19th September - Bonnie "Prince" Billy's The Letting Go

Artist – Album: Bonnie “Prince” Billy – The Letting Go

Released:  19^th September 2006

Sounds Like:  “First chill, then stupor, then the letting go”

In dark, dark America, there is a dark, dark town. And in the dark, dark town, there is a dark, dark street. And in the dark, dark street, there is a dark, dark house. And in the dark, dark house…Bonnie “Prince” Billy lives!

Bonnie “Prince” Billy, a.k.a Will Oldham, inhabits the blackest corner of America; a place of perpetual fear and nightmares. It’s from this underworld that he conjured up his masterpiece, 1999’s I See A Darkness. But it seems that even in when you’re in the bleakest areas love comes to you. The Letting Go is arguably his lightest album to date, a strange album that still contains his signature quivering vocals but is comfortingly supported by the beautiful voice of collaborator Dawn McCarthy of Faun Fables. Even the scarier tracks, such as ‘Cursed Sleep’ and ‘No Bad News’ (“Something bad happens and a lot of people go bad themselves, that's how awful it is”), find redemption in their tribulations – The curse of unrequited love in ‘Cursed Sleep’ is overcome by dreams, and the beautiful coda at the end of ‘No Bad News’ is damn near joyful and seems to quash the something bad that happened.

Some songs, such as ‘Love Comes to Me’ and ‘Wai’, have gorgeous lyrics, sometimes battered and beaten but still full of love; some merely sound brighter, disguising their real intentions – ‘Cold & Wet’, ‘The Seedling’. Throughout there is a more assured deftness of touch and a barely perceptible softening of tone. I See a Darkness remains the highlight of his prolific, fantastic career, but The Letting Go runs it close.

Albumaday... rating: 7/10

1.       Love Comes to Me – 4:31

2.       Strange Form of Life – 3:46

3.       Wai – 3:37

4.       Cursed Sleep – 5:35

5.       No Bad News – 4:45

6.       Cold & Wet – 2:21

7.       Big Friday – 2:43

8.       Lay and Love – 3:50

9.       The Seedling – 4:36

10.   Then the Letting Go – 5:19

11.   God’s Small Song – 4:05

12.   I Called You Back – 7:53 

Listen to ‘Strange Form of Life’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsQ8TqXr7B0

Also released on 19^th September:

1988: Cocteau  Twins – Blue Bell Knoll

Also released on 19^th September:

1988: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Tender Prey

Also released on 19^th September:

2006: Lupe Fiasco – Food & Liquor

19th Jan - Bonnie Prince Billy's I See A Darkness

Artist – Album: Bonnie “Prince” Billy – I See a Darkness

Released: 19^th January 1999

Sounds Like: Billy learns to stop worrying and love the darkness

I See a Darkness is a sparse, bleak folk set, steeped in melancholy and anxiety. The subject matter involves fear and mortality (just look at the track listing: ‘Another Day Full of Dread’, ‘Death to Everyone’, ‘Today I Was an Evil One’ and ‘Black’); even the album cover is nightmarish, a creepy skull egg against a pitch black backdrop.  Bonnie “Prince” Billy (a.k.a. William Oldham), though, seems quite comfortable and content to embrace the shadows, and it is this restful acceptance of the bad things that makes it such a wonderful record; an album that you can listen to repeatedly without having to succumb to the despair it details.

The album kicks off with ‘A Minor Place’, a deceptively cheery shuffle that welcomes the listener in to Oldham’s mindset, declaring the fact that he’s been to this depressed place or condition but that he likes it. Stylistically, the following track, ‘Nomadic Revery’, more accurately sets the tone for the rest of the album, starting with hushed minor chords on the piano and Oldham’s plaintive vocals, before giving way to multilayered voices, electronic guitar, simple drums and a repeating chant of ‘Oh all around’.

The title track comes next, an exceptional confession to a friend of the bad turns his mood can take and the strength his friend can give him. Johnny Cash covered it respectably enough, but this is the single greatest statement of Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s sound and manner. Other highlights include the country tinged ‘Today I Was an Evil One’ and the lovely album closer “Raining in Darling”.

I See a Darkness is a stunningly well realised collection of sad songs that somehow always hits the spot, regardless of the mood I’m in.  

Albumaday... rating:  10/10

1.       A Minor Place – 3:43

2.       Nomadic Revery (All Around) – 3:58

3.       I See a Darkness – 4:49

4.       Another Day Full of Dread – 3:10

5.       Death to Everyone – 4:31

6.       Knockturne – 2:17

7.       Madeleine-Mary – 2:31

8.       Song for the New Breed – 3:24

9.       Today I Was an Evil One – 3:52

10.   Black – 3:46

11.   Raining in Darling – 1:54

Listen to ‘Nomadic Revery (All Around)’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWDgvrTjacs