Generally when Uncut Magazine has a six or eight page splash on an artist I haven't heard of, I expect to hear about the latest Americana whiz kid. I'm generally not far wrong.
In this month's issue they've gone for something more genuinely exciting, exploratory and trailblazing. Nashville based renegade Rich Ruth and his latest record Water Still Flows a freeform Cosmic Jazz adventure which I've been listening to for the last couple of days and finding quite extraordinary.
In the article in Uncut which is well worth a read, Ruth describes a lifechanging visit to Cambodia when he was 21. He visited a village on the border with Vietnam which followed animist value systems, Then recounts an evenng where the villagers all stayed up all night chugging tye whisky and dancing around in traditional clothing, In the morning one of them hacked up a water buffalo in a scenes reminuscent of Appocalypes Now. Hardly a scenario you'd ever forget.
That's enough of a taster to what informs Ruth's music. Water Still Flows needs listening to to appreciate where it's taken his muse. It's freaky stuff, defying description sometimes but certainly tending to spiritual jazz by inclination. It's one hell of a record.
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