GLENN JONES

Glenn Jones is a unique voice working in the decades-long tradition of American Primitivism. What sets him apart from the many devotees to this style is the combination of expressive playing and technical skill, most significantly his inventive use of alternate tunings and partial capos. As anyone knows who has seen him perform, Glenn is a remarkable storyteller, and his songs reflect that talent. The songs on Glenn’s latest, My Garden State, are evocative and redolent, and serve as a testament to Glenn’s talent for conveying a wide array of emotions, many times in one song, without saying a word.

“Glenn Jones has a purist's mastery but an inventor's imagination” - The Wire

My Garden State was written in the New Jersey home where Glenn's family moved in 1966, while he was caring for his mother who suffers from Alzheimer’s. The songs and sounds on the album are reflective, but never dour or sad. My Garden State was recorded by Laura Baird in Allentown, NJ. Laura joins Glenn on the first proper song, “Across the Tappan Zee” on banjo, interweaving her plaintive melodies with Glenn’s gentle picking. Laura’s sister Meg, who was a founding member of Espers and plays with Laura as The Baird Sisters, also joins in on the final minutes of “Going Back to East Montgomery,” an eight minute long composition that showcases Glenn’s ability to craft a long form piece that is at once expansive and immediate.



The two tracks that form the centerpiece of the album, “The Vernal Pool” and “Alcoeur Gardens” were composed spontaneously in the studio, a technique Glenn developed on tour with Damo Suzuki with his former band Cul de Sac. Where “The Vernal Pool” is exuberant, “Alcouer Gardens” is sparse and quiet, with field recordings of rain and thunder providing a bed for Glenn’s guitar, emphasizing the space between the notes as much as the notes themselves. The songs on My Garden State could have been written by no one except Glenn Jones, brimming joy, sorrow, and the complex in-between that makes life worth living.

www.thrilljockey.com/thrill/Glenn-Jones

DAN MELCHIOR

An ex-patriot of Shepperton, Middx, Dan Melchior has been active in music for over 20 years, amassing a huge discography under various names (Dan Melchior’s Broke Revue, Dan Melchior und das Menace , etc). Never really fitting into the categories he has often been assigned, the last couple of years have seen a pretty radical change in his working methods.

Releases on Kye, Siltbreeze ,Chocolate Monk and L’espirit de l’escalier have taken a turn towards a rough sort of sound poetry, bereft of the polite reverence that these things usually denote, his music is intentionally slanted towards opportunities for the un-intentional to take over, in the hope that ‘mistakes’ will combine to make something outside of a projected result. His music is still loosely rooted in the D.I.Y approach of old blues and rock and roll, and for this performance he will be focused on the guitar.

Dan will be joined by Russell Walker (Pheromoans, Bomber Jackets, and collaborator with Dan in the Lloyd Pack) on vocals, for part of this performance.



danmelchior.net/