Let the rivers clap their hands,
Let the mountains sing together for joy
I’ve mentioned Squirrel Nut Zippers before, but I’ve never really given them the time they deserve on this webspace, for all the time they’ve taken from my life. Their first three albums really all form a collective “formative album,” though I’ll stick to my personal favorite just for the sake of the game.
Squirrel Nut Zippers – The Inevitable (1995)
It was really my mom who introduced me to the Zippers, & swing throw-back in general, though I never really got into all the music as much as she did (Brian Setzer? no thanks), & in exchange I’ve been giving her new favorite bands for the past 5 years or so. This band is somewhat of an artifact within an artifact, almost an unnoticed relic of a time period that’s sometimes considered too kitschy anyway — though I will give the proprietors of the UMW Centennial Ball ample applause for providing amazing 1920’s re-do time capsule music (after all, if you can’t get a band that sounds like old bands, why not get a band that sounds like a band that sounds like old bands?). The Squirrel Nut Zippers themselves are a group of North Carolina misfits whose blues work (frontman James Mathus‘ spin-off band provides the tunes here) is astonishing in its realness of the situation, but their true calling has always been this ancient swing-up croon-down music. Mostly originals, & yet still the covers sound like nothing else made in the mid-nineties. I suppose part of it may be losing yourself in the music, but I don’t think this would be jarring for anyone. It’s a semi-lo-fi swing-jazz/blues concoction that’s introduced me to the one of the most tightly wound, talented group of musicians I’ve heard.
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It’s raw & unfiltered one-take type music, & it can’t hurt to re-live an era you missed the first time around, right?