Davenport
Free Country
Davenport
Free Country
"Dirt-soaked dirges and country-fried jams filter through the backwoods of their
Madison, Wisconsin home on "Free Country." This is the beginning. This is the
moment Davenport was truly born. Clay Ruby and his clan bring us an album full
of diamonds and pearls. Conjuring up the spirits of No Neck Blues Band and
Jackie-O Motherfucker, Ruby and his primitive choir sing late into the night.
The entire proceedings are a celebration of the journey. Where it leads is of
no consequence, but embarking on a trek to find something new is what matters.
Davenport sheds their glacial skin on "Free Country" in order to show-off their
organic side. We all must give something back to where we came from, and with
this 70+ minute mass, the Earth gets her due. This ramshackle, lackadaiscal
jamboree leaves no stone unturned and, even after dozens of CD-R & cassette
releases, proves to be Davenport's defining moment. One listen and we all will
be sitting around singing, long after the fires burn out."
--Brad Rose
"We've been loving Davenport for a good long while now, but they were one of
those bands who hovered ghostlike in the world of ultra limited cd-r's and
limited-to-50-copies lathe cuts and thus we were never able to get more than a
few copies of any of their records until now. Free Country is the first proper
cd release we've had from this gorgeously mysterious outfit and the title
couldn't more perfectly reflect the music inside. Completely free country,
loosed from the restraints of typical twang and instead posessing some haunting
otherworldly magic, occupying an impossible space somewhere between
Jackie-O-Motherfucker, Scott Tuma, the No Neck Blues Band, Souled American,
Avarus, Smithsonian Folkways and all of the wraith like purveyors of whir and
drone we dig so much. This is still, somehow, some bizarre strain of country
music, but it's filtered through foresty folk and free noise and tribal clatter
and all the other stuff that informs what is sometimes referred to now as new
weird America. It's really hard to describe. Nashville via Finland via the
American Southwest maybe? Harry Smith's Anthology of abstract free folk and
minimal country? Drone country? They all hint at the sweet mystery of this
record but fall just short of truly describing how fucking beautiful it really
is. Free Country is a series of dark, droning, sweetly melancholic sonic
abstracts, all cobbled together from warm washes of organ, swirls of tone
generators and simple muted percussive thumps, skittery casios and simple twangy
guitar melodies, keening fiddles, grizzled old-blues-guy vocal samples, smears
of impossibly lovely ambience, stretches of whispery almost-krautrock like
rhythms, delicate piano tinkle and blurry synthesizer squiggle, mumbled sad boy
vocals all marble mouthed and introspective (sounding a bit like This Heat
vocals), streaks of fuzz guitar and plenty of reverb and delay and a production
that deftly manges to combine outdoorsy campfire whispiness with big cavernous
throb, making every thing sound warm and dense but airy and free, like a thick
cloud of steam when you first open the door of a hot shower, the melodies and
fragments of song smeared and indistinct, quickly fading as if drawn on a fogged
up mirror with your finger. Gorgeous."
--Aquarius Records
"If there ever is such a thing as essential reissues, this one definitely belongs to that category. ’Free Country’ was originally released in an all too limited edition in the amazing Foxglove series, so it's cool to see that all involved has decided to make this stunning outing more widely available. What makes the whole thing so important is that it marks one of the finest pieces in an impressive chaplet of releases from this Madison, Wisconsin-based collective.
Davenport is a combo swimming in a pool of sonic magic, or more precisely in the muddy waters of scratchy folk experimentalism, ritualism, wheezing drones, field recordings, pounding percussion and campfire songs. What we get on this disc are transcendent joyous human sounds that is equally inspired by Jackie-O Motherfucker, and No Neck Blues Band without sounding like either of them. That is probably explained by the occasional side trip into more menacing territories but the somewhat primitive and murky vibe also sets them apart from their older brothers. My personal highlight is the relatively structured, violin-laced ‘Thou Shall Be Walking’ that aims for the heart, makes it and breaks it in two. ‘Free Country’ is a sublime piece of dream music that is rich in contrasts, hypnotic and full of beauty, and that makes me want to hear as much of this as possible. If you’re anything like me you know what to do.
"Reviews of the CDR version:
"What a great title. Is it about a country that is free? Or supposed to be free?
Or is like Free Jazz, or Free Improv? Somehow I think it's more the latter than
the first. This ten-people group (although for one reason or the other I don't
think they play all at once) play different kinds of musics, but somehow the
pieces fit to eachother. The title piece a drone rock piece and 'Hymn To
Broken Neck Bone' is likewise but more minimal. 'Thou Shall Be Waking' sounds
like a Current 93 going protest song, but it's very loosely played on guitars
and fiddles. 'Taking On The Rails' is also loosely played, semi-improvised of
violins, metallic percussion and guitars, but here no singing, but that happens
again in 'Play It Once, Sam', also a song that isn't free from political connotations in the most free rocking setting on this
CDR. Five tracks that are alike and different at the same time. For those who
like Jackie O-Motherfucker and No Neck Blues Band a must-investigate and maybe a
must-have."
-Frans de Waard (Vital Weekly)
"The title track of this five song limited edition CDR, lives up to itself with
a long loping flow of organic interplay. Strings chirping repeating minimalist
motions or coursing in synchronous harmonies that caress the sky in ancient
rutted footsteps, while lurching telepathic ghosts disturb the scenery all
around. Essentially a vehicle for the musical musings of Clay Ruby of Madison,
Wisconsin; with the assistance of at least nine other humans to create these
mumbled overheard fever dreams, alien intonations, and songs. Electric ghosts
shiver and flutter like flames as slow pulsing hum and howl are conversant in
the foreground. Sinister keyboards crawl like tendrils of some poisonous plant,
and later insect songs accompany a lovely linear folk ballad entitled "Thou
Shall Be Waking". The intermixing of crisp precision and amorphous
improvisational instincts adds to the dramatic tension and expressiveness of
these sonic explorers."
- George Parsons (Dream Magazine #5)