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Press for High Wire The Village Idiot February 2007 #38 Lamont Skylark High Wire Rock music might be dead, it's true. Its white blood cell count has at least dropped to critical levels over the past couple decades. Maybe that's what Jonathan Richmond (of Modern Lovers fame) meant in part when he sang "well the old world may be dead," in 1976. If that be the case, upon first listen to Lamont Skylark's new release, High Wire, rock and roll's withered body has alas rolled over and bumped on its coffin lid during a predominant age of sampling and butchered rip-offs. Spare, polished, and sometimes ruthless like the band's debut Love Poems and Fight Songs (that never really hit the radar in 2003), High Wire maintains the traditional harmonies that give these guys thier name, yet it gets more away from the "plain Jane" gui- tar pushy sound and explores a multitude of influences. Starting with "Troubadour Blues," frontman Lincoln Morris fuses guttural coun- ty blues reminiscent of The Stone's Exile on Main Street and the crafted narrative of an Elvis Costello or John Prine tune, dragging you over and over his own ironic self-portrait, which will have you humming unconsciously, "I'm just a pawn in a game of chance." With "Birds" (track two), the album starts layering in more keyborsds, guitars and collecting ran- dom backround noise, giving their familiar songs a more surreal and "sonic" feel. Kevin Rhodes emerges as a songwriter and chimes in with a couple ballads, "Angel" and "Mar- garet," that live on simpler melodies similar to Brian Wilson with the occasional ornery mo- ment like Nick Cave on a bad bender in a dark bar. The addition of new songs from a new voice along with heavier instrumentation and closing reprise make High Wire downright sweeping. The record is a little tough to find in stores, but you can order it through the band's website, www.lamontskylark.com and songs can be sampled on their myspace music page. Be sure to check these guys out live. That's the only place where rock and roll really lives. -Nate Perrine |
The Beat Lamont Skylark The founding members of Lamont Skylark, Lincoln Morris and Kevin Rhodes formally with the pop/rock band Mosquita Mite, have been writing and performing together for over nine years. With a new line up that includes multi-instrumentalists Bill Donovan on keys/electronica and Ted Crenshaw on bass, guitar, drums and trumpet, the band is showing signs of putting their well-worn boot heels firmly in the ground of a new strain of music. Unlike its predecessor Love Poems and Fight Songs, High Wire has a deliberately raw and experimental tone. “A lot of the first album.... was written largely out of a painful break up of my former band and a woman who broke my heart,” admits Morris. “I’ve always used pain and heartache to write. But High Wire seems to be more about the craft of songwriting.” Rhodes adds, “Sure, we have our share of personal “story” songs, but on this album we approach some songs like an abstract painter would a canvas. We collect our thoughts and observations in notebooks and when we are looking for lyrics for a piece of music, we pull from them.” “In fact,” Morris observes, “I don’t try to write songs, I write poetry.” So now with the contribution of several Rhodes songs, the use of Donovan’s experimental sounds and Crenshaw’s multi-instrumental talent the bands music has become more of a collaborative effort. Lincoln continues, “The band that best apply to what we’re doing may be The Beatles, Wilco and Sparklehorse. They take “traditional” song structures and substitute a drum machine for a part of the rhythm track or a synth instead of a pedal steel or guitar melody. It may not even be musical but it is elemental.” And if you’ve ever seen Lamont Skylark’s live shows, they immerse themselves into the elemental. Constantly changing instruments, there have been occasions when the audience has thought the show was over. “In the live setting we play a kind of musical chicken with each other between songs, says Morris. “It’s a sponataneous improvisation with delay pedals, guitar feedback, a turntable, a kaoss pad and a moog. We try to find a vibe. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. The first one to give up on it is of course the chicken. You have to be committed to finding it.” It is the commitment of “finding it” that shines through on High Wire. Transcending personal pain and heartbreak, Lamont Skylark detaches and observes it in others. Their abstract lyrics and story songs blend to produce poetic imagery that compliments the music and combines to form a rich and interesting album
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