By My Side

Heartbreakingly beautiful, slow, minimal folk. Think Will Oldham, mellow tracks Iron and Wine, quiet Sun Kil Moon, but even more low key. Pretty, meditative, slow, stripped down, slightly distorted, and with lots of acoustic guitar picking and haunting harmonium sound. The instrument soundscape reminds me Neil Young’s Sleeps With Angels. Lyrics about angels, soul, broken love etc.
Can you believe something so pretty came out of the land of the Schwarzenegger? (no, I don’t mean California). Son of The Velvet Rat is mostly Austrian Georg Altziebler, with some help (most notably, an harmonium player and female backing vocals).

I can’t pick tracks. Sorry. Every track is absolutely beautiful. Some instruction nevertheless: 9 is a great JD cover; 4, 8, 11/12 (watch for hidden track!) are somewhat experimental instrumentals; 2, 3 are darker and haunting; 1, 5, 6, 7, 10 are slightly lighter (and still haunting).

1. Female backing vocals, plucked electric guitar, slightly distorted, sustained organ notes. Beautiful.
2. Sparse distorted guitar; high pitch (female?) vox, harmonium. Hypnotic.
3. Banjo-like picking, harmonica, subdued male vox. Still downtempo, not as slow as previous tracks.
4. Short transition, instrumental, electric guitar, mid tempo beat and noise. Cool.
5. Slow/mid tempo acoustic guitar picking, nice electric guitar bridge, distorted male vox and clear backing female vox throughout, slight touches of harmonica/harmonium.
6. Slower than 5, acoustic guitar picking, harmonium, clearer male vox, and backing female in chorus. Ah, the melancholic beauty.
7. Slow. Distorted, distant guitar strumming and vocals; guitar and vox clear up after a minute in a slight, tender transition. Some wind instrument.
8. Short instrumental. Heavy bass pick, slow beat, quiet harmonium in background.
9. Oh man oh man… fabulous Joy Division cover, slow, acoustic guitar. Vocals throaty, distorted and a bit quivering. Picks up some (little) tempo. Fades out into mellow street sounds.
10. Slightly more upbeat. Dreamy organ background, fuzzy acoustic guitar picking, slightly fuzzy vocals.
11.[2:54 but hidden track follows] Great instrumental track. Harmonium (?) plays a classic European style tune over bass notes and some noisy beat that grows lowder and stops. Track ends at –8:00, hidden track starts –3:20.
12. [Hidden, see 11] Electric guitar and other noises, loops, feedback, similar harmonium theme. Transitions to louder harmonium, casio and weird noisy beat.