Field Commander Ali - The Next From Field Commander LP

Another dispatch from the ever reliable Brierfield Flood Press brings us the sophomore set of recordings from Coal Coast-based Field Commander Ali very much within wheelhouse of the label: slightly mysterious, relatively subdued and often lo-fi recordings.

Taped on a four-track in a relatively short space of time, FCA plays a kind of folk music that evokes the phrasing and affectations of Leonard Cohen or Linda Perhacs. Yet there’s something uncannily contemporary to this album.

The songs don’t contain the straight-postured performances of your usual folkies, instead sounding as though they were taped privately, casually, and quickly as though she’s trying not to disturb her housemates. Instrumentation is minimal and stark; a soft guitar here, a tambourine or bell for percussion, some subtle vocal overdubbing, and the vocals have a kind of immediacy and ease (even a bit of mid-song throat clearing), delivering songs that capture off-kilter observational glints of the everyday woven into mantric repetitions.

A record I imagine would appeal to fans of FCA’s label mates Maxine Funke, Jordan Ireland, and Hana Stretton or the cross-over type figures of Aldous Harding and Adrienne Lenker.
-Mitch