It’s always fantastic when you’re listening to an album and a song immediately grabs you, a song that—if there was any justice in this world—would be a breaking hit for the artist. However, the downside to such an event is that it’s then easy to overlook the rest of the album, to let the other songs live within that one song’s shadow and remain unappreciated in their own right.

That’s what happened to me with Melaena Cadiz’s Rattle the Windows, thanks to the song “Clay Pigeons”, a rollicking “ode” to a treacherous ex-lover that’s marked by swaggering banjo and lap steel, as well as Cadiz’s spirited thoughts of revenge:

If you had a heart, I’d take it down to the riverside
I’d make it sorry you ever made me care
If you had a heart, I’d break it into a thousand shards
I’d take it up to the mountain, throw it into the air

Just like clay pigeons
Shoot ‘em with a skeet gun, you missed one
Throw ‘em up again into the air
Spendin’ every day since the day you left me
While you’re runnin’ ‘round, tryin’ to forget me
Down at the shootin’ range

It’s a fantastic track and I must confess, I didn’t really give the rest of the album a fair shake because I was so fixated on it. Which, as it turns out, was my mistake.

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A friend recently gave me a bit of a ribbing because we’re in the middle of the summer, and here I am reviewing all of this ambient music (such as my recent fixation on Dreamland Recordings’ output).  To their mind, ambient music falls more under the category of “winter music”, and is not at all suitable for warm summer evenings.  So I offer up for them The Loose Salute’s Tuned To Love, which, if nothing else, is a considerably more July-minded collection of songs.

If you want to get a good idea on where the band is coming from musically, just look at their pedigree.  The Loose Salute was formed by Ian McCutcheon, drummer for Mojave 3—which, as you might know, have expressed a considerable affection for the likes of Bob Dylan, Nick Drake, and Neil Young throughout their discography—and Lisa Billson, who was discovered by McCutcheon while singing Dylan covers.

Suffice to say, there’s nary a wintry wash of ambient sound to found anywhere in Tuned To Love, the group’s debut full-length.  However, neither is it consistently super-sunny, up-tempo, lighter-than-air sort of album, the sort that people normally think of when they hear an album described as “summery”.

Instead, you’ll find a batch of homespun, country-inflected ballads that straddle the line between folk and rock musically, while lyrically spends as much time having good times with good friends as it does lamenting over past relationships and broken hearts.  While it comes off as somewhat clichéd at first, it becomes increasingly comfortable upon repeated listens—like that chair out on the porch you always find yourself returning to on warm summer evenings, hanging out until the wee hours of the night with friends, sharing smokes and beers.

And yet even as comfortable as it might be, some delightful surprises pop up here and there.

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Beau Jennings has certainly been around, though chances are his name is still unfamiliar to most.  He’s played in a number of bands that have been lovingly mentioned on this site in the past, including Lasso, Circle Of Birds, and Lewis… and there’s probably been a few that have been forgotten.  However, Cheyenne is purely Jennings’ baby, a “revolving door” project that finds any number of collaborators (including, for this recording at least, members of Ester Drang) coming in and helping Jennings record his gentle, lo-fi bedroom pop.

These 4 songs are the sort of stuff would be quite at home next to the Elliot Smith, Damien Jurado, Hayden, Nick Drake, and Barzin CDs on your shelf—gentle, unassuming music that’s full of atmosphere and intimacy.  Utilizing sparse guitarwork (acoustic, electric, and slide), brushed drums and other percussion (such as vibes), the occasional loop or field recording, and lovely keys and organ, Jennings’ music won’t immediately leap out and grab you—but it’s simple charms and honest emotion are bound to grow on many listeners.

As might be expected from this sort of music, the songs are fairly downbeat and mellow, weaving journal entry-like stories of heartache and pining.  For example, Track #2 (sorry, the CD case doesn’t have a track listing) finds Jennings playing the role of a traveller observing a woman and her daughter in some bustling roadside store.

