Thursday, January 17, 2013

1000 SONGS - DAY 263 SONG # 294

Day 263: A song on constant replay

The Decemberists are what Wikipedia calls an „Indie Folk Rock Band“, from Portland, Oregon. Their name is taken from the Russian Decembrist revolt in 1825, if I have got it right. On their 2011 album „The King is Dead“ we find a song called „Down by the Water“ featuring the great Gillian Welch on backup vocals. In my opinion, it is one of the typical constant replay songs. At least, poor me could listen to it all nite long. For instance, the beat is a simple one, the drummer does it in a straight forward, exact style, never ever overplaying, but he changes between simply keeping the beat, very simple breaks (playing eights with all his limbs) and breaks that include short rolls. He knows exactly, which of the aforementioned techniques he has to use in whatever part of the song. Then we have the accordion, in the background for most of the time, and doing a beautiful call an response with the harmonica when needed. Here we have him, the frontman: the singer and his harmonica. And there is the great Gillian Welch, backing it up. A  dense and compact performance by a perfect band, in this here live rendering:


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