BONNIE "PRINCE" BILLY II

I SEE A DARKNESS
Amazon.com's Best of 1999
"Prince" Will Oldham has always threatened to make a completely devastating album and this is it. Brooding and strikingly intimate, I See a Darkness picks through the abandoned camps of Bob Dylan and Neil Young, finding lonely tales and ragged melodies strewn about. The magic comes in the light Oldham is able to shine on these songs, rendering them both gorgeously baroque yet starkly modern. --S. Duda
Amazon.com
Will Oldham, the artist formerly known as Palace, has never been concerned with creating pop music. Oldham's forte, murder ballads, antispirituals, dead-sea chanteys, and lost-love songs, has always been "difficult," forcing the listener to confront some rather unseemly topics. Say this about Oldham, however, despite his quirks (cracking vocals, shambolic instrumentation, baroque language), at its best, his music is bracing and, often, very beautiful. That said, I See a Darkness, his second LP since abandoning the Palace moniker, is the most accessible, gorgeous, and moving record of his career. Instead of the gothic, low-fi country feel of many of his projects, Darkness comes off sounding like an early-'70s Neil Young album, comprised of a stately piano backbone and fleshed out by loose-fitting guitar strums. Stylistically, Oldham mixes things up on Darkness and his full band sounds, for once, well practiced and well recorded. Sure, Oldham is still singing about the blackness of his soul, but in between--in small bursting moments--there are bits of light, hope, and a suggestion that maybe--just maybe--there may be redemption through love. That message, presented in these carefully constructed, gently offered songs, pushes this recording beyond the usual, curious appeal of Oldham and into an entirely new realm of greatness. S. Duda

AMAZON

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Master and Everyone

Bonnie "Prince" Billy, a.k.a. Will Oldham, is no ordinary bard. His writing, which can call to mind 19th-century American poets like Walt Whitman, has won him a cult of fans that include Marianne Faithfull, Björk, and Beck. Master's painfully fragile intensity is disconcerting and challenging, yet its purity and tenderness is soothing all the same. Dark, intimate, and sparsely arranged, it's a loose, meditative concept record that explores issues of gender, self, and love. Here Oldham trades in his familiar warble for a hushed, clear high tenor and a rock band for his acoustic guitar; ever-so-soft strings and keyboards warm up the arrangements while he is backed by Marty Slayton's sweet, feminine harmonies. Lyrically less dense than previous releases, Master does retain Oldham's typically quaint phrasings, as in "Ain't You Wealthy, Ain't You Wise?" and "Joy and Jubilee." With a few listens, these 10 oddly gentle songs will endear themselves, and perhaps prove Master to be Oldham's best and most personal work to date.
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BEWARE

Breaking through the dirt and shooting upward into our atmosphere is a new variety of exotic Bonnie Prince Billy plant. Stronger. Stinkier. It blooms in low light and cold but thrives in the sun as well, showing enticing spots and eating small creatures as they wander into its jaws. They had it coming, they were weak...and you re next! Beware. Though Beware shares spit with its immediate predecessor, Lie Down in the Light, its reach is longer, its arches more grandiose. Where fiddle and steel contribute their rustic timbre alongside guitars and voices, a thickening thud of low tone rolls beneath, giving the record a bottom that s fun to watch bounce in new clothes. This indensifies the air and heralds Beware as Bonny s most ambidextrous record to date even more so than The Letting Go! A listen or two through and you too may conclude that this could also be the great Bonnie Prince Billy contempo-country record though, as always, the Prince goes his own special way, even when climbing the charts with brawny arms and classic titles like I Don t Belong to Anyone, You Can t Hurt Me Now, and I Am Goodbye.

AMAZON

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Bonnie "Prince" Billy I

Superwolf

Will Oldham's musical personality is strong and distinct enough that when he collaborates with another artist, with rare exception he firmly takes the lead (whether or not that was the intention). And while guitarist Matt Sweeney (formerly of Chavez and Zwan) gets equal billing with Oldham's alter ego Bonnie "Prince" Billy on 2005's Superwolf, one listen confirms that this is primarily Oldham's work, with Sweeney obviously second in command. (The liner notes state that Oldham wrote the lyrics and Sweeney wrote the music, though to these ears Sweeney is either remarkably gifted at channeling Oldham's musical notions or the lyricist passed along a few melodic ideas as well.) However, this isn't to say Sweeney's presence isn't strongly and clearly felt here -- Superwolf exists in a musical landscape very much like Bonnie "Prince" Billy's earlier recorded work, such as Ease Down the Road and I See a Darkness, but Sweeney's periodic interjections of hard guitar lines give this a firmer musical texture and a stronger structural backbone than one might expect. Also, withSweeney on hand, Oldham has kept some of his less appealing musical eccentricities in check -- this is one of his strongest and best-focused works in years, with the slow tempos adding drama to songs that manage to go somewhere in dramatic fashion despite their deliberate pace, and Sweeney's spare but evocative guitar lines fill the spaces without cluttering the frames. Even if Oldham ends up being front and center on Superwolf, the results make it clear the man works best with a strong collaborator, and it's hard not to hope Oldham and Sweeney continue to work together in the future.

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Lie Down in the Light

So who's been giving Will Oldham singing lessons? The artist currently known as Bonnie "Prince" Billy has displayed a rather inconsistent skill set when it comes to vocals in the 15 years since the Palace Brothers' debut album, but on 2008's Lie Down in the Light, Oldhamsounds more tuneful than ever before; on the opener, "Easy Does It," he could pass as the leader of some better than

average country-rock outfit from the early '70s, which matches the jaunty but laid-back vibe of the tune. Some of the songs here recall the more spare and troubling style that marked Oldham's earlier work, such as "So Everyone," "Willow Trees Bend," and "What's Missing Is," but he's still showing a greater control over his vocal instrument than before, sounding like a real singer in a way he often hasn't in the past, and while the production and arrangements on this album are lean and uncluttered, they're rooted in a warmth and lyricism that make this one of the most satisfying albums Oldhamhas offered as Bonnie "Prince" Billy. Oldham's obsession with Southern gothic archetypes hasn't changed much on this