Christian Kiefer Dogs & Donkeys CD

Following his album-length collaboration with the more trad-minded British folk singer Sharron Kraus, on which Christian Kiefer's characteristic hushed bedroom-folk material seemed slightly out of place, Dogs & Donkeys is a far more solid and assured set. Indeed, second track "Pretty White Clouds" may well be Kiefer's best song yet, a piano-led ballad with close harmony vocals that sounds like a dream cross between the Jayhawks and Neutral Milk Hotel. Guest spots by Low's Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker, Wilco's Nels Cline (whose startling entrance about three minutes into the centerpiece track "Economic Theory" is the album's musical high point) and, most impressively, the Band's Garth Hudson make plain Kiefer's expanded musical palette: this is his most musically rich and finely detailed effort yet. Five records into his career, Kiefer has finally hit a musical stride that befits his always sharp lyrical focus; the trio of collaborations with Sparhawk and Parker ("Afterglow," "Coronation Day" and "Stay") two-thirds of the way into the album sound not like a Low record with a guest singer, but like an amalgam of all of the principals, showing that Kiefer has reached the point where he has a sound that transcends his influences. ~ Stewart Mason

Broken homes. Sweeping landscapes. A castle. A yellow house. A steel bridge. A length of rope. Angels and devils. And of course economics. Always economics.These are the images that flow through Dogs & Donkeys, Christian Kiefer’s fifth full-length album and the first full-length project released by Undertow.Like all of Kiefer’s releases, the images in Dogs & Donkeys coalesce around a particular theme. This album is “about” economics, although noting this fact so bluntly denies the subtlety with which the topic is addressed. Telling two narratives simultaneously, Kiefer’s new album interweaves completely disparate lives into a single narrative thread, ultimately exploring the relationships between economic pressures from a variety of angles.Of course, such concerns are risky. One can easily slip into Roger Waters territory: grandiosity or pretentious psychobabble or soapbox-style proselytizing. But Kiefer’s concerns here are not to preach, but rather to explore, and his careful imagery speaks volumes of his background in the study of American literature (in fact, Kiefer recently completed a Ph.D. in the subject at the University of California, Davis).Perhaps because of his interest in poetry and fiction, Kiefer’s latest project (like his previous releases on Extreme) has a novelistic quality. The imagery bisects territory staked out by T.S. Eliot and Saul Bellow and mixes with the poetry of James Wright.Kiefer has been fortunate enough to have worked with such fine instrumentalists as Darol Anger, Mike Marshall, and Joe Craven (all former or present members of the David Grisman Quintet) and Kronos Quartet-alum Joan Jeanrenaud.This time around, Kiefer has enlisted the services of legendary keyboard man Garth Hudson of The Band (on tracks 5 and 10), Wilco guitarist Nels Cline (on tracks 4, 11 and 12), and the sweet vocal harmonies of Low’s Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker (on 7, 8, and 9). The effect is a devastatingly beautiful musical journey.

Recording information: Catasonic Studios, Los Angeles, CA; Closer Recording, San Francisco, CA; The Hanger, Sacramento, CA.

Personnel: Christian Kiefer (vocals); Christian Kiefer (unknown instrument); Alan Sparkhawk (vocals); Jason Roberts (electric guitar); Simon Ennis (accordion); Matthew Gerken, Scott Leftridge (bass guitar); Jason Sinclair Long, Chip Conrad, Jason Sinclair Long (drums); Mimi Parker, Maud Hudson (vocals); Nels Cline (electric guitar, lap steel guitar); Kristina Forester (cello); Garth Hudson (accordion, keyboards); Tim Metz (drums).

Audio Mixers: Christian Kiefer; John Baccigaluppi.