Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voi James & The Quiet CD

Wooden Wand & the Vanishing Voice: D.M. Seidel (vocals, piano, organ, bass guitar); Jessica Toth (vocals); James Jackson Toth, Jarvis Taveniere (bass guitar); Jeremy Earl, Lee Ranaldo, Steve Shelley.
Personnel: James Jackson Toth (vocals, guitar); Lee Ranaldo (vocals, electric guitar, piano); Jarvis Taveniere (electric guitar); Steve Shelley (drums, percussion); Jeremy Earl (drums).
Audio Mixers: Lee Ranaldo; TJ Doherty.
Recording information: Echo Canyon West (12/2006).
Arranger: Lee Ranaldo.
Wooden Wand has always been the vehicle for singer-songwriter James Toth's unique musical sensibilities, and nowhere is this more apparent than on the band's seventh album, JAMES & THE QUIET. In fact, JAMES & THE QUIET seems more like a showcase for Toth's stripped-down tunes than a platform for the experimental washes that characterized early Wooden Wand releases. In this setting Toth's songs are more accessible, yet--with their alluring melodies and abstract, poetic lyrics--still utterly distinctive. This album might prove a good starting place for listeners tentative about the more extreme experimentalism of some freak folk.
James and the Quiet is the mirror image of James Toth's (aka Wooden Wand) Harem of the Sundrum & the Witness Figg in 2005. The latter recording was an uncomfortable collection of twisted elliptical songwriter fare that left the bleached out wah wah and free folk rhythmic and keyboard shambolics of the WW and the Vanishing Voice collective recordings at bay. James and the Quiet is a very different animal. Produced by Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo (who appears here, as does SY's drummer Steve Shelley), both sound and songs are more deliberately crafted. It's clear from the minor-key opening of "The Pushers" that quickly gives way to electric guitars, a behind the beat drum kit and apocalyptic lyrics -- with Jessica Toth balancing out his reedy baritone with her fluttering alto on duet vocals: "We don't need this cathedral/We don't need poison people/We don't need not a morsel/from outside this temple/It ain't shit that I shovel/I am quite on the level/And beneath broken egos/We'll laugh at the devil..." This is the Bob Dylan of "Masters of War" calling from the ether, and giving license to a full blown rock band. Elsewhere, it is quieter, with elliptical imagery born of excessive verbiage blending seamlessly with shimmering guitars, organ, piano and minimal percussion slip-and-slide through the mix with Toth's voice right up front. He opens "In a Bucket" with the words: "Don't worry ma/It's just a bloodshot honey drop/We dream we eat our young, and we wait to eat our own/The cold wind and the ice/There was spice in the beans and the rice/We were busy honeybees in a bucket of tar/I saw a nihilist heart/I saw a nihilist, I saw the love hid within them/I could by the care with which he chose his stones/And the sorority girls came and they snuck photos of all the bikers..." Um, yeah. At least he knows what he means.
But there's some humor here too: "...Sometimes getting dressed/is the most important meal of the day..." the electric solos rudimentary and dirty and it's all a morality tale from the downside of slacker heaven. What year is this? There are some utterly beautiful tunes here, though, such as "We Must Also Love the Thieves," a cough syrup waltz that blends Neil Young's Harvest Moon acoustic ethos, Allen Ginsberg's sense of justice and Howe Gelb's messy amalgam of instrumentation and timing. They are the simplest, most direct and most beautiful lyrics on the record, done in a repetitive melody line that foreshadows the utterly beautiful and moving "The Invisible Children." Its wrapped in Toth's trademark, resurrected hippie allegory, but the melody and blend of acoustic and electric string instruments finds its meandering way into an actual story. Jessica's staggered backing vocal adds both authority and a larger sense of intimacy to the proceeding. Ultimately, James and the Quiet leaves the cUncut (p.127) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[W]ith precisely constructed, mildly wracked songs that sit between outsider folk and outlaw country."
Alternative Press (p.170) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "11 tracks of rather straightforward ballads. A wry, often dark humor surfaces from time to time as Toth wends his lyrical way through acoustic glimpses into the void."
The Wire (p.56) - "The drums pack a serious wallop, the guitars twang and sizzle with lazy intent, and Jessica Toth provides a valuable foil with her husky voice..."
CMJ (p.42) - "The highlight is 'Delia,' a delicate gem heavily reliant on co-arranger/vocalist Jessica Toth's effortless interjections..."
CMJ (p.46) - "Lo-fi acoustics and haunting rhythms are capped off with the smartly sparse production of Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo."