cover: ABR78

Sole

Sole & The Skyrider Band CD ABR78

A fortuitous series of events led Sole into the arms of the Orlando three-piece Skyrider, these events saw Skyrider make the relocation to Flagstaff, Arizona, where Sole’s been living since his return from living abroad. All of a sudden, music-making became a warmer, richer thing. And you can hear it in the music of Sole & The Skyrider Band: these songs feel lived-in, composed but not cold or calculated, and fierce yet not angsty.

Each song grew out of an organic process: they’d improvise; Bud Berning, Skyrider’s bassist and sampler conductor, would then comb the tapes for promising material; Sole would isolate moments in Berning’s selection and start to incorporate vocals; drummer John Wagner and omni-instrumentalist William Ryan Fritch would stitch in new sections; finally, all four would pound out the shape of the song; Berning’s keen editorial ear and perfectionist twitch dealt with the details; and Anticon’s Alias accomplished the mixing.

This process produced a musicality new to Sole’s discography, and also furnished a number of stunning juxtapositions. Witness Sole and Fritch’s interaction on “100 Light Years And Running,” which bridges the gap between chamber music and N.W.A. while serenading the glittering beauty of Arizona’s night sky, or the play of buzzing guitar, turntable accents, and liquid drums in “On Paradise,” where Sole riffs on a passage from Werner Herzog’s Fata Morgana. It’s a record where the lovely analog of “Shipwreckers” (where Sole jacks the hook from the Guy Debord film Refutation Of All Judgements) comfortably cohabits with the grinding, anthemic opening track, where Sole promises, “when the last buzzard eats the last candy bar from the last body on the San Andreas, it’ll be a sad day for investors.”

anticon.
  1. A Sad Day For Investors.
  2. Ghost Assassinating Other Ghosts.
  3. Nothing Is Free.
  4. The Bridges, Let Us Down.
  5. 100 Light Years And Running.
  6. Shipwreckers.
  7. The Sound Of Head On Concrete.
  8. Magnum.
  9. Bones Of Pets.
  10. In Paradise.
  11. One Egg Short Of The Omelette.
  12. In On Cavalry.
  13. Stupid Things Implode On Themselves.