Nobody cross-pollinates the blues, folk music, and broken electronic instruments like Califone... From the carcass of Red Red Meat comes a series of gorgeous and personal hymnals delivered with the electro-rustic vocabulary of one of America's must original bands... Perhaps it was a year of touring, most recently with Wilco, or perhaps it is the combination of players, but their newest album, "Quicksand/Cradlesnakes", brims with confidence. The songs are remindful of those written in the 70's, when blues and country blues were more prevalent influences on groups like Fleetwood Mac or the Stones. The creative percussive touches, guitar treatments, and technical glitchery give the album it's distinct sound. The highly imaginative lyrical imagery is multi-leveled, open to more than one interpretation. Califone finds absurdity and liberation in the dark side of life. Their new record is rugged and elegant, dark and optimistic, familar and entirely new. In a word, it is beautiful.
