Larkin Grimm
Parplar
A Norman Records recommendation (19th December 2008)
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Description: | amazing CD on Young God |
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| Format: | CD | |
| Label: | Young God | |
| Price: | £12.49 | |
| Cat#: | YG37 | |
| Availability: |
despatched in 1 working day |
This record left our Phil feeling ecstatic.
Larkin Grimm then. Not really heard of her until I heard her new album which blew me away and now I know loads about her. My favourite Larkin fact is that she has no permanent address and that she lives in a tent in summer. Nice. If only we had a nomad appeasing climate here. We got a promo of this a month or 2 ago and I've not been able to put the thing down. In a word 'Parpler' is genius. The songwriting on it is simply tremendous. Put simply it's great stripped-down folk music but I think that's doing the album an injustice as there's so much more going on. The album opens with the gentle 'They Were Wrong' which is as beautiful as it is depressing and it lulls you into a false sense of security. 'Cos straight after that is the bouncy Appalachian folk style 'Ride That Cyclone' which is a barn stomping foot stomping yee haw of a tune. In fact the whole album is full of songs in different styles that fit together like layers in a trifle. Trifle though..... bit wrong I reckon. This album is well earthy.... in fact she sounds like the ultimate earth woman. My favourite tune on the album is 'Blond And Golden Johns'..... it's so gentle and tuneful yet mysterious. Her voice is fantastic. It's well pagan sounding as well.... If I was gonna describe this album in a soundbite I'd say it's the best pagan Americana album you'll probably own this year or more poetically I may it sounds like an Americana ice cream in an Appalachian cone with some pagan sprinkles on. Fans of The Angels of Light (who play on on the album), The Wicker Man soundtrack and Nick Cave will love this. It's a seriously good record. and it's one of the albums I own where I like every song on it. That doesn't happen too often! CD only a the mo but we can one day hope Young God will do a vinyl pressing. Though given the history of the label thats not massively likely. Young God don't release many things but when they do they're usually fantastic. Without sounding like a knob I reckon this is utterly essential.
Based on 1 reviews. (Add yours)
This record left Carpy feeling ecstatic.
Whilst it's true that Young God Records have a ridiculously high hit rate (ie nearly everything) it's also true that you never quite know what you're going to get, even if you think you have a handle on the boundaries that Mr Gira works within. This album proves the latter true but without spoiling the run of form.
Grimm's album is a lot to take in on first spin. At 15 tracks (and nearly as many ideas) you have to spin it again to even start to get a handle on it but you most certainly won't mind that. Each play proves there's more in common than you thought with her chants to electronica, conventional folk to intimate croons.
Also of note is the willingness for a track to be as long as it needs to be. If it has to be 90secs then it is, with no pandering to the typical or expected track norms. That keeps everything instant and fresh, leaping out of the speakers amazingly.
Expect this album to be in the 'best of 2008' lists for those that have heard it and if you haven't then why not? You really should, you know.
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What their label says...
Larkin Grimm is a force of nature, a self-made woman with an elemental voice from somewhere under the earth. Depending on her mood, she moans like a woman-in-full, wails like a banshee, or coos like a crazed little girl. Born 26 years ago in Memphis, Tennessee, to hippie devotees of the religious cult The Holy Order Of MANS, raised by multiple parentsin the commune environment of the cult until age six, Grimm spent the remainder of her youth in the Appalachian mountains of Georgia after the cult disbanded. With five siblings and challenged economic circumstances, she won a full scholarship to Yale to study art. During her time at the Ivy League university, she also traveled in Thailand, Guatemala, and spent a few months hitchhiking and living by herself in a tent in Alaska. A Cherokee Indian shamanessnamed Jezebel saved her from being eaten.After temporarily dropping out of school to hang out for a couple years with eco warriors, vagabonds, and sexual deviants in Olympia, Washington, Grimm returned to Yale, where she was a member of Dirty Projectors for a while. Upon graduation, she moved to Providence, where she was an active participant in the citys noise scene and made a few albums of improv/free-form songs for Secret Eye Records. Grimm books her own tours, travels light by herself, and lives in a tent during the warmer months. She has no permanent address and doesnt want one. Grimms taste for music comes from her old-time fiddler and singer father and her folksinger mother. She naturally developed into an absolutely gifted singer, fingerpicker, and multi-instrumentalist. Shes shared bills with Devendra Banhart, Spires That In The Sunset Rise, Espers, Brightblack Morning Light, Entrance, Viking Moses, The Microphones, and Old Time Relijun. Parplar was co-produced by Michael Gira and was recorded at Old Soul Studio in Catskill, NY, and Seizures Palace in Brooklyn, and mixed at Trout Recording. Grimm truly rises to the occasion on the album, which features absolutely stellar vocal performances of songs that are soulful, whimsical, sensual, and bizarre. The production is as varied and unpredictable as Grimm herself. The list of guest musicians includes Young Gods new luminaries Fire on Fire, members of Bostons Beat Circus, and Old Time Relijun, as well as various revolving members of Angels of Light.
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