The second CD of DEEP NATURAL contains instrumental dub versions songs from the first CD.
Michelle Shocked seemingly never tires of reinventing the folkie/singer-songwriter aesthetic. She's already pioneered lo-fi anti-folk, and variously added a swinging horn section and alt-country godfathers Uncle Tupelo to her songs. So perhaps it shouldn't be so surprising to note that DEEP NATURAL finds her successfuly melding folk-rock and dub reggae (okay, maybe it still should). Not only does Shocked kick off the album with the aforementioned fusion on "What Can I Say," she adds an entire bonus disc of mostly instrumental dub tracks to the package (some of these even stretch the boundaries of dub itself, applying the approach to some anomalous idioms). In between, she tries her hand at everything from romantic Philly soul ("Forgive to Forget") to a tune that sounds like a Harlem gospel choir covering Santana's "Evil Ways" ("Good News"). Clearly, Shocked is not one to be pinned down.
So how would Michelle Shocked describe Deep Natural ? Well, it's "New Dub Blues & Gospel Birdsong." Oh.
Of course.
In other words, it's much like Michelle Shocked herself.
Not only is she in a category all her own, but that category doesn't really have a title yet.
Certainly not something as apt as New Dub Blues & Gospel Birdsong.
Maybe the category could be called Deep Natural.
Except that's the name of her new album.
Michelle Shocked is an icon, maybe, but an elusive one, a moving target, not a marketing niche.
A legend, but a lively one.
A relentless wanderer, a true traveler, an artist, an actual artist in an era that tosses that phrase like paper towels.
You can market a big splash, a next big thing, a huge hype.But a real artist has a resonance, ripples, endurance.Their work lives out a different life somewhere outside, inside our own lives.Their name has a different taste on our tongues.In a climate that rains unceasing irony, where the quick wind of cheap celebrity blows hot and blows cold, some artists still manage somehow to stay in tune.Maybe there should be a category in the record store called Deep Natural.But what is Deep Natural, and for that matter, what is this Dub Natural business? What in the world is New Dub Blues and what, pray tell, is Gospel Birdsong? New Dub Blues is precisely what it says it is: fresh blues, true blues, blues hand-carved by a natural blueswoman from way deep East Texas at the Louisiana line, border blues that doesn't look backwards as much as dance in face of the future.Blues that gets that blues can never be a 12-bar cliche and still stay blues.Dub is space-age technology innovated by Jamaica's reggae rocket-scientists huddled over the most battered of soundboards; usually considered a reggae secret weapon, now that Michelle Shocked has dubbed-out her own songs, we expect that all manner of heretofore unexplored territories are soon to show up on the new map of Dub.And Gospel Birdsong? To sing the praise of the sky as the sun rises, to sing the glory of a new moon in the night.To know the difference between the stars in the dark and the celebs on TV.To sing free of chain or cage; to sing from behind bars thicker than any chain; to dance at a funeral, as they do in New Orleans where Michelle Shocked lives; to dance on your own son's coffin, as Michelle's friend Li'l Billie danced, knowing that this world was not really his home, not really.To scratch his coffin with your shoes.That's New Dub Blues& Gospel Birdsong.That's why Michelle Shocked's name sounds different in your mouth.Uncut (11/02, p.126) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...Raucous Texas blues work-outs sit alongside acoustic folk songs, country weepies and stabs of New Orleans funk. When it works it's glorious..."
6224 
buttons below to play song samples
Adobe Flash
Email a Friend
