Horse Feathers - House with No Home
Artist: Horse Feathers
Album: House with No Home
Label: Kill Rock Stars
Release Date: 9/9/08
Fans of Red House Painters and Holopaw, this is your new jam. Soft, dramatic, and rich, this album sounds good on a superficial listen and great on a deeper one. Justin Ringle, the founding member of Horse Feathers, has quite a wonderful voice that can sound restrained at one moment and expansive the next, and it is this tension—in the vocals and also orchestration—that makes “House with No Home” an engaging album. The sounds fluctuate from moments of punctuation (choppy strings, Ringle’s whispered voice, finger-picked guitars) to moments of strong and sweet melody (cascading strings, Ringle’s resonant howl, and guitar strumming). Each song, then, has a few moments of release, where Ringle’s voice resounds into the strings. Quite nice. Part of this is due to Ringle’s unique voice—it’s true—but also to the collaborative nature of the music; after several years of performing under the name Horse Feathers, Ringle met up in 2004 with Peter Broderick, who now arranges the music around Ringle’s songs.
Horse Feather – “Curs in the Weeds”
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I love Ringle’s slight yodel (à la Sarah McLachlan) paired with the shrill fiddle. The sounds sway and grow, and somehow the various instruments and vocals complement one another very well.
Horse Feathers – “A Burden”
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Again, the vocals and instruments are in a balanced dance that is quite good, and the song has different phrases—the third is my favorite, starting around 2:20—which is refreshing for a low-key acoustic song.
Check out the band’s myspace, read a cool interview with Ringle, and buy the album!
Technorati Tags: Horse Feathers, Red House Painters, Holopaw
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