, Norteamérica.


Si Ian Curtis hubiese nacido en Arizona probablemente habría acabado haciendo algo así.

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lunes, 17 de noviembre de 2008

16 Horsepower - Hoarse (2001)






Mp3 @ 192 kbps -90 MB´

16 Horsepower may very well be the best live show around today. Onstage, they deliver an intensity that has nothing to do with pyrotechnics or flash of any kind and everything to do with the band's (especially singer/songwriter David Eugene Edwards') vision. The music is at once visceral and diaphanous, smacking you in the gut, then retreating like fog when you turn your head. The ghosts of Appalachia are here, as is the spirit of Leadbelly and any Chatauqua tent preacher. Demons (worldly and otherwise) babble and shriek and tempt, the voice of God is hard to hear and harder to follow, but always just in front and just behind you as you listen. And these polar extremes are always contained within all of us - that is the genius of the message brought home by seeing 16HP live. It's not a unique idea that all people consist of good and evil impulses, but watching Edwards bent over the microphone and banjo or accordion, you FEEL it in the same way that looking at film footage of an earthquake is different from watching the plaster crack in your apartment while you listen to that unbelievable low tearing noise that no truck or train or man-made sound could match.
"Hoarse" is the next best thing to seeing the band live. Though 16 Horsepower have no "hits" in the money-driven, radio sense of the word, this disc is loaded with much of their best material: Brimstone Rock, Black Soul Choir, Low Estate, American Wheeze and others are given full-throttle treatment.

I've also always maintained that you can tell a great deal about a band by whom they choose to cover, and how well they make the songs they cover their own. On "Hoarse", 16 Horsepower prove no less formidable in this respect: versions of songs by Joy Division, The Gun Club, and Creedence Clearwater Revival are indications of the band's diverse influences. And what versions they are! "Bad Moon Rising" is transformed from a major-key uptempo folk-rocker in the hands of Fogerty into a creepy, minor key backwoods warning. Lines like "hope you are quite prepared to die" and "one eye is taken for an eye" have a menacing, this-is-just-around-the-corner feel that sounds like it should have always been there in the song. Frankly, if you look just at the words of the tune, it's easy to imagine 16 Horsepower's terrifying rendition being the music that should have accompanied them in the first place.

The best bands have always presented a unique view of the world which draws you in and leaves you no other way to relate to the world for the duration of the music. Afterwards, some of that vision becomes part of your own, and you are changed forever. Sixteen Horsepower are the sound of the crossroads, and this disc is a perfect introduction.


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16 Horsepower - Secret South(2000)



16 Horsepower - Secret South(2000)
Mp3 @ 192 kbps -96 MB

On this, their third full-length studio album, Sixteen Horsepower has proved what their long-time fans have always known: no one else is doing this kind of music quite this well! The musical landscape of Secret South is something akin to the Appalachian woods: deep and complex. There are so many layers here that you will find something new nearly every time you experience these eleven songs. Frontman, David Eugene Edwards, who says he wrote this album at the piano, has set aside many of the instruments that made their sound so unique in the past. What do we have left? One incredible piece of artistry.
What may strike loyal fans as something a bit different is the change in mood on this album. There are far fewer pot-boilers here as there were in the past. Sure "Clogger" kick-starts the album with some real fire, but the sustaining 'feel' of the whole project is more of water rising to a rolling boil. "Cinder Alley" and "Splinters" (two of my early favorites here) are great examples. To compare the beginning and ending of the songs you might not have guessed Edwards and co. would `go there.' These guys, instead of torching gasoline-soaked bonfires like they have in the past, turn up the flame slowly. Soon the songs are well-ablaze. "Strawfoot" is a great example of how you may find yourself listening intently at the subtle beginning but soon discover your toes are tapping.


What I hear here is the sound of a group of musicians who have matured to the point of restraint. They have proven they can rock many times in the past, and with great success! Here the musical artistry is more controlled and, as a result, becomes even more beautiful. The addition of strings has provided a 'lushness' in places that was missing before. Dare I say it, 16hp at times sound elegant!


Lyrically these songs are as gripping and unforgettable as ever. "Praying Arm Lane" and "Poor Mouth" are among the finest pieces David has ever written. Familiar denizens of the dark land where 16hp is wont to inhabit are back for return appearances: Christ, Satan, persevering saints and woe-begone sinners. Of special note here are several references to Narnia (in "Clogger," "Splinters" and "Just Like Birds"). Witness the power of a redeemed imagination in David's tremendous writing. It rarely gets any better than this!


One song I keep going back to is "Nobody 'Cept You," the Dylan cover. This has been a favorite of those who have seen 16hp live, but now we have it for keeps! Thanks, guys! For me Secret South proves right (once again) those of us who consider ourselves 16hp "pushers." We traffic in their music. We even try to get our friends addicted, and sometimes it works! I consider Secret South tremendous ammunition for spreading the fame of my favorite band. Let's just pray they don't stay such a secret much longer
..

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domingo, 16 de noviembre de 2008

16 Horsepower - Low Estate (1997)



16 Horsepower - Low Estate (1997)
Mp3 @ 192 kbps -96 MB

Denver's 16 Horsepower have everything that the current irony ladened 90s pop bands lack - conviction, passion, and some damn fine rocking tunes. Singer/Lyricist David Eugene Edwards creates a world of extremely nasty spiritualism with a fire & brimstone passion that makes an agnostic like myself envious of the faithful. Their instrumentation is deliciously anachronistic, employing concertinas, a hurdy-gurdy and some fine banjo playing along with the more traditional guitar-bass-drums line up, with some excellent organ-playing by producer/P.J. Harvey associate John Parish. That they are as of mid-February without a record label is an atrocity. However, a band with this level of raw talent and power will not be silenced by the verities of the business world. Side Note: I saw them opening for Nick Cave here in L.A., and their performance nearly matched old Saint Nick's intenisty and sheer overwhelming power. Nearly.

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lunes, 3 de noviembre de 2008

16 Horsepower - Sackcloth'N'Ashes


MP3 @192 80 MB

With its use of banjo, accordion, lap steel, and stand-up bass and its songs about creaking pine porches, shallow graves, prison shoes, and big horses, Sixteen Horsepower would seem to be drawing from the same ancient wells of Americana as the Band. The Band, however, handled this tradition from a working-class perspective of Monday morning blues and Saturday night release. By contrast, Sixteen Horsepower takes the leisure-class approach of existentialist angst, bad college poetry, and no release whatsoever. Edwards simply throws evocative phrases together without bothering to make one fit with the other. Such a technique could be called "experimental," but it could also be called "lazy." Drummer Jean-Yves Tola and bassist Keven Soll help Edwards create a spare, agitated, rock & roll string-band sound behind his doom-and-gloom howlings

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