Browse by Artist: CALIFONE

Artist:	CALIFONE
Title:	Quicksand/Cradlesnakes
Label:	THRILL JOCKEY
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	THR 122CD

"Perhaps it was a year of touring, most recently with Wilco, or perhaps it is this combination of players, but the album brims with confidence. These songs are remindful of those written in the 70's, when blues and country blues were more prevalent influences on groups, like Fleetwood Mac or the Stones. The creative percussive touches, guitar treatments, and technical glitchery give the album it's distinct sound. The highly imaginative lyrical imagery is multi-leveled, open to more than one interpretation, Califone finds absurdity and liberation in the dark side of life, Quicksand/Cradlesnakes is rugged and elegant, dark and optimistic, familiar end entirely new. In a word it is beautiful."

Artist:	CALIFONE
Title:	Heron King Blues
Label:	THRILL JOCKEY
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	THR 135CD

"For this recording the band set out to make a record like Captain Beefheart's Mirror Man, entering the studio with a blank canvas and laying things down quickly. The resulting songs combine the bands more pop-oriented qualities alongside their more spaced out ethereal thoughts; these most often found on their Deceleration releases available on the bands own label, Perishable. The resulting sessions led to songs that were improvised or written immediately before recording, and within days a series of raw, live recordings had been completed. From there the initial recordings were chopped up, mixed around, and reassembled into the final product: a beautifully lush and patient masterpiece."

Artist:	CALIFONE
Title:	Roots & Crowns
Label:	THRILL JOCKEY
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	THR 163CD

"Califone started recording Roots & Crowns in October 2005 and worked on it in chunks at 4Deuces Studio in Chicago with Brian Deck, in Long Beach and Phoenix with Michael Krassner, and at home in Los Angeles and Chicago until May 2006. 'Some of these songs started as hummed melodies into my cell phone recorder while I was driving. Others were triggered by overheard conversations, loops brought in from home, field recordings or sounds we made in the studio before the tape was rolling,' says Rutili. The time away and each member's individual work naturally brought new elements into the sound of Califone's music. Both Rutili's and Becker's soundtrack work are more atmospheric, however, the challenge of enhancing a scene of film without cluttering it or overwhelming it informed their approach to the new recording. The burglary of Califone's equipment during the band's last tour, including guitars, banjo, a 1917 violin, bells and more, altered the sound. The band had to find new gear on a tight budget. The instruments are new partners, new sounds that forced them to stretch in new directions."

Artist:	CALIFONE
Title:	Roomsound
Label:	THRILL JOCKEY
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	THR 170CD

"The debut full length from Califone. Originally released in April of 2001, Roomsound covers the same rustic, slightly ramshackle back forty that Tim Rutili has been ploughing since at least as far back as his previous band Red Red Meat. Only this time the tilled bedrock unveils the most vividly colored, luring crop of songs Rutili has ever harvested. The sleepy, country-blues picking and autumnal backwoods melodies are accented with striking splashes of electronic tone color, obsolete keyboards and off-kilter percussion. Lyrically, Roomsound penetrates the breath of pirates, poison apples at a tango contest and the waiting room between death and canonization where missionaries have quit and 19th-century whores have been rescued for all the wrong reasons. Masterfully engineered by Brian Deck, the album is vaulted far beyond the sum of its parts. Roomsound is a hauntingly unique and distinctive record of crafted and sculpted beauty."

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