Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Michael Hughes - Cold Rain Water

Hear The Track Here

Hows this for serendipity. Who likes 'post-punk stuff, machine music, jazz, 20th/21th century classical, contemporary acoustic-based music, American roots-oriented stuff, early country, African & Middle Eastern music'? Moreover who bangs on endlessly to anyone who will listen about the magical properties of Waves (and no, not the wet kind)? Such a description could be applied to yours truly but not in this case. Michael Hughes is the man of the hour, a Maine-based acoustic player who has just won the first Critics Corner competition - which is why I am wittering on about it now. Seriously, this track was up against some big time competition, but the votes are what counts.

Anybody who can field and play ukeles, banjos, steel guitars, dobros and endless other fascinating toys is gonna be A-fekkin-OK in my books. I love all manner of stringed instruments especially the kind named above, and more so when they are used in living, breathing country music. That is what Cold Rain Water promises to be on your first listen before it detours into some very interesting nooks and crannies; including some Eastern European strains of mandolin playing. Its easy to see why this won and I am glad that I didn't listen to the tracks beforehand because I would have been seriously biased towards this from the get go.

As such, I've been getting used to it since the competition finished but having said that it hasn't been far away from the start button either. Its not the raucous, yeehaaah fest I was expecting that's for sure; it's a much darker, complex song than the intro leads you to believe. Country fans will either see its instant appeal or they will be so far up their purist asses they couldn't even see daylight. Me, I loved this dour, sparse little track and will no doubt be playing it many more times before the year is out. All I want now is a track from them where they REALLY let rip. Yep, that would be a sight to behold.

MUST HAVE country genius (yep, that word. Listen to the track)

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