New Mark Olson album is crazy good

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unchartedthickets
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Post by unchartedthickets »

gdavis5446 wrote:I like Uncle Tupelo and the Jayhawks. Funny how that works. That Olson album cover is pretty awful though.
the cover has too much embellishment going on for all the subtlety it implies.
do away with the "hand drawn" or mouse drawn frame around the edges
and take that text off the front and you have an artful and mysterious image. can't you just put the text on the spine???? i hate clutter!!!! everything and the kitchen sink mother fucker!!!! ahhhhhhh......

gdavis5446
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Post by gdavis5446 »

I like Uncle Tupelo and the Jayhawks. Funny how that works. That Olson album cover is pretty awful though.

Voltage75
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Post by Voltage75 »

Bill Carson wrote:What happened to Jeff Tweedy?
Last i heard he was living in minnesota driving a tractor,growing potatoes,
poor kid, that young man had a bright future. :lol:

Bill Carson
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Post by Bill Carson »

What happened to Jeff Tweedy?

Lawrence Fan
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Post by Lawrence Fan »

Jayhawks/Olsen = meh.

Bill Carson
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Post by Bill Carson »

The truth can be painful.

Monkeygunner
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Dipshit Alert

Post by Monkeygunner »

Bill Carson wrote:The Jayhawks are/were the king of alt.country. Tupelo's studio work has not held up nearly as well.
You're a moron.

Tupelo Son
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Post by Tupelo Son »

I thought the Flying Burrito Brothers were the "kings"? Now I'm really confused.

Bill Carson
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Post by Bill Carson »

bensco wrote:If I have to stare at it so long it can't be that good. Tupelo rules, they started it all and will probably end it all.[/quote


The Jayhawks preceded UT.

bensco
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Post by bensco »

If I have to stare at it so long it can't be that good. Tupelo rules, they started it all and will probably end it all.

Bill Carson
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Post by Bill Carson »

The Jayhawks are/were the king of alt.country. Tupelo's studio work has not held up nearly as well.

You should give the tune a few more spins. This is one of those pieces of art you need to keep staring at before it flowers in front of you.

camaroheadus
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Post by camaroheadus »

the song on myspace is shit. i also think it is pretty ballsy for an "official" site for olson to proclaim the jayhawks as the king of alt country (read the site).

zach
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Post by zach »

Image

http://www.myspace.com/markolsonmusic

from http://www.rykodisc.com/markolson/home/
ALBUM OVERVIEW
Many Colored Kite
Out July 27, 2010

Mark Olson, founder of legendary Americana band The Jayhawks and a critically acclaimed artist whose influential catalog spans 25 years, will be releasing his new full-length, Many Colored Kite, on Ryko Records on July 27, 2010.

Ruby Marchand, Head of A&R for Ryko, says “Mark Olson is a truly iconic American singer/songwriter and Ryko is honored to welcome him to our family. On Many Colored Kite, Mark reveals himself in a new way. The affirmation inherent in his lyrics and his keen sense of melody make this album a deeply pleasurable experience.”

Many Colored Kite is the follow-up to his 2007 personal milestone Salvation Blues, a soul-searching album of loss and change that further cemented Olson’s reputation as one of the true heroes of the folk/roots scene. The album was a New York Times Critics pick and received rave reviews for its autobiographical, often painful songs.

It’s a hopeful Olson that greets the listener on Many Colored Kite, with its earthy, neo-folk feel that encompasses classic and ‘60s British folk as well as the “desert country” he’s been associated with in the past. Produced and engineered by Beau Raymond (Devendra Banhart, Little Joy, Mark Olson and Gary Louris) and featuring the core group of Olson, Neal Casal and Danny Frankel, this is a wide-eyed, uplifting album with soaring, ethereal harmonies contributed by his girlfriend and musical partner, Ingunn Ringvold.

The opening track, “Little Bird of Freedom” (with backing vocals by Jolie Holland), sets the tone of the album: these are songs by a man who’s made it through the eye of the tempest and is looking at the world as if he’s seeing it for the first time. Elsewhere Many Colored Kite’s airy, uncluttered songs celebrate life and nature (“Wind and Rain, “Morning Dove”) and love (“Blue Bell” and “No Time to Live Without Her,” featuring Vashti Bunyan).

Says Olson of his new label: "When I hung up the phone after I heard that Ryko wanted to put out my album I went out onto the porch and started a small dance that was interrupted by a large gem and mineral collection. I realized I didn`t really want to be building a geology museum anymore I wanted to start a band again. I threw the petrified wood and geodes off the porch and into the sand. I called Ingunn and said ‘You’re the band and now let's leave our jobs and be able to take the trains again and tour with this music.’"

------------------------------------------------------------

from http://www.rykodisc.com/markolson/bio
Mark Olson - Many Colored Kite

The sun-soaked political reggae of Bob Marley certainly isn’t the most obvious parallel to make when discussing the music of folk troubadour Mark Olson, but while discussing the song “Kingsnake” from his upcoming solo album, Many Colored Kite, Olson makes a compelling argument:

“I really like Bob Marley’s lyrical attitude—the way he forcefully delivers his lyrics means everything to him. When I first heard him, I must have been nineteen or something; it was all very mysterious to me, and I didn’t get it then. But as time’s gone by, I realize that he’s very direct. He has a point of view and a philosophy, and though my point of view and my philosophy are different, I try to be direct like that.”

This philosophical directness has been a constant in a career that’s spanned a quarter century. As a founding member and principal singer/songwriter of The Jayhawks, Olson spent a decade at the front of the alt-country movement, until leaving the band—and the familiar environs of Minneapolis—in 1995, for the California desert.

While The Jayhawks were experimenting with pop and rock influences and earning mainstream appeal, Olson wanted to strip back down to the essentials. He formed The Creekdippers with then-wife Victoria Williams and violinist Mike Russell, paring his brand of timeless folk down to a desert roots ramble.

After a decade with The Creekdippers, Olson left the desert for the train cars of Europe, creating what would become his 2007 solo debut, The Salvation Blues, a poetic rumination on redemption that earned him comparisons to the likes of Gram Parsons and Bob Dylan.

During that journey, he reconnected with former Jayhawks partner Gary Louris and in 2009 they released their first album together in fourteen years, Ready For The Flood.

Many Colored Kite is both a culmination of everything that came before it, and an exploration of uncharted waters. Recorded over a month’s time in Portland with producer/engineer Beau Raymond (Chris Robinson, Devendra Banhart), the album finds Olson embracing a decidedly brighter path towards the future, exploring themes of freedom and struggle, isolation and belonging, spirituality and love.

He translates that idea of Bob Marley’s lyrical directness into a beautiful simplicity of expression, creating “little moral stories,” as he calls them. Album opener “Little Bird Of Freedom,” which features folk-jazz chanteuse Jolie Holland, is an acknowledgement of both personal and universal struggle, which the title track, written at a park in Oslo, Norway, takes a step further. “To me, a ‘many colored kite’ is the idea that instead of having a restrictive world, let’s have an inclusive one, where it’s good for people to have different ideas, different faiths, different languages.”

Olson also turns inward. There’s “Your Life Beside Us,” about “a spiritual longing for good in one’s life,” and the lush, string-laden “Beehive,” calling upon his love of metaphor to describe the evolution of religion into a destructive, rather than healing force. Most surprising is “Morning Dove,” a “miracle song” inspired by a flock of doves that appeared right as he finished building his home. It marks the first time in his entire career that Olson performs completely solo and acoustic. “I’ve always been in bands or groups; I’ve always liked playing off of other people,” he says. “But this song seemed so direct and personal, that I just went for it.”

A message of positivity weaves through Many Colored Kite, offering up a nearly radiant version of Olson that not only hearkens back to his Creekdippers days, but also looks forward to the future of folk. There’s the sweetly melodic “No Time To Live Without Her,” inspired by the simple love songs of the ‘60s, featuring ethereal harmonies from influential British folksinger Vashti Bunyan. “Bluebell Song,” inspired by flowers dotted along miles of Texas highway, recounts the experience of sharing those slices of Americana with his two international bandmates, Norwegian singer and multi-instrumentalist Ingunn Ringvold and Italian violinist Michele Gazich.

The experience of being on the road with people close to him is what ultimately shapes the narrative of the album. In this case, thousands of miles spent in vans, trains, and planes for The Salvation Blues led to the creation of Many Colored Kite. “It was more than a band—Ingunn was my girlfriend and Michele was this guy whose company I really enjoyed—and the way to keep that going was to write a new album together.”

So you have the Laurel Canyon vibe of “Wind And Rain,” borne from a lonely drive through rural Nebraska and the urge to pull over and stage an impromptu performance on a small-town bandstand. There’s “More Hours,” a sweet retelling of a conversation between Olson and Ringvold on a desert road. And the freak folk echoes of “Scholastica,” about meeting a nun of the same name in New Mexico.

Ultimately, Many Colored Kite is a statement album. It’s Mark Olson acknowledging the past, but making a conscious decision to lift up and continue his journey forward. “Let’s face it—I worked hard on this record. I put everything I had into this one. I tried to play my best, sing my best, and write my best. I want this to look towards the future, and I hope our story goes on.”

Bill Carson
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Joined: Tue May 17, 2005 7:36 pm

New Mark Olson album is crazy good

Post by Bill Carson »

It's called "Many Colored Kite" and it's due in July.

Wow this is quite the piece of work. Vashti Bunyan makes an appearance too.

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