The album NEW WORLD SENATE at Mindawn.
http://www.mindawn.com/albums/1630
Maria Daines review of NEW WORLD SENATE:
I finally got to hear the new Sahib Radio album....
Being a huge fan of Sahib's music I knew I was going to like what I heard. But this has to be better than I ever expected and I'm no reviewer, but I had to write about this startling piece of work, and in doing so, attempt to convey my total admiration for this artist and his music. Yes, I'm spreadin' the news to all 'would be' Sahib Radio fans potentially all over the world. At this moment in time I am so blown away I see the world I inhabit as two simple halves, you're either a Sahib fan or you're not! This music is other worldly, heck I'm all mixed up, this is the effect of my journey into 'New World Senate' an album to rock you out of the doldrums.
So where do I start, oh boy yes this is hard. OK, I'll just start. If the recording industry doesn't pick up on this almighty talent within my lifetime then I will know what I have suspected for years, is true - they don't know a gift to their bank balances or their conscience even when it's written on the wall in TEN FOOT HIGH LETTERS, SIGN THIS MAN YOU IDIOTS!! Of course Sahib may not want to be signed, and I shouldn't really be so caustic when it comes to speaking of the corporation 'big boy' stronghold, after all the independent movement is hardly taking over the world yet or even competing at shoulder level (would it want to? Probably not...) But hey, let's appreciate and celebrate - crow about something truly original when we hear it, or are we all becoming complacent in an attempt to fit in these days? I don't think 'we' meaning the indie community are at all complacent but I know one thing, mainstream music could really do with the biggest shake up, and of course they will most certainly miss out on this unusual and unique artist because Sahib Radio's music doesn't fit in anywhere... That's why I love it.
I hardly know how to write on this subject. This artist's ideas are a million miles away from a sensible writing structure, this material is not even thought out to the degree that I would imagine most writers plan their tracks, it sounds splashed out in rolls of bitter mayhem, more fabric than tuneful, neither detailed or phased fluently to please, these lyrical crosspatch lines are grit-like musical passages, they hang like ice off a tree, frozen in the memory of some wrath torn Sahib happening, and are destined to follow no classic phrase book entity or indeed reason, no. Like hand-written prophecies of doom, or one-legged passionate scenarios of guilt and hunger, these story lines are cut from a different mental and physical cloth, we all could use a little Sahib Radio mindset in our lives at times, if only to remind us that we are merely mortal and our wounds are raw. Get your pleasure where you can, get it and savour it and never let it go. At least absorb the emotion while your stereo is bearing fruit. This album is one to chew on forever and never lose the taste. I'm talking in blanks here, but I'm firing on all cylinders, never before have I heard such captivating shrines to memory, set like bones in the brick work of a hard life lived to express and repair, until these songs. This album is one helluva rival to the glory and pathos of Tom Waits. You cannot ignore this, you just have to live with it or you ain't got no soul.
I know I'm rearing my head above an ugly parapet here and there is no good luck in the music business, only bad luck and good favour. Not 'what you know' but 'who you know' and all those stiflingly sick clichés, and yes I'm blurting this out as I listen to the songs and I can hardly type because I can't say what I know should be said about this music, properly, by an educated geezer with a degree or at least 'intelligent' intelligence. But nevertheless I'm having a go, because this is one of the most important albums of our times (in my humble opinion) and certainly if this thing doesn't grow wings and fly it will always remain one of the most beautiful tides of the lost ever to sway in the sea of my life.
The title track listing reads like a passage from some modern day Shakespearean vagabond's leftover prose-
New World Senate
Lost In Egypt
Blame It On The Moon
Blackberry Wine
Two Dollar Watch
Down To Charleston
This Place Don't Ever Change
He'll Be Back
Cold Axe
When Will I Know
Whipping Boy
Boomtown
Gotta Go
If Ever
Stripped Down Clean
Strange Things Indeed
Keep The Change
And then the music begins... And we are immersed in some 'other' genre, some other place that didn't exist until now. A bolt hole maybe, a reverie, a vessel of escape, a rocking chair? No, not quite that comfortable, possibly a bourbon stained oak table, a circle of thieves n' liars, flashy toothless gold rust money lenders with a set of ragged cards passing like bullets between their knuckles, Sahib's music is the joy amid the rot of a broken gun sale party... The distance in this music is up close and dangerous, I could say don't listen to it on your own but that's going too far, just don't listen to it without your mobile phone at hand, you may want to share your thoughts soon after with as many soul mates as you can count on twelve fingers.
So what are the illuminating qualities?
I don't have enough time in a week to get anywhere near the hub of this collection's importance and as I said, though I love writing I always fall down on the grammar and the literature and I'm never going to be in the same league as the likes of Steve Gilmore, Steve has the background facts when he writes for music, the experience and the word power, I'm just a fellow indie songwriter with a lust for great music and a wish to shout about it when I have the time, or when, as in this case, I am propelled to do so by the sheer force of the fodder. There are many, many wonderful independent artists that light my fire, the Gaslight District, William Troniak, Guy Michetti, and Chapa, to name but a few, but there is only one Sahib Radio, his poetic and possibly at times personal commentary is a backdrop to those dull days when you're not thinking about music or even life, when you're just going about your usual itinerary to routine motion, and suddenly you are brought up sharp by a swift kick in the ear. That's the power of a different kind of song, it makes you stop what you are doing and give it some respect. Well I can only point you in the direction of what I felt, but there are too many stand out lines to write about each song in one review, the content is immense and I feel these works could be pored over at colleges in years to come.
