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Put your hands on the remote! browse music »Songs for the New Depression by Ben Ratliff
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fave it Roots Rock | Electric Blues
11 tracks | 40 minutes
Released Jun 2004
on Mother's Discontent Music
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- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 03:44 All Night lyrics FREE 03:44 All Night lyrics "GIFT MP3" 03:44 All Night
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 04:38 Leviathan lyrics BUY MP3 04:38 Leviathan lyrics "GIFT MP3" 04:38 Leviathan
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 01:50 New Jersey Traffic lyrics BUY MP3 01:50 New Jersey Traffic lyrics "GIFT MP3" 01:50 New Jersey Traffic
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 03:55 Permanent Midnight lyrics BUY MP3 03:55 Permanent Midnight lyrics "GIFT MP3" 03:55 Permanent Midnight
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 03:09 Drive All Night lyrics BUY MP3 03:09 Drive All Night lyrics "GIFT MP3" 03:09 Drive All Night
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 04:13 Let It Out lyrics BUY MP3 04:13 Let It Out lyrics "GIFT MP3" 04:13 Let It Out
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 04:03 Nothin' to Say lyrics BUY MP3 04:03 Nothin' to Say lyrics "GIFT MP3" 04:03 Nothin' to Say
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 02:24 Good Morning lyrics BUY MP3 02:24 Good Morning lyrics "GIFT MP3" 02:24 Good Morning
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 03:44 My Days lyrics BUY MP3 03:44 My Days lyrics "GIFT MP3" 03:44 My Days
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 04:38 New Era lyrics BUY MP3 04:38 New Era lyrics "GIFT MP3" 04:38 New Era
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 04:25 Powerline Sunset lyrics BUY MP3 04:25 Powerline Sunset lyrics "GIFT MP3" 04:25 Powerline Sunset
Lo-fi gutbucket roots music mixed with electronica using found keyboards, megaphones, guitar and loops.
Bio / Background
CD: "Songs for the New Depression"
Ben Ratliff flexes his experimental muscles on this growling, inventive new solo effort. "All Night," the first track, sounds like Howlin' Wolf with a beat box, and if that debt weren't clear enough, "Let It Out" features what sounds like an actual wolf cry. To some degree the whole album feels like a resourceful bastard child of the Wolf and Link Wray, even in the songs that rely on analog synth sounds or hip-hop beats, such as "Leviathan" and the abstract instrumental "Good Morning."
There's a good deal more to this music than its solid blues foundation. Highly musical synth work, fuzzed-out guitars and sinister vocal effects evoke a whole gamut of experimental rock, from Chrome and the Residents to Beck and Laurie Anderson. But Ratliff's most original contribution is his fusion of grinding industrial beats with deeply felt, smoky blues guitar.
↓ more ↓Moodwise, he can almost out-grim Townes Van Zandt or Jim Morrison ("My Days" even talks about a "lost highway," while "Drive All Night" evokes "Riders on the Storm"), but the clanging beats strike the perfect tempos to keep the listener grooving through it all. This appropriately titled CD might be too out-there to sing along with, but it's a churning head-bopper nonetheless.
-- Jon Sobel, Kozmicblues.net
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