In the best Jurado tradition, ambiguities filter through the song—we catch only glimpses of the their conversation and learn little of their details—but their talk of St. Paul’s encounter on the road to Damascus provides an intriguing metaphor for the situation Jennings’ character finds himself in.  And it certainly doesn’t hurt the mood to have some lonesome harmonica and slide guitar drift through the song tumbleweed-style.

If the EP has one slight weakness, it would be the tendency Jennings has to try and make his voice sound as strained and raspy as possible (such as the otherwise lovely Track #3, which could almost pass for a Bedhead/Ester Drang collaboration).  While such a vocal approach does lend a certain amount of world-weariness to the song, it can also feel a bit too obvious and melodramatic.

Track #4 is the EP’s shining moment, with a gorgeous organ haunting Jennings’ vocals and plucked guitar as he sings of love and murder.  The music is absolutely lovely, easily comparable to the finest moments of the Circle Of Birds EP, and provides a stark contrast to the dark, morbid imagery of Jennings’ lyrics (“Well he’d been out late and he’d had his drink/And he came home to have his fun/Saturday night Martha told me what happened/And Sunday evening I shot my gun”).  On this track, the lo-fi production particularly shines.

I know the whole 4-track ethic is pretty ubiquitous and cliched these days, but I’m still a sucker for artists who are willing to leave the whisper of tape hiss in their songs, as well as background sounds (such as fingers picking away at guitar strings, or of someone taking a breath or licking their lips just before singing).  When done right, as it is here, it seems to make the music both more ephemeral and more intimate… which works perfectly for Cheyenne.

Apparently, the band is currently working on a full-length; I just hope Jennings doesn’t decide to try and smooth out his music’s rough edges (although a few tweaks here and there wouldn’t be a bad thing) or go for a slicker sound or better production value.  Stuff that’s this simple and sparse—and yet also this good—is hard to find.

Slim Cessna is a prince among men.  A yodeling, cowboy hat-wearing, gold tooth-glinting, revival meetin’-leading, country music-worshipping prince among men.  And sure, his tongue is planted so far in his cheek that it’s impossible to tell where exactly the genuine admiration for his sources ends and his wicked sense of humor begins.  Make no mistake; there IS a very legitimate admiration for old time country music tucked away in there.  Whether it’s with his Auto Club or his new Blackstone Valley Sinners outfit, Cessna is one of the most compelling frontmen in all of country music, “alt” or otherwise.

The Sinners were originally intended as something of a stopgap for the lull in the Auto Club’s push for global domination.  Shortly after the release of “Always Say Please And Thank You” on Alternative Tentacles, Cessna moved to Rhode Island while the band’s banjo and guitar player relocated to Chicago and the rest stayed in Denver, which left the band’s future very much in the air.  But Cessna found himself having so much fun with the Sinners that it’s become a second outlet for his work.

Less manic than his twisted work with the Auto Club (no Munly equals less mania), the Sinners instead embrace a kick-ass, gin-soaked take on the country-western genre jointly fuelled by Cessna’s deadpan delivery and Rich Gilbert’s blazing guitar and pedal steel work.  If that last name looked familiar, it’s most likely from his incendiary work as one of Frank Black’s Catholics.  Rounding out the group are the solid bass work of Gilbert’s wife Judith Anne (now also a member of the Auto Club) and one very obviously synthetic drum machine, a source of immense glee to Cessna who is himself a very good drummer.

Though the Sinners are certainly far from being country in the traditional sense, they’re certainly not alt-country in the accepted sense.  This is alt-country that behaves as though Uncle Tupelo never happened, music that has nothing at all in common with Ryan Adams, The Jayhawks, or any of the movement’s other torchbearers.  This is music that looks right back to country music’s origins, accepts its clichés with a nod and a wink, and churns them back out in a vicious torrent.  It’s delirious, giddy stuff, and here’s hoping Cessna manages to keep both of his acts together.

Written by Chris Brown.