Jangling Sparrows

There is a magnificent sloppiness about ‘Telecoasters’ – except that it isn’t sloppy at all. It has a lazy feel to it, a brilliantly louche feel to the horns and to Paul Edelman’s vocals, but everything is where it is supposed to be and the whole album is utterly listenable.

Edeleman set out to create an album with the vintage feel of seventies rock bands and the album is recorded analog using old reel-to-reel tapes along with a great deal of experimentation with producer Amos McGregor and it all goes to putting an album together that has the immediacy and the ’live’ sound that Edelman was after.

"This record is so alive to me. It was largely a collaborative process with the producer at Marshal Sound, Amos McGregor," says Edelman, long renowned as the talented, cerebral front-person for Asheville roots-rock ensemble, Jangling Sparrows. "His input was integral. We kept experimenting and things kept changing and growing. I ended up trashing half the songs to write music that I felt was more about where this was going. I was actually writing half the album while we were recording the other half."

The band are talented, no doubt, but the core is Edelman, and his intention here seems to be a statement album, reflecting on culture and our attachment to it. One of my favourite tracks is ‘I Still Love Rock & Roll’ looking at the confusions of today with our addiction to social media, fake news, conspiracy theories but the only thing that is true is still Rock & Roll.

The 12 songs on the album have occasional Beatle-esque touches to them as well as hints to Don Maclean and even folk music (‘The Ghost Of 8th & Tasker’) and listening to it through from start to finish is definitely the best way to approach it although every song is highly listenable.

It is designed to be a sister album to last years ‘Bootstraps and Other American Fables ‘ and I can see how it works in conjunction but it stands up on its own and bloody good it is too.