Down The Basement is the new Solo album from Bird And Horse main man James Erik Stark, who as the title suggests, recorded this album Down The Basement of his old band house in Woodstock Connecticut with help from Jeff Drury, Malcolm Travis, Scott Boutier, Jack Moore, Kevin Morin, James Prosser, Rich Gilbert, Peter Breen, Chris Fitzpatrick and Roger Paquette. Mixed and Mastered at MillRat Audio by Tom Buckland. James Erik will be appearing at the Rhode Island folk festival in August.
The album opens with Stinger a low-fi college rock indie pop song looking to grow up unlike your parents, with some cool keyboards and a crunchy guitar while pointing the finger at someone who calls the shots. High As The Moon is slower and is full of reflections, gently drawn out like the moon slowly progressing across the sky. Does he regret what's happened.
Chair is low-fi ranting about the catastrophe that happened with that chair, this feels a bit like the Dead Milkmen, great clattering guitar, fizzing solo, bitter recriminations for the idiot that kicked that Chair from under you.
What It Takes is a yearning pleading song for trying to survive when you've been financially decimated, almost like The Band in a plangent semi gospel blues style, can you get over the indifference of the 1% to the rest of the population, how do you get a fairer share for everyone.
Heaven Sent is a carefully strummed acoustic love song for the woman who helps to make his world complete, with nicely hummed backing vocals. Lullaby is a slide guitar country love song, gentle and heartfelt.
Alive And Well repurposes a very familiar tune, to make the case for learning life's lessons and surviving no matter what the dance throws at you. Gift Horse is slow reflections for how you move on after it all falls to pieces, whatever you do don't look that Gift Horse in the mouth or you will never find what you wanted in the first place.
Little Voice is gospel blues repentance, for someone fleeing the scene of a crime that will eat them up inside, if they don't seek the proper forgiveness for the actions they took. The album closes with Thanks Sorry Bye those words you utter as you stumble out of there after one to many, they are off to new adventures, this is an upbeat drunken indie rocker.
Find out more at https://birdandhorse.bandcamp.com/album/down-the-basement-lp https://www.facebook.com/james.erik.stark https://birdandhorse.net/
