Jake isn’t just a rare bird, he’s the professor you always wished you had, the friend you never get tired of epic hangs with, the human jukebox, the guitar player and singer who makes any band that he’s in better. He’s a southern scholar and gentleman in the tradition of Jim Dickinson, George Mitchell, and Les Blank. He’s a Dave Van Ronk for SEC country.
— William Tyler
Durham, North Carolina singer and guitarist Jake Xerxes Fussell’s self-titled debut record, produced by and featuring William Tyler, transmutes ten arcane folk and blues tunes into vibey cosmic laments and crooked riverine rambles. Jake Xerxes (yes, that’s his real middle name, after Georgia potter D.X. Gordy) grew up in Columbus, Georgia, son of Fred C. Fussell, a folklorist, curator, and photographer who hails from across the river in Phenix City, Alabama (once known as “The Wickedest City in America” for its rampant vice, corruption, and crime.) Fred’s fieldwork took him, often with young Jake in tow, across the Southeast documenting traditional vernacular culture, which included recording blues and old-time musicians with fellow folklorists and recordists George Mitchell and Art Rosenbaum (which led Jake to music, and to some of the songs herein) and collaborating with American Indian artists (which led Jake eventually to his graduate research on Choctaw fiddlers.)
As a teenager Jake began playing and studying with elder musicians in the Chattahoochee Valley, apprenticing with Piedmont blues legend Precious Bryant (“Georgia Buck”), with whom he toured and recorded, and riding wild with Alabama bluesman, black rodeo rider, rye whiskey distiller, and master dowser George Daniel (“Rabbit on a Log”). He joined a Phenix City country band who were students of Jimmie Tarlton of Darby and Tarlton; he accompanied Etta Baker in North Carolina; he moved to Berkeley, where he hung with genius documentary filmmaker Les Blank and learned from Haight folkies like Will Scarlett (Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna, Brownie McGhee) and cult fingerstyle guitarist Steve Mann (“Push Boat”); he appeared on A Prairie Home Companion. He did a whole lot of listening, gradually honing his prodigious guitar skills, singing, and repertoire. In 2005 he moved to Oxford, Mississippi, where he enrolled in the Southern Studies department at Ole Miss, recorded and toured with Rev. John Wilkins, and, last year, met up with acclaimed artist William Tyler to begin recording his first solo album.
Collaborating with Tyler and engineer Mark Nevers in Nashville was a conscious decision to depart cloistered trad scenes and sonics for broader, more oblique horizons. Tyler, a guitar virtuoso known for his own compositions that untether and reframe traditional six-string forms and techniques, helmed the push boat in inimitable fashion, enlisting crack(ed) Nashville session vets Chris Scruggs (lap steel, bass, mandolin: Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Marty Stuart), Brian Kotzur (drums: Silver Jews), and Hoot Hester (fiddle Bill Monroe, Ray Charles) to crew.
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“The Kernal fills his music with mid-century twang evoking Porter Wagoner one minute and Gram Parsons the next. He even rasps his way through the rapid-fire verses of “Green Green Sky” like Bob Dylan… which is appropriate, since one of Dylan’s former engineer/producers, Jeff Powell, produced the tune.”
— American Songwriter
Based in Jackson, TN, The Kernal & His New Strangers call the Downtown Tavern home and from that halfway point between two Tennessee music mecca’s, tour the country with their homegrown brand of Southern mystique. Tied deeply to the legacy of the wandering musician and the historic Grand Ole Opry, the Kernal, a southern gentleman with an old soul and youthful ambition, found his sound and showmanship in the greats of the classic Country music scene like Del Reeves. “My dad,” The Kernal reminisces, explaining the impetus of the band, “met Sleepy LaBeef at Limebaugh’s Restaurant in Nashville. Lonzo & Oscar were looking for a drummer and he asked my dad if he could play a shuffle beat on the table. He did and he left for a 10day run the next day. It worked out because soon he was playing with Sleepy.” From there, his father found his way to The Kendalls, and eventually to the legendary Del Reeves, with whom he would play until Reeves’ death in 2007. His father died in September of the same year and the seed was planted.
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Timber is Will Stewart and Janet Simpson.
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“This is pitch-shifted cosmic soul built on euphoric triggers and tugged emotions, meticulously blurring samples and featherweight beats to unbearingly addictive heights.”
— NPR
Holly Waxwing co-runs the label Noumenal Loom, where they released their debut album ‘Goldleaf Acrobatics.’ They have an upcoming EP, ‘Peach Winks,’ with Cascine
History of Project:
An attempt to stratify and give contours to micro-postures, soft looks, floral eaux de vie and discreet vibes. A Chartreuse smash, under palm shade by the pool. Moment in a nape. Taupe sleights of hand. Longing wet eyes of a Northern Lapwing.
Influences:
Sky tones, skin tone and comfy colors. ASMR feels. Body Statistics. Juliet of the Spirits, Wild Strawberries, Zazie dans le Métro and Oskar Matzerath. The flashbulb still of over caffeination. Wishdasher, Lucky Dube, Chris Weisman and Future. Palettes. White Muscari.
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“The Vibe Doctors give jazz music a dreamy facelift.”
— Portico Magazine, 01/15
The Vibe Doctors have been together since the summer of 2013. Started as a standard jazz trio, with a vibraphone frontman instead of a pianist, The Vibe Doctors have evolved into an original eclectic improvisation-driven jam band. The jazz standards are still there but played in a style that is part funk, part fusion, part Latin, but always interesting and unique. They have also written several original tunes which showcase the strengths of each performer and the band as a whole.
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“Saxophonist Brent Bagwell and drummer Seth Nanaa epitomize intuitive interplay as they balance furious cacophony and subtle melodicism, each permutation feeding off its counterpart.”
— Creative Loafing
Ghost Trees are Seth Nanaa (drums) and Brent Bagwell (tenor saxophone).
Nanaa (ex-Indian Summer) and Bagwell (Great Architect) met in NYC in 2000. Along with bassist Jordon Schranz, they formed The Eastern Seaboard. That trio toured the US relentlessly, releasing two records with legendary Italian label Black Saint and a fistful of vinyl and CDs from Tigerasylum Records.
After playing together for a decade, the duo released their debut 10″ on the Future Recordings label. September of 2014 saw the release of their most recent LP, The New Gravity.
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“While so many indie folk groups try to chase the success of Mumford & Sons, Dalmatian plays great old-school folk rock with enough soul to remind you that their hometown of Macon was the home of Otis Redding. ”
— Josh Jackson, cofounder and editor-in-chief of Paste Magazine
In search of the ever-elusive Song of the South one need not look in the back of a mud-splattered pickup truck or hike the hills in search of pickers and fiddlers, for the tune that emanates from the heart of Dixie can be heard echoing from the basement of the Macon, Georgia home occupied by the quartet of twenty-somethings that make up the adaptable musical collective known as Dalmatian. Dalmatian seeks to provide an experience not unlike eating a damn good slice of pie. Their jaunty tunes are an offering of a fleeting presence of savory indulgence that will probably make you shake your booty Gathered and raised in bars on the arboreally-labeled, spacious streets of Poplar and Cherry in the geographically-true Heart of Georgia, these penmen of buoyant melody aim, with a sincere sense of humble honesty, to gratify. Dalmatian has released two EPs: Dances with Dalmatian and Obscure Discoteca.
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As founding member and lead singer/songwriter of the indie-alt-country group Damn Arkansan, Drew Walls returns with a new project that goes under the moniker Early Walker. The group features Walls manning lead vocals, guitar, and harmonica surrounded by a seasoned cast of Arkansas’ finest home-grown talent. Matt Pierce, formerly of Jimbo Mathus & the Tri-State Coalition, weighs in to provide lead guitar and vocals in the group that also features veteran bassist Mike Cobb who has served as rhythmic backbone to acts ranging from Black Oak Arkansas to Cracker since 1962. After cutting his teeth touring throughout the US and Europe with the band Starroy, drummer Jacob Brumley rounds out the rhythm section. Lee Zodrow, lead singer/songwriter for the group Basement Brew, lends support on keys and organs.
The group plans to release their debut EP in the Fall of 2015.
