Album Notes

Life In Mean Season is destined to raise some eyebrows in the near future, not because of the novelty of mixing such apparently different genres as Country and Hip-Hop, but rather because this is no novelty album. Far from it. Life In Mean Season is a full 20 tracks of soulful, gritty, block-rockin' honky-tonk - heartfelt, sincere, and deftly crafted, with a depth and solidity that leaves no room for doubt about just how real this new sound is.

The tracks on this disc are comprised of thumping sampled beats covered by a smooth velvet layer of live bass, fiddle, acoustic and pedal steel guitar and topped with raw, mournful country styled two-part harmony singing. Imagine Gram Parsons produced by Dan The Automator, or Bobby Bare collaborating with Outkast. The album features local talents filling in live country instrumentation, seamlessly integrated with lo-fi sample loops and DJ scratching. Most of the tracks are originals that reveal the depth of Rench’s talent at bringing the idioms of the country tradition to the framework of the funky, break-beat based influence of a hip-hop foundation. Tracks like “All You Need To Know” and “Step In, Stand Clear” are melodically and lyrically soaked in the classic Honky-Tonk format. “Elmira” re-frames the archetypal prison ballad for the era of the Prison Industrial Complex. “Home By December” takes a bleak look at the promise to return of a young groom sent to war in Iraq, in the vein of traditional tear-jerkers.

But this is not mere imitation. While the aesthetics bear witness to true Western workmanship, the kicks thump and the snares crack, and turntable cuts are scratched - a constant reminder that this is truly a horse of a different color, both in form and content. Steering clear of soap-box preaching and canned rhetoric, the album used complex portraits and emotional reflection to provide a strong sense that this album is not just about an American sound, it’s about America in all its angst, fear, hope, and desperation in the era of homeland security, Enron, Katrina, wiretaps, war, and election fraud. As with “Home By December”, the anger and regret over the Bush administration’s legacy tinges many of the album’s tracks with an undercurrent of political melancholy, while others cling to a thin ray of hope for better days. The few covers on the album are revealing new takes on 50’s and 60’s gems from the Louvin Brothers (“Cash On The Barrelhead”), Bobbie Gentry (“Fancy”), and such standards as “All I Have To Offer You Is Me” and “Till I Gain Control Again.”

This is one of those CDs that you will keep finding more to appreciate each time you listen, and you'll keep playing it till your CD player breaks. It's a rich portrait of the sad and beautiful world of America in the Bush years, with every thing from party bangers to heartbreaking epics.