Johnny Coley - Antique Sadness [LP]

With a strange ensemble of instruments setting an ambiguous mood, Johnny Coley delves into the saltwater pool of his mind to extract lucid observations that drip like surreal front porch gossip. With a drawling voice equally poignant and comic, Johnny's experimental storytelling unfolds like an old familiar blanket...musty and stained with various bodily fluids...a map of time, pleasure and disintegration. The music surrounding his verbal riffing is made by an array of off-beat combos: two banjos and a transistor radio screeching and braying in a field, amplified chalkboard paired with upright bass and mysterious German electronics, a brushed snare gently sizzling with harp and pyraharp. Johnny Coley & crew keep things loose, unpredictable and juicy. "...tracks like “House I was Born” have an interesting contrast between the more dreamy, reflective tone of the backing music and Coley’s amusing turn of phrase, all of which is elevated by his unique cadence that falls somewhere between Robert Ashley, David Wojnarowicz, and Intersystems. Pretty wild that it’s taken so many years for Coley to have recorded an album like this, as Antique Sadness displays a type of southern avant psychedelia that I could see a number of ‘heads’ getting behind" -Free Form Freakout, KMSU 89.7FM, Mankato, MN "This year seems like an impossible one to decide on a hard favorite, but this album contains some of the most profoundly moving and singular recordings I could ever imagine.....exquisitely haunting, sublime, hilarious, stunningly beautiful reflections, one after another. Albums like this make me think that maybe perfection is attainable after all, if you approach it gently but confidently enough." -Jen Powers, Aural Thicket, WCRS 92.7FM, Columbus, OH