The album is brought into broodingly temperamental focus by Sahib (and I'm guessing) some close musician friends who are credited for playing instruments on certain tracks, I wonder how it must feel to share this artist's vision for the duration of the recording process, I imagine they have a damn good time and who wouldn't! If these usual suspects are hand chosen instrumentalists it would make sense to me, you wouldn't want to hand these beauties over to just anyone, this small and tight knit team have got all the handle on these songs they need, often the tunes are gently troubling and I get the feeling Sahib would rather walk over hot coals than have strangers tampering with this missiles (excuse how rude this sounds) - this is a home brew of the headiest kind, the difference between economy wine at super duper mart, or a recipe passed on by an ancient uncle who could blow heads off with his steaming elderberry firewater! I know which I'd prefer.
So to the tracks....
Which to talk about, which to pick out as being 'the' stand out module to sum up this box of candid musical photographs, hmmm, this is the problem. So again I'll just start rambling...
Title track 'New World Senate' is possibly the product of one man's view of an ailing world and his feelings of helplessness within the great scheme of things, much as an insect in a hive of activity might experience when the crust of his nest is being showered by kill all wasp spray, there is a feeling of no entry or exit from a whirl of emptiness looming from the outside in. Endurance is the word that springs to mind, and Sahib is the master of lyrics to skewer a mouthful of fear and render it meat for the pie. The vocal line in this piece is a dagger in an open cut, not graceful, more reckless, like an argument that should never take place between friends, the understanding I have whilst listening is summed up by a gulp of unease, and definitely recognition that such lines as 'out with the old, bring on the clowns' and 'out with the new, there's not much you're going to be able to do'. Here is a stab at vocalising all that is wrong on this spinning chaos we call earth, our home. The line up is Sahib; Guitars, drum program, vocals: Dean Cortez; Bass, backing vocals: Danny Steven; Keys, percussion, and it's a lively rumpus pulling in the same direction on this feast of apparent disassociation with the world's galloping disorder. The same line up can be heard in various Sahib tracks, the full crew sometimes or occasionally one or two of the above players and on certain songs with the addtion of Sara Makenzie on percussion.
'Blackberry Wine' takes in a view of the ashes of long kindled love, kind of looking at the knots that bind relationships rather than the scattered years of turbulence and joy that most of us know, and along with this Sahib delves headfirst into the joining and the parting of the everlasting cycle that props us up and swipes us down simultaneously, his interjections, written from all the perspectives and colours of rotten life and it's staggeringly coarse underbelly, rip from a throat alluding to the fear we all might harbour, that the creaking wagon of old age albeit amusing can scare the pants off us but also pour fuel into the affectionate corners of our hearts, despite the cumbersome drama and sadness of grey age as it takes us slowly. In this piece Sahib's voice is croakingly mellow, complimenting the jaunty melody that rings out almost homely, not something he is known for, yet the instrumentation is perfect to allow navigation of the concerned lines 'One day it's winter, the next the fourth of July' and other mesmerising statements of our human fragility 'The child that's born grows into a man and the old man dies' the song self manages a truthful picture of all our tomorrow's 'He was there for a moment and now he's gone...' The simplicity is generated by empathy and one thing this artist does to the listener is show the mirror of our fate shining like shadows on water.
I could go on, and I may even come back to this review and write about the tracks I have not had time to include today, if only life were as pleasant as that, to be able to do what one wants at any given time, no, no such luxury. But if I can help to bring this wonderful piece of art to the attention of a few more people then I will be really happy. It's not often we are able to share something that grabs our imaginations complete in its task, and yet ever straying to some wider horizon that we are maybe not a part of, though this music would fold us into it's depths and leave us wrapped, devoured.
I'll finish by saying that as an independent community and so called 'do it yourself artists' we maybe all aspire to something greater than our beings, greater than our home studios and our limited budgets, we try, try and try again, we bang our heads against the walls and wish for recognition for a line or a melody or a song which will go on after us, and so we should always hope for that shared experience of being as one through our creativity, and undoubtedly the pleasure of music is endless, it unites us to reach for more than we are. Some of us may strive and struggle and for some it is as easy as breathing. For Sahib Radio I believe inspiration is each breath he takes, and without the ability to convey his life's crooked path in song he would not be the endearingly formidable character artist that he is today.
If you like your music bashed up and fixed all back together with a rusted screw and some hangin' twine then look no further. 'New World Senate' is the Pulp Fiction of the Independent music scene.
Just one more thing, the track that got me here this afternoon contained the suspiciously cantankerous lyric 'Get me the remote, and go away' and a beat later 'come back n' check on me' - if ever there was a man that didn't need checking on! So if you don't have enough time to hear this whole album then bookmark it, listen to it soon, buy it today/tomorrow but get it for keeps somehow! And if you are still not convinced then check out the track 'Somewhere In Between' - this is surely a piece of us all...
Maria Daines
May 2006
