The Wood Brothers : Ways not to Loose

Some of you are starting to know me, sometimes I buy records on impulse, and based on not very much : the photo at the back of a CD, the presence of musican I know (or just have heard of), a short snippet heard at one of those listening booths in Virgin. Anyway, the other day, I was buying the latest batch of releases at Gibert, a large record store in Paris, and I stumble upon a record with a green cover by the Wood Brothers entitled Ways Not to Loose.

Out of curiosity, I check out the back and it turns out that one of these Woods is Chris Wood, of Medeski Martin & Wood fame. MMW is an avant-garde jazz-rock trio that I've never managed to get into despite many attempts. So why would I but this record, you will ask ? I don't know. The fact that Wood plays double bass, for sure... Not much else, I couldn't listen to it in the shop.

I don't regret it, it's a beautiful record. It's blues with a touch of folk or folk with a touch of blues, depending on which side of the fence you stand, it's sober and sparse, just guitar, double bass, an occasional discreet drumming, and once in a while an odd instrument like banjo or harmonica.

Oliver Wood's voice probably weighs a lot in my appreciation of this record. It's quite high pitched, a little broken, moving, atypicial. It's also beautiful and accurate, more than just an added bonus. The bassist brother sometimes helps him along with unison or harmonies. Wood's guitar playing is sans frills, indeed there are very few solos in the usual sense, just occasional short instrumental breaks or bridges taken by the guitar or the double bass.

The double-bass. Sweet, gorgeous, mellow, supple fibrous double-bass. When you think that Chris Wood is as hardcore a jazz bassist as there is, the exercice is all the more impressive and poignant. Here, the double bass is not a backing instrument, indeed it's quite high in the mix, and it's not limited to harmonically poor rhythmic patterns. And yet, there's no harmonic wildness either. Wood uses a rich yet deliberately limited subset of his vocabulary to add colour, enhance moods, break rhythms, and it sounds so simple. Simply delicious, in fact.

An adjective that springs to mind listening to this record is langourous. There's a good mix of melancholy pieces and more uptempo ones, but even the 'rocking' numbers have a sweet relaxed feel to them. A little bit of swamp without the grease, maybe. It's easy to imagine Ways not to Loose being listened to (or even played) in a rocking chair, which doesn't preclude occasional foot tapping, of course.

Harmonically, Oliver Wood's songs are not set in a I IV V cast, or other blues progressions, and yet you're never far from there. I'm pretty sure blues fans will feel at home. The lyrics are pretty cool too, with a kind of post-modern melancholy to them. Tried and Tempted really gives me the chills, with its relentless slow beat led by a little guitar scratching and the double basse pushing forcard, a sad song of amourous temptation.

Anyway, enough rambling. It's a very very cool record, and I heartily recommend it to fans of acoustic music, blues, folk, roots, Americana. If you're into that, Ways not to Loose is right up your alley. You can listen to some excerpts on the Wood Brothers website.