Al Duvall - Recluses Unite

Our review
Customer reviews
Press release

4...according to our Brett on Thu 25 Sep, 2008.

I've never come across Al Duvall before but the other boys here assure me that he's 'a talent to be reckoned with', 'the next big thing' and 'some bomb-ass shit'. On the evidence of 'Recluses Unite' I reckon they've only gone and talked some sense for once in their hopeless lives. Sounding like he's singing these brilliantly witty ditties from a 1920s New York speakeasy, these songs somehow manage to sound like a relic from a bygone era both in the recording style and the quant comedy-folk wordplay but retain a modern sensibility in some of the humour.. I imagine you'd have had a job getting away with saying some of this stuff back in the prohibition era and if you did there's not a chance on Earth you'd have had it recorded. Really there's little to say about this from a musical point of view as superficially it's just a guy singing some songs to a sparse backing of guitars or banjos but the lyrics are the key thing, they really are superb and frequently completely hilarious. Probably the best thing to do if you can't make your mind up is to have a look at some of his lyrics online and imagine them delivered in a charming, deadpan drawl. This is excellent, excellent stuff and if you're not entertained from the start of this collection to the finish there sure ain't no blood in yr veins, boy!

If you spend the evening with a bottle of whisky instead of your sweetheart, the tune you bellow out in the wee hours - with arms 'round a snake oil merchant and a boxing ballerina - could well be a ditty from the mind of Al Duvall. Al’s wicked vaudevillian hits are crafted on banjo, kazoo, and various percussive detritus. These 'gentle but deadly' songs are drawn from the working-class music of pre-war America, blending jug-band, medicine show, music-hall, and Victorian parlor ballads.
Al is a regular performer in New York's finest backrooms, bordellos and tango tea houses, most recently playing alongside Australia's own C.W STONEKING. This is Al's sixth release and his second on Sydney's dualPLOVER, following 2006's The Timid Mischief. Al spins as fine a tale as can be heard on tin-pan alley, and ‘recluses unite’ is no exception.
Al delivers a loving backhand to the fringe dweller in this expertly crafted collection of aural ephemera. With an overdose of morbid puns and sly innuendo, 'Recluses Unite' is the perfect primer for any aspiring vagrant.

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