Parson's Farm (2007-08)
Their fourth studio album to date, Parson's Farm
might fall somewhere in between a spaghetti western and a documentary on the
rise and fall of the rural church house. It’s a genre
hopper—country, rock, bluegrass and jazz. And it has overt gospel sensibilities.
Voices and instruments are harmonized to no end. Song begets song. One musical
idea perpetuates, and transpires into, the next. References and allusions,
characters and sequences, chorus lines and verses, solo upon solo—Dismuke, Cook
and Jewell bring it all back home.
The title comes from the second track of the band's 2001 album
release, Fenceposts. And, like its
predecessors, the lyrical content of
Parson's Farm is a thematic derivative of the band's preceding studio
releases. Listeners are presented with increasingly familiar characters and places from the band’s previous
albums. Content and concept are folded into every note—time and again.
Parson's Farm, in keeping with the band's planned
discography, is the second in a series that began with the album
Barnboard Blonde. There are, at present,
two additional albums promised to follow in the near future:
Farmer's Row and
Beggar's Orchard.
Eleven titles in all, the earliest recording sessions for Parson's Farm
can be
dated back to the summer of 2005. The sessions resumed during the band's summer
break of 2006 and again after the fall 2006 tour and on
into winter. There are some changes that took place, both at the beginning and
the end of the process, that are worth mentioning. Chief among those changes
were two independent separations, one from longtime friend and sound engineer,
Jay Jones, and the other from drummer Evan Jones.
Grady Sandlin (BAGG,
Sunday Drive,
Current Leaves), drummer and
longtime musician friend of the Peach Truck, was brought in to the fold so as to
recut and complete drum tracks for the new album. Dismuke, Jewell
and Cook welcomed the change and celebrated the outcome—shared appreciations,
creative input, tasteful finesse, solid
tempos, and dependably strong rhythmic and structural sensibilities.
The band has tentatively scheduled a 2008 spring release for the new album and
will be touring throughout the region in support of it. Guest
musicians, folks mostly thought of as additional band members, include Nikki
Velonis on vocals, Justin Broderick on guitar and Tex Bosley on percussion.
There has been some talk of
retiring from the road altogether, focusing on studio recordings from here out,
but that remains to be seen. Together with new personnel, new sources of musical
inspiration, new instruments and new perspectives, the new album duly represents
a new chapter in the band's self-described home—Parson's Farm, the
latest installation of Southern Harmony and Jam Music for the Soul.
Peach-key Records, LLC
Reprinted with Permission, 2008
©Peach-Key 2008