Thom Byerley
Murdock (with guitar) lets his freak flag fly with the release of Animals.
Evan Murdock is a rocker at heart.You could hear it in his mandolin and vocals during his days with Madison’s late, great bluegrass band, the Lonesome Rogues. You could sense his inner rocker caged inside music he created in the folk duo Kentucky Waterfalls. Now, with the release of Animals, the new album with his reliable band, the Imperfect Strangers, Murdock finally lets his freak flag fly. It’s an effort that bestows hipness to country rock while planting the genre where it belongs — in continued service to the ghost of Gram Parsons.
Recorded and mixed at Madison’s Dojo by Brian Knapp, Animals is the latest example of how fertile Madison’s DIY music community has become. The band laid down 17 live tracks over the course of four days. Eleven made the album. All tracks were recorded with the entire band present. No separate tracking.
“Because we normally play in my living room in a circle, it’s hard to imagine tracking separately,” says Murdock. “The communication and interplay that happens is just too important to give up. Restriction is vital to creativity,” he continues. “Too much time and freedom lets you chase a kind of perfection that can leave tracks technically polished but emotionally flat.”
There’s nothing flat about “She Don’t Need Anything,” the organ-driven, mid-tempo piece that opens the album. It’s a lament that features one of the band’s great strengths: Murdock and Liz Stattelman-Scanlan’s vocal harmonies. Stattelman-Scanlan is known for her high lonesome singing for Madison bluegrassers Oak Street Ramblers. It’s fun to listen to her go full-out Nashville with the Imperfect Strangers.
“Evan is an excellent songwriter with a writer’s voice that is unique and real,” says Stattelman-Scanlan. And brother, can he ever write a sad song. Listen to “A Way to Leave,” and hear Murdock communicate longing and pain in the simplest terms. The slow song builds and builds, the way a good cry does. Murdock drops a dagger of a minor chord in the chorus, adding torment to anguish. Stattelman-Scanlan’s harmony softens the blow, but in a way that makes the song even more heartbreaking.
The album’s centerpiece, “Animals,” finds Murdock’s voice, physically and metaphorically, at its purest. “Animals” is symbolic for the fact that we’re all hearts and minds transported by skin and bones. Aaron Jossart on keys has a lot to say about this during an organ break that comes blasting into the number out of nowhere. Like an animal.
“Campfire Girl” is, as it sounds, a Dave Rawlings-Gillian Welch style singalong a huge upper that follows the grit and grief of “Animals.” And for all of the darkness in many of these songs, Murdock knows how to inject hope. “Rose” is the album’s most unapologetic folk song, complete with sterling clawhammer banjo played by bassist Pat Logterman (formerly of Cork ‘n Bottle String Band).
For all of the production skill the record shows, the Imperfect Strangers is a rowdy, fun-loving, live band. The fun — and the skill — will be on display at their record release party at the High Noon Saloon on Aug. 29.
