Palace Music Lost Blues & Other Songs CD

LOST BLUES & OTHER SONGS is a collection of B-sides and rarities.
Palace Music includes: Will Oldham, Todd Brashear, Liam Hayes, Rian Murphy, Bob Nastanovitch, Ned Oldham, Paul Oldham, David Pajo.
Despite the overall excellence of albums like There Is No-One What Will Take Care of You and Viva Last Blues, Will Oldham tended to save his best Palace offerings for the group's singles; Lost Blues & Other Songs is a career-capping collection of those 7" releases which serves as a superb overview of the Palace project's mercurial history. Although a few stray tracks (like the German-only "Gezundheit," a cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Every Mother's Son," and the live Lounge Ax single) are MIA, the set includes all of the truly crucial Palace singles from the first (1993's "Ohio River Boat Song") to the last (1997's "Little Blue Eyes"), along with unreleased material like "Valentine's Day," "Lost Blues," and a more ragged rendition of the debut album's classic, "Riding." The highlights are many, but the true standouts are the anthemic cover of the Mekons' "Horses" and both sides of the "West Palm Beach"/"Gulf Shores" single, a luminously pastoral effort reminiscent of Red House Painters. A stunning recapitulation of a truly unique musical vision, Lost Blues & Other Songs is an essential record from an essential band. ~ Jason Ankeny
By 1997, Will Oldham was ready to cast off the Palace mantle and pursue a solo career, but not before leaving fans with this unforgettable memento. LOST BLUES is basically a collection of b-sides and alternate versions of Palace songs, but instead of a being a batch of leftovers, it's as definitive as the "best-of" collection Oldham is far too iconoclastic to ever consider.
The early single "Ohio River Boat Song" represents the band's tradition-minded beginnings. The Mekons-penned "Horses" stands as a testament to Palace's development into an honest-to-goodness rock band. "West Palm Beach" and "Gulf Shores" shared sides of a later 45, and they document Oldham's rise to lo-fi folk-rock poet king, occupying a unique place in the '90s indie-rock world. LOST BLUES is a perfect legacy for a band too mercurial to pin down and too important to forget.Rolling Stone (6/12/97, p.118) - 3 Stars (out of 5) - "...superior examples of subtle hearbreak....proves that whatever else Oldham may be, he still isn't predictable..."
Entertainment Weekly (5/2/97, p.61) - "...On these early singles, outtakes, and oddities, the music consistently underlines Oldham's connection to the American-gothic traditions he invokes." - Rating: B+
Q (5/97, p.142) - 4 Stars (out of 5) - "...Drawing on [Will] Oldham's already considerable oeuvre- LOST BLUES...runs the gamut of the man's visceral obsessions....with a novelist's eye for detail and the Louvin Brothers' ear for a melancholic refrain..."
Option (7-8/97, pp.120-121) - "...there's no denying that the cumulative weight of these little projects form the most diverse and interesting--and solid--Palace record yet."
Melody Maker (3/22/97, p.51) - "...And so, quietly and spectrally, like a daguerreotype of the unseen or hymns in language ancient and merciless, these songs startle and dazzle like the coming of electricity....It's the sound of the body weary as dust, but of the soul gazing on treasures untold."