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Carla Bozulich Quieter (May 11th, 2018)

Carla Bozulich — Quieter (May 11th, 2018)

                              Carla Bozulich — Quieter (May 11th, 2018)Carla Bozulich — Quieter (May 11th, 2018)Δ         Stejně jako Bozulich samotná, i Quieter je větší, než život. A mysterious album, stroking my heart. Carla Bozulich’s solo records are stark, well crafted affairs that draw inspiration from classic honky~tonk.
Δ       Boy is Carla’s self~proclaimed “pop record” and is a refreshing and much~needed reminder of what pop can mean in the hands of a ferociously commanding singer~lyricist who has cut her teeth on genre~bending, genre~blending, and DIY production for 25 years.
•◊•     This recent period has found Bozulich reflecting on 25+ years of life on the road, the labour and hustle of DIY touring, with its ecstasies, agonies, succour and sacrifice: as Carla writes in the liner notes to Quieter, this album pays homage:
•◊•     The cover of the album is a cool pic, sure as hell. But to me, it just looks like tour. Tour is just another job where if you do it long enough you get hurt here and there. In 2014 I lost my hearing completely (temporarily) in 1 ear. I kept playing, as always with injury on tour. After all, it is the law of averages. We all know it. Play more than 100 concerts a year doing 90% of the work alone, injuries are occasional. Well, it was a loud tour~a loud set every nite. It was strange for the volume to be cut in half. I cannot play with ear plugs, I was swirling sound every nite like falling but still refusing to behave~sit still~or even cancel. And boy, it was freaky QUIETER. This photo is from one Otolaryngologist I saw in Austria right before the concert in Graz. His treatment was to put me in a 50s Soviet style scalding hot head~heat~box for 20 minutes. After a while I got bored and took some selfies. They came out exactly like this. Thus the cover. It was a Quieter time for me, like~in the van Mats Gustafsson sounded like cherry ice cream. Finally quiet in the fucking van. I couldn’t understand what was happening unless I turned my head. I completely stopped listening to people talk. Strange concerts. Le Guess Who was a highlite~very like thrashing through the air, as the numerous monitors seemed to be alive and spinning. Eventually I cleared it but not after several promoters kindly took me to crackpot doctors who did silly things. This is a nice deaf pic for the Quieter album. To me it just looks pretty like tour: still a fantastic job to have. — CB
•◊•     Alongside assembling the Quieter album, Bozulich has been busy overseeing other “legacy” projects as well: her first (and classic) 2003 solo album Red Headed Stranger was re~released by Folktale Records in 2016 and her mid~90s band The Geraldine Fibbers’ equally classic 1995 album Lost Somewhere Between The Earth And My Home was reissued on Jealous Butcher Records in 2017. Carla also penned the devastatingly poetic and powerful rape~survival essay “Thanks, Motherfucker” for The Quietus in 2016. And of course she’s continued playing venues small and large, including OFF Festival in 2017, opening for Godspeed You! Black Emperor in 2015, and for Swans at their farewell NYC shows in 2017.
Born: New York City, New York, U.S.
Genres: Alternative rock, Alternative country, Noise
Instruments: vocals, guitar (Hagstrom), sampler, bass guitar
Location: Los Angeles, California
Release date: 11 May 2018
Record Label: Constellation 
Running time:     38:12
Tracks:
1. Let It Roll     8:34
2. Sha Sha     5:29
3. Glass House     3:12
4. Stained In Grace     4:21
5. Emilia     4:37
6. Written In Smoke     7:07
7. End Of The World     4:52
Credits:
•     Harris Newman: Mastered
VINYL PERSONELL:
A1 Let It Roll     8:34
•     Drums — Andrea Belfi
•     Mixed — Jace Lasek
•     Written, Bass — Carla Bozulich
•     Written, Duduk, Sampler, Programmed — Jhno
A2 Sha Sha     5:29
•     Bass — Shahzad Ismaily
•     Cello — Jessica Catron
•     Drums, Vibraphone — Ches Smith
•     Mixed — Steve Fisk
•     Voice — Carla Bozulich
•     Written —  The Night Porter
A3 Glass House     3:12
•     Voice — Carla Bozulich
•     Written, Engineer, Programmed — Freddy Ruppert
A4 Stained In Grace     4:21
•     Written, Cello, Viola — Jhno
•     Written, Voice — Carla Bozulich
B1 Emilia     4:37
•     Guitar — Marc Ribot
•     Written, Bass, Voice, Sounds — Carla Bozulich
•     Written, Cello — Francesco Guerri
B2 Written In Smoke     7:07
•     Written, Guitar — Sarah Lipstate
•     Written, Voice — Carla Bozulich
B3 End Of The World     4:51
•     Engineer — Francois Lardeau
•     Voice — Carla Bozulich
•     Written, Guitar — Marc Ribot
Notes:
•◊•     Audiophile 180gram pressing in midnight ultra~black vinyl from Optimal (Germany) comes in a 350gsm jacket with artworked inner sleeve and 12”x24” poster, all printed on uncoated papers and board, with 320kbps MP3 DL card.
Description:
•◊•     Carla Bozulich is diversely experimental, uncompromising and continues to be ceaselessly devoted to mixing art~punk ethics and creativity. Here, with Quieter, is an intensely emotive, intuitive, enchantingly cohesive collection of previously orphaned and one~off tracks where, uncharacteristically, nothing ever quite screams. Carla’s way with a fleshy edge remains sharp as ever. A couple of these are left over from the bountifully productive sessions from her brilliant and widely~acclaimed 2014 album Boy; others featuring collaborations with the likes of Marc Ribot, Sarah Lipstate (Noveller), Freddy Ruppert, JHNO (John Eichenseer), Shahzad Ismaily and more.
