The demise of the major label’s business has primarily been a result of tanking full album cd sales. As a result they have started, and will continue to, de-emphasize that product category. As always when the big labels move away from something there will grow a niche market to fill in the gaps. I can imagine the day when we bemoan the demise of the cd album and welcome those few artists that continue to release their music in that format. With the trend going towards smaller units of music (singles, eps, etc.) it’s surprising to hear about double albums from major artists, and even more so, from an independent. That’s why at first I was perplexed by the two cd set that arrived in my mailbox the other day from Canadian (by way of England) Mark Davis on the new Calgary label Saved By Radio. Who would put out such a record in this age of cutting and running, cheap singles and short attention spans?
This post has been stewing for about a week now. With so much music over two discs I’m not sure quite how to approach it. It seems that each record is it’s own entity and also part of the whole. The lineup on Mistakes I Meant To Make is stripped down, mostly just Mark Davis on a variety of stringed instruments, while on Don’t You Think We Should Be Closer? there’s a fuller, larger sound fleshed out by pedal steel, electric bass, lead guitar, backing vocals and the whole shebang. On first listen it also seems as if the records are themateically different as well, with Mistakes being relentlessly down while hope is at least proffered on Don’t You Think. I’m not a huge fan of riyls but with this release it’s hard to imagine a fan of Richard Buckner, J. Tilman, Johnny Dowd or Jim White being disappointed with these albums. Unfortunately a skimpy blog post is not going to do these records any justice, if you like what you hear find a way to track these down. Contact Mark’s label, Saved By Radio, or the man himself through his MySpace page.
By The Time (from Mistakes)
Saved By Radio (from Don’t You Think)
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Moviola hold a special place in my blogger heart. I wrote about them way back when I started Songs:Illinois back in 2004. Dead Knowledge is the new record being put out on June 2 by Catbird Records. Ryan from Catbird spent 15 years in Columbus, Ohio (before moving to NYC) and if the best thing that comes out of that time is this new record from Moviola than we should be thankful he stayed so long. The cd is 16 tracks with a side a and side b and a blank space recorded in between. This doesn’t have that blogger friendly frantic energy sound which means you’ll probably still be listening to it 6 months from now.
Street date is June 2nd but you can buy this now from Catbird Records here.