Bambara
Shadow On Everything

Recently, I stumbled upon two or three albums with a typically blues soul that, in different forms, revive that devotional form to the genre and that repetitive mood and blue note that, while it may refer to distant origins in time as well as to the African-Americans of the first half of the last century, the banks of the Mississippi delta, has, since the sixties-seventies, ended up taking on different connotations: the boogie, John Lee Hooker's talking-blues up to the rock and roll of the Stones, and forms of garage punk exploded in the eighties continue to be representations of that same mood, albeit contextualized in a different dimension and historical phase.

This trio of bad, dirty, and mean boys composed of the brothers Reid and Blaze Bateh and William Brookshire, while hailing from Brooklyn, New York City, possess the same attitudes identified with Nick Cave and the Birthday Party and the whole bunch formed by unforgettable groups like Crime and the City Solution, These Immortal Souls, Swell Maps, and Jacobites, up to artists who established themselves exactly in the dark side of the Big Apple at the beginning of the eighties like the fundamental Lydia Lunch. As such, the Bambara (who originate from Athens, Georgia) are nevertheless custodians of this sound that has now become suburban and literally explodes in all its vigor in this latest album released on Wharf Cat Records and titled "Shadow on Everything."

Produced in collaboration with Andy Chugg of Pop. 1280 and recorded at Gary's Electric, the most highly esteemed studio in the alternative scene of Brooklyn, the album is practically a series of recitals in a style reminiscent of early Nick Cave and the sound of the Birthday Party. Reid's voice indeed greatly recalls Cave's, though it doesn't have the same expressive strength and is instead more slurred and garage-like, combining well with that Gun Club's animalistic fury in songs like "Doe-Eyed Girl," "Monument," "Subleached Skulls." Notable is the two-voice ballad with Lyzi Wakefield "Backyard," and the guest appearances of Jeff Tobias on saxophone, Allegra Sauvage (Pop. 1280) on cello, Ben Chugg, and Zach Henry on violin. Rich in uneasiness and ghost voices, Die Haut echoes, and nocturnal visions, "Shadow on Everything" is the delirious wail of a human being in the grip of their nightmares, confined in a soundproofed 10x10 room, desperately scratching the surface of the walls hoping someone will hear. To do so, however, you need to enter that room as well: there are no alternatives. Unless, of course, you're already inside.