Martin Jack Rosenblum
This live, solo album was recorded at the Orange Studio, straight-through (with an audience though sans any recorded presence of people who were present to listen in silence), and mastered by Trevor Sadler of Mastermind just to take the jagged edge off a forceful, craggy performance on slide guitar, six and twelve-string guitar, banjo, harmonica and, of corse, hermetic vocals.
Michael Hoffmann, Victor DeLorenzo, The Orange Man, melaniejane, make sonic contributions to Dr. Martin Jack Rosenblum's new songs, here and there. The Holy Ranger avoided the recording session altogether, now and then. While each is a totally original composition, every song pays tribute to influences upon Martin Jack's artistry, working from the Blues through Rockabilly into the unique Bard Rock that is Rosenblum's signature scrawl. Swamp River is out of the blue and into the grey. You can purchase this November, 2003 release at www.holyranger.com.
Professor Howard McCord, known to the esoteric tribe as 'The Old Iguana,' is one of America's greatest writers and adventurers, and commented upon SWAMP RIVER at first listening; with his permission, here at the Spirit Farm, we want to provide this most enchanting 'review' of the new solo album. It is dated 19 November 2003. The Old Iguana has made a verbal, poetic movie of the album's essence and captures the real sonic meaning of SWAMP RIVER with visions from the Bog where he dwells with blade sharp and pistol handy.
Dear marty--Swamp River arrived and I immediately put it on to play. Have listened through it and want to tell you my visions: it is wonderfully primitive--the solo voice and instrument alone. I kept seeing you in a darkened shack, rough floor, a table--rough-hewn-- a simple chair. the floor is filled with rattlesnakes--some indolent, resting, others moving about, but all generally relaxed. 20 or so. the view moves to your feet as you play, cowboy boots softly tapping time, the nearby rattlesnakes aware of the sound..
All B&W of course, shadowed, at various times--for example, in the banjo Handful of Fire....a woman appears in the doorway, a knife in her hand...not threatening, just holding it, listening, then fades away. Maybe she holds it so it is seen across her breasts..
then in Busted Stuff, you are standing, moving in an old tack room--old saddles, bridles, girths, lariats, rawhide reatas, all the stuff that gets left in tack rooms... one quick cut you are seated, working a stone on the edge of a double-bitted axe...
Move into harmonica on Just Fine, and deep space photographs of nebulae, etc..."I look just fine" the cry of the Universe..your face smiling.
On House Detective the back wall of the rough room becomes a screen, scenes of wild country, mountains...strange things uncertain...
Regulator we come back to lonesome music, dark shadows, face and hands moving in/out of focus, and lead into Medicine Band in which--perhaps--the figures/faces of other sonic contributors appear briefly, like ghosts...
I hope all this shows you how much I was impressed by first hearing. Visionary music out of the strength of simplicity!
Love it! Howard
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