Tuesday, September 4, 2012

#571 Dr. John - Gris-Gris

A mysterious piece of bayou jamming, shambling zombic from the mist.

It's an album that works best when it lets itself stretch into atmosphere, working as sounds that creep from beyond composition: the least successful tracks are those like Mama Roux and Jump Sturdy that end up sounding like sub-Van-Morrison faux soul. Conversely, the mostly-instrumental tracks at the album's heart might be its most thoroughly haunting, melodic and effective songs, while the opening and closing raspy drawls split the difference.

There's actually a pretty clever palindromic structure at play here:
 * 8 minutes of weird, vocal-flecked jamming
 * 3 minute upbeat song
 * 2 wispy instrumentals
 * 2 minute upbeat song
 * 8 minutes of weird, vocal-flecked jamming

Its that kinda crap that turns my album-guy crank.

It's not the kind of thing I really care to listen to, but its a got a certain magic that I gotta respect 3.5/5

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