silence kit #4

Califone
Quicksand/Cradlesnakes [Thrill Jockey, 2003]

A few years back this dude I met, upon hearing that I’m a huge fan of Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, implored me to check out Califone. Turns out this dude was right on the money – I immediately understood why Califone are often seen as being one of the most perennially underrated bands around (a Pitchfork review quite nicely describes them as being “stupidly underappreciated”), a band led by Tim Rutili (who was also the creative force behind Red Red Meat) that produced a string of avant-rustic rock albums of wild, restlessly intricate imagery that rank easily among my favorite things this decade. Quicksand/Cradlesnakes, their second full-length and the first I heard, is quite possibly my favorite Califone record (but ask me in a few months and I might tell you different), while their other stellar albums like Heron King Blues (2004) and Roots and Crowns (2006) each have their own unique feel and are very worth checking out too. On Quicksand/Cradlesnakes, things unfold surely but slowly, like some of the better rendered Coen brothers pictures (understated noirshit like The Man Who Wasn't There and No Country For Old Men come to mind, specifically when listening to this music - though some may find more Califone affinity with the Appalachian folk music featured on O Brother, Where Art Thou?). “Horoscopic Amputation Honey” stretches and shimmers over seven fuzzy minutes to the measured pacing of a crime short story (“we’ll cut our hair and fake our deaths”). The domiciled blues of “Leon Spinx Moved to Town” and “Mean Little Seed” slither around in unpredictable trails, while the spellbinding “Michigan Girls” radiates spacey folk fumes thick enough to fill your lungs with soot. Then there is the amazing “Your Golden Ass”, the swamp rocker that throws a huge spanner into the sprawl of Quicksand/Cradlesnakes, the effect of which I've always imagined to be the sound of a thousand tin lizzies coming into life, Rutili mouthing such sweetly ominous non-sequiturs that could potentially rupture the confidence of any aspiring trafficker of stream-of-consciousness: “Early minor Japanese pitcher sidearm slow tic a wolfish mouth/ On a mouseish face lady from Shanghai 3rd man/ Shot wild in the house of mirrors vicodin itch bite/ Your lip take it all in but it ain't sticking it ain't sticking it ain't sticking it ain't sticking”