Alt folk opera! The tragedy of Orpheus, set in the Depression, written by Anais Mitchell, w/Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), Greg Brown, and Ani DiFranco. MY NEW FAVORITE ALBUM. Incredible lyrics, vocals are so many kinds of sexy (there’s the haunting Bon Iver, the deep rasp of Greg Brown, Ani, and Mitchell’s nasal but hyper-controlled gorgeousness), moving. Cello, accordion, acoustic guitar, glock, piano. FCC CLEAN. Play it all, but some songs don’t make sense by themselves. 1, 3, 9, 11, and 13 work alone.
1. Swingin’ love duet. 2. Slow/cool/melancholy with layered voices. Story of Hades. Ends with ambient harmonica, violin, dogs barking. 3. Upbeat fun group song with horn and guitar. Heavy on characterization…fun, “musical” feel. 4. Instrumental cello. 5. Slow deep scratchy talky male vox with higher female intercessions. 6. Longing fem fox, w/slightly distorted multipart fem vox at the end. 7. Upbeat jazzy multipart fem vox all about game theory. 8. Slow guitar, piano arpeggios, strings. Scratchy creepy whispered male vox. With beautiful layered male vox (Bon Iver) on the chorus. 9. Awesome political song, deep low scratchy, call and repeat with chorus, lots of build, long instrumental at the end. 10. Swingy, sexy jazzy song with a larger chorus in the refrain. 11. Lovely slow, melancholy fem ballad. 12. Multipart slow fem harmonies, a capella. 13. Slow sad sexy creepy marvelous Bon Iver solo to become obsessed with. 14. Fast drums/string instrumental, suggests some funky impending doom. 15. Slow duet. Poetic but won’t make sense outside of the context of the story. 16. Reprise of 2, more sadness, more drums, tells the story of Hades and Persephone. Cool harmonies. 17. Instrumental, with strange electronic noises, ambient bells, guitar, buzzing, cello, accordion. Midtempo. 18. Solo, mostly deep talking with lots of instrumental build. No sense out of context. 19. Creepy string instrumentation, steady drums. Slow, eastern vox. Ends with intense loud upsetting instrumental. 20. Slow melancholy fem duet. Fades out early.