To all aspiring singer-songwriters out there, especially those who have gummed up their proverbial works with GarageBand’s additive processes, and the concepts of grandeur as big sound/big lineup/loads of instruments and geegaws: how do your songs stand up on their own? It certainly feels like there’s a lot of self-consciousness and hiding of the source amidst a lot of that kind of crap pap. Not so with Joe Kile, a New Orleans singer-songwriter who’s stripped his second album down to the bone – cracking Southern drawl to his vocals, and a shimmering austerity in his acoustic guitar, but apart from the occasional violin overdub, it’s just Kile and the wind. Even in this skeletal approach, you’ll be surprised by how much sentimentality he wrings from this collection of short songs, somewhere in between the dusty pathos of Simon Joyner and the lonesome crush of Townes Van Zandt or NYC’s own Zachary Cale. There are a few song fragments here that seem kind of slight, but they add to the sketchbook qualities of the music within, and are bolstered by even-handed playing and Kile’s winsomely hangdog singing. Overall it’s a really beautiful record with nothing to show but its own strengths, which in this case are plenty. In the old days, something like this would be considered “private press folk”; now, in an era where artists like Kile drown digitally in a sea of anonymity, the boutique pressing of 100 copies, in plain disco sleeves with a color insert, are as close as we can get to extending the traditions of obscure record collectors past. Totally recommended. (http://easternwattsrecords.com)
(Doug Mosurock)
