A belated plug for Yonder, the latest record from one of my favourite bands, Georgia's Arbor Labour Union. They've featured on here a number of times down the years, because they excel in one of my favourite musical things. The Georgia, thing. The American South thing.
This has been a full on love affair on my part for all my adult life now. A friend reminded me that yesterday was forty years since IRS Records released Murmur, the still genuinely captivating, enthralling and quite unique debut album from R.E.M., a record that could genuinely be described as changing things. It certainly changed me and I'm still reeling from the shock waves.
For Murmur, as much as any record ever released, mapped out the Southern sensibility. The South of the Civil War and Br'er Rabbit. Of Faulkner, McCullers and Tennessee Williams. Jim Crow. Of an oral, written, poetic and musical tradition that still means everything to me.
Arbor Labor Union hold that torch aloft once more on Yonder, (and what a Georgian record title that is). They place themselves once more firmly in that tradition musically and lyrically. R.E.M, Pylon, B-52's, Black Lips, Mattiel. Two guitars, circling one another like war, slightly mangy dogs, stretching back further to the best records of Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynryd.. This is another terrific album to add to their body of work. More people should know about and appreciate them.
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