BIG BLOOD & THEIR NOR’EASTER STORM OF STRANGE SOUND

I’m totally taken with this CD-R called “THE GROVE” from a band called BIG BLOOD whom I discovered just a few weeks ago. After a bit of research, I’ve discerned that BIG BLOOD are a husband-and-wife team based in Maine, and that their modus operendi is the CD-R, at least seven to date, each of which is studio recordings based on live sets they’ve done. Or something like that. I’ve yet to figure out exactly what those CD-Rs are, or when (or if) their vinyl/”official recording” career will begin. And hey, who cares? That sort of talk is for grandpa and his generation, right? BIG BLOOD, on this CD-R, are a wonderfully weird riddle, wrapped in plucked backwoods adornment & straddling a strange line between the Velvet Underground and the hard-knock blues. At times they remind me of the strange but practiced naiveté of THE CHERRY BLOSSOMS, other times like the ghostly goth-folk of MARISSA NADLER, and other times like record- and music-hoarding heathens gone totally bonkers.

The lead track on “The Grove” is a total knockout, one of the best tracks of the last couple year, “The Grove Is Hotter Than An Ocean’s Oven”. Singer Colleen Kinsella has a soaring, operatic voice a la JOSPEHINE FOSTER, and she sings her friggin’ lungs out with sheer, gutsy, I-totally-know-what-I’m-doing confidence. This track is what pulled me in, and the rest of the disc kept me there, including these two spaced-out twanged late night blues riffers that are obviously fraternal twins: “Low Gravity Blues” and “No Gravity Blues”. Something tells me this couple is going to be attracting their deserved attention within the year, and there are at least three new CD-Rs slated for 2008 to help said attention along. Get started on the BIG BLOOD tip by playing or downloading these three here.

Play or Download BIG BLOOD – “The Grove Is Hotter Than An Ocean’s Oven”
Play or Download BIG BLOOD – “Low Gravity Blues”
Play or Download BIG BLOOD – “No Gravity Blues”