Music City Moan

Did you record your solo banjo album in a bathroom?  I want to hear it.  Your new Chicago footwork track was made entirely on your phone?  Send it over. 

Decades of listening to do-it-yourself punk bands and murky bootlegs surreptitiously recorded by jazz fanatics conditioned me to low fidelity.  I didn’t flinch at the ostensibly revolutionary sonic mayhem created by the latest wave of devil-may-care Soundcloud rappers.  Unintentional distortion, background hiss and the clatter of silverware can’t phase me.  That’s why I’m occasionally stunned by gilt-edged studio trickery. 

The sound of Miranda Lambert’s new album Wildcard floors me.  In addition to being a rollicking cosmic country album, the exquisite fidelity of Wildcard makes it moonlight as a psychedelic adventure.  Each component of the mix bounces around the sound field like a frenetic bouncing ball.  Jay Joyce, the Nashville producer closely linked to Eric Church’s success, is responsible for the album’s sonic thrills. 

I’d love Wildcard even if the production didn’t tickle my eardrums and reshuffle my synapses.  That it sounds like a shimmering version of Exile on Main Street makes it that much sweeter.


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I reviewed Celine Dion’s concert at the Sprint Center for The Kansas City Star.

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I write weekly concert previews for The Kansas City Star.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)