The Program: Sun Kil Moon / Matthew Loiacono

Comments (4)

1. 

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   brittanybf says lookin forward to it, thanks.

   Permalink posted 04/11/2008
2. 

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   matt cleveland says You're welcome!

   Permalink posted 04/11/2008
3. 

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   bendblock says Sun Kil Moon (Mark Kozelek): April This guy has sad and mournful but soothing and ambient down to a science. If you want a real laugh you should check him out in Steve Martin's film "Shopgirl." He plays a rock n roller on tour with Jason Schwartzman's character. It's funny. Still, I feel this album lacks the punch and diversity of prior efforts. That said, there are still some stand out tracks. In particular the last track, Blue Orchids, captures what's best about this album as it seems to take the best of sleepy new age acoustic noodlings of someone like William Ackerman and blend them with ghostly out of focus images, pausing to step out of the tempo for a lovely breeze of fret-board-hammerons that send chills up any guitar player's spine. His insistence on fingerpicked, open (open D I think) tuned electric guitars gives his songs a trancey droning repetition that lulls you into submission. Overall, it's not as strong as 2003's "Ghosts of the Great Highway," a bit more alt-country but it's still a very good album. Good sleep music to marry in your playlist with Gillian Welch for those sweet sad nights. Thumbs up. Matthew Loiacono: Kentucky Old Cleveland found this for us and I'm so glad he did. Apparently part of some kind of record-an-album-in-one-month contest/exercise, this album is built around the mandolin. Apparently this guy is a mulit-instrumentalist with a band and it shows. He is not Chris Thile of Nickel Creek. I recently had the good fortune of toying around with a friend's mandolin and, as a mediocre guitar player, could begin to make some of the sounds Loiacono was building songs around. That said, he builds some great songs around simple rounding licks, and lush four plus part harmonies he multi-tracks in his bedroom. He has a wonderful voice and a sense for melody and chords and actually shifts chords with four tracks of his own voice. This, my non-bedroom-producer-wannabe friends is no easy thing. He also has the fun idea of plugging his apparently electric mandolin into a guitar amp and cranking it to 10. It's a great sound and he makes good use of it. I spun this album dozens of times this week and the next. The home recorder in me loves the way he gets his percussion from beating on the mandolin and throwing on reverb for a kick drum sound and plunking the highest notes the mandolin can make for the snare. His handclaps and snaps all thrown in over minimal instrumentation avoid campiness and somehow work with his slight southern accent to give you the sense that this meditation on Kentucky is raw and true. The first and last three tracks are stronger than the four in between but overall, this is a very good album for one month's work of a solo producer, songwriter, instrumentalist. Maybe I just "miss Kentucky and I miss my family..." but I still give Mr. Loiacono a confident thumbs up.

   Permalink posted 04/21/2008
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   matt cleveland says Matthew Loiacono Well, I sort of said what I wanted to say about this album up der...other than "I like it a lot," there's not much more to add. Sun Kil Moon I like this as much as Ghosts of the Great Highway. The long songs with the lovely rolling finger picking and the sweet electric breaks were a fitting backdrop to a couple of very rainy April weeks in Arkansas. Good stuff... Sorry about the shoddy reviews, I'm just in a bit of a musical funk this week...

   Permalink posted 04/22/2008