“Its origins go back to Hawaii, was picked up by Spanish and Portuguese sailors, then made its way eastward. Son Volt pushes that angle to the limit on “Exiles,” a song about how the American government has failed the individual citizen, that features Chris Masterson and Mark Spencer on dueling lap steels.”I’ve always been fascinated by the pedal steel. In their place, most prominently, are the pedal steel and lap steel, both often noted for the melancholic effect they lend to country music. ![]() The effect was not quite jubilant, but it loosened things up, and tended to obscure the fact that Farrar’s lyrics were filled with images of slow hearses, hurricanes and earthquakes, methamphetamine and the heartlessness of the automated society.”The approach there was more about trying out instruments we hadn’t used before,” said Farrar, who used a different lineup of musicians on “American Central Dust” than on previous Son Volt albums.On “American Central Dust,” those instruments are gone. There, Farrar – working under the name of Son Volt, the band he launched in the mid-’90s – incorporated horns and backwards guitar loops into his usual foundation of acoustic and pedal steel guitars. I don’t know if it’s like a moth drawn to a flame or not.”Actually, if there is a Jay Farrar album that might be called optimistic, it would be the previous one, 2007’s “The Search,” at least in terms of the sound. The darker side of emotional life can be captivating. “Maybe my definition of optimism is a little different than the norm. Louis, where he was starting band rehearsals for the upcoming tour. His singing voice is dry and direct.And, as Farrar observes, his standards for sanguinity are fairly skewed.”Someone else called ‘dire optimism,’ which I thought was pretty interesting,” said Farrar from his home in St. The 42-year-old Midwesterner is stiff onstage, deadly earnest in his writing, and generally grim-faced in photographs. For one thing, it’s hard to picture him joking around, and certainly not in the context of an interview. For fun, Farrar revisits the anecdote about Keith Richards mixing his father’s dusty remains with some cocaine, and snorting up the concoction, in “Cocaine and Ashes.””This record is relatively optimistic,” is Farrar’s summation of his latest work. “Hell was a better place that night,” he concludes. The album has Jay Farrar, the singer-songwriter who leads the band’s ever-shifting lineup, reflecting on Hurricane Katrina in “Pushed Too Far,” and thinking about the moribund economy in “When the Wheels Don’t Move.” It’s not only on modern-day America that Farrar casts his dark eye: On “Sultana,” he dredges up the 1865 explosion of the Mississippi River paddlewheel boat – “the worst American disaster of the maritime,” he calls it, one that killed perhaps 1,800 people. WaughSon Volt, led by singer-songwriter Jay Farrar, center, performs Thursday, July 9 at Belly Up Aspen.ĪSPEN – It’s doubtful that anyone will turn to “American Central Dust,” the new album (set for release Tuesday, July 7) by Son Volt, for a light-hearted pick-me-up. Son Volt is hitting the road with the Magnolia Electric Co. Before the release of the Okemah album, many fans (myself included) were beginning to wonder if Jay still owned an electric guitar, let alone played one, so, in that regard, these “electrified” LPs are a welcome return to form. ![]() Farrar tends to have two creative sides he likes to mine much like Neil Young, he opts for a) quiet, pensive, acoustic based songcraft, or b) all out classic rock guitar attacks. If you’re an existing Farrar/Son Volt fan, count on the same comfortable terrain mapped out on previous Farrar incarnations stretching back to the Uncle Tupelo days. The album, as a whole, excels in it’s simplicity i.e., do not expect a reinvention of the wheel. Following up 2005’s Guthrie inspired Okemah and the Melody of Riot, The Search feels like a natural progression with it’s extended (electric) instrumentation, socio-political lyrics, and Farrar’s trademark rough-hewn drawl. ![]() Beginning his new album with a song that sounds like a coda, Jay Farrar’s re-tooled Son Volt returns to retail shelves today via The Search.
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