 •◊•     Quieter is the result of this ceaselessly nomadic and defiantly DIY iconoclast having settled back in Los Angeles for a spell, recovering from tour~inflicted ear damage, sifting through unreleased/unfinished material, and finding herself drawn to working on the quieter stuff (relatively speaking) in her abundant archives. Ranging from the searching, searing opener “Let It Roll” — “the most honest work I’ve ever done” says Carla — to the chiming, deconstructed lullabies of “Glass House” (composed by Ruppert) and “Sha Sha” (from her mid~2000s project The Night Porter) and the album’s sultry closing track “End Of The World”(a duet with Marc Ribot, who penned the song), Quieter is a brilliant addition to Bozulich’s impressively diverse, adventurous, and unwaveringly authentic body of work.
Review
By Kevin Press | Published May 09, 2018 | Score: 8
•◊•     Carla Bozulich does not have the voice of an angel.
•◊•     This is not to suggest that the 52 year~old L.A. native won’t knock you over with her Marianne Faithful~meets~Patti Smith~meets~your~worst~nightmare vocals. When Bozulich steps to the microphone, it is difficult to pay attention to anything but her.
•◊•     Bozulich has built her audience as a part of multiple combos since 1982, a list that includes the Geraldine Fibbers, Evangelista, Ethyl Meatplow, Scarnella, Invisible Chains, the Night Porter and Neon Veins. She’s worked with bassist Mike Watt and a long list of others. This solo album is her sixth, and the first since 2014’s Boy.
•◊•     Like Bozulich herself, Quieter is larger than life. The songs are racked with pain, her vocals commanding. Every one of these seven tracks is like a J.G. Ballard car crash — the violence is beautiful and the beauty is ferocious.
•◊•     “Let It Roll” opens the album like a sold~your~soul electronic blues anthem. “I dreamt you cut the rope, blew my lungs full of hope,” she sings. “Don’t bring me back this time. Let it roll.”
•◊•     “Glass House” is another darkly sweet highlight. Bozulich’s voice throughout this album won’t just command your attention, it will infect you. This is an unforgettable, virtuoso performance. (Constellation)   •◊•     https://exclaim.ca/
REVIEW
BY LEE FISHER ON MONDAY | MAY 7TH, 2018 | SCORE: 5/5
•   LEE FISHER REVIEWS THE PERFECT NEW RELEASE FROM ART~PUNK MUSICIAN CARLA BOZULICH.
•◊•     Full disclosure: Glass House — Quieter’s third track — has made me cry actual tears twice now. The yearning in Carla Bozulich’s voice, the frail, deceptively pretty but skittering melody, all of it. The rest of the album — a gathering of songs ‘orphaned’ from other projects during her nomadic spell — is equally affecting.
•◊•     Four decades into her consistently amazing, consistently overlooked career, Bozulich is at her peak. 2014’s Boy was great, but this is greater: from the blasted torch song opener Let It Roll, via more fractured, abstract pieces like Written In Smoke and Stained In Grace, to the Marc Ribot duet that closes (where Bozulich channels Julie London and Ute Lemper and you can see the curling cigarette smoke), Quieter doesn’t put a foot wrong. •◊•      http://narcmagazine.com/
OTHER REVIEWS
•◊•     “Like Bozulich herself, Quieter is larger than life. The songs are racked with pain, her vocals commanding. Every one of these seven tracks is like a J.G. Ballard car crash — the violence is beautiful and the beauty is ferocious. Bozulich’s voice throughout this album won’t just command your attention, it will infect you. This is an unforgettable, virtuoso performance.” — EXCLAIM
•◊•     “Bozulich is as good as any Nick Cave or Tom Waits, and more than deserves to be revered as much as they are. When even her off~cuts are this good, there shouldn’t be any doubt.” — NORMAN
•◊•     “Bozulich’s decades~spanning career has produced a diverse and enviable oeuvre, which includes stirring performances and productions, impassioned writing, and clangorous sound art. Bozulich has built her reputation by celebrating everything non~traditional for years, often to gloriously resolute and raucous effect, but on Quieter, she lets her mastery of delicate intimacy shine as she taps into an eternal, cold 2am mood that few can. Featuring a crew of tremendously talented co~conspirators (Marc Ribot, Noveller’s Sarah Lipstate, Freddy Ruppert, Jessica Catron, Jhno, Shahzad Ismaily, Francesco Guerri, Andrea Belfi, and Ches Smith), Quieter is, remarkably, a collection of song foundlings recorded by Bozulich over the years and revisited for this album. Touchstones of hurt, loss, and anger in excelsis.” — TINY MIX TAPES
Discography:
Δ   2003 The Red Headed Stranger (DiCristina Builders)
Δ   2004 I’m Gonna Stop Killing (DiCristina Stair)
Δ   2006 Evangelista (Constellation)
Δ   2008 Dandelions on Fire (Long Song Records)
Δ   2014 Boy (Constellation)
Δ   2018 Quieter (Constellation)
Label: http://cstrecords.com/CST132/ / Hagstrom Guitars: http://www.hagstromguitars.com/
Tais Awards: https://taisawards.com/inpage/carla-bozulich/
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Carla Bozulich Quieter (May 11th, 2018)

ALBUM COVERS XI.