Chris Eckman - Harney County (2013)

Chris Eckman has come a long way since his beginnings with The Walkabouts in Seattle many moons ago. These days he lives in Ljubljana and when not producing the very fine desert blues of Tamikrest he has become somewhat of a musical sage producing atmospheric soundscapes and lecturing on the nature of music in various communities. With his finger in many pies it's gratifying to have a new bona fide solo effort and one which celebrates a classic American landscape. Location and atmosphere have always been a strong suite for Eckman with his middle European sojourns soaking up the mysteries and histories of bruised survivors of the 20th Century ranging from Germany to the Czech Republic and Slovenia.

Harney County is in Oregon, on the border with Nevada. According to Wikipedia there were 7,609 folk living in its 10,226 square miles, a population density of one person per square mile in 2000. A pretty empty place. Eckman describes a fascination with the place after reading William Kettridge's book, Owning It All and has visited the area many times. This album is his attempt to paint a sound portrait of the place, he originally imagined it sounding like "Nebraska" if it had been a dub album. It's not quite that but the impressionistic songs do conjure up a badlands of sorts with nature, landscape, history and hardscrabble living all vying for attention and captured perfectly in the writing and performance.

Eckman commenced the album accompanied by double bass player Ziga Galeb and its the sound of Eckman's guitars and Galeb's supple and sonorous plucking that dominate the album while his husky half spoken vocals narrate and captivate like an old storyteller mesmerising a campfire huddle. The stories portray a struggle between man and nature, stuck on a snow blocked road or listless from the heat or the flint hearted battles of ordinary folk as on The Carnival Smoke where a child seeks out an itinerant and errant father who has come to town with the carnival or Ghosts Along the Border where a driver, questioned as to the route he is taking throws out his hitch hikers in the dead of night and the middle of nowhere. The road beckons throughout the album particularly on the lengthy narrative of Rock Springs. A trailer trash story of Edna and Earle, both bereft and bouncing from broken marriages with Earle running from the bad cheques he's passed it captures the ennui and despair that has a hold on them.

It may be a cliché to describe these songs as miniature stories or more pertinently screenplays in waiting but Eckman does conjure up a cinematic vision with his other collaborators adding some wonderful touches. Milan Cimfe's occasional percussion flourishes add to the atmosphere particularly on the eerie cover of the traditional Katie Cruel while Walkabouts' guitarist Paul Austin embroiders The Carnival Smoke. Anda Eckman sings harmony on two of the songs while Eckman's old buddy, Terry Lee Hale blows some mean harp on the one up-tempo number, Many Moons, which recalls the earlier and gnarlier Walkabouts sound. A tremendous album.

TRACKLIST
1. Nothing Left to Hate
2. The Carnival Smoke
3. Requiem for the Old School Heavy
4. Katy Cruel
5. Sound of No Return
6. Many Moons
7. Rock Springs
8. Ghosts Along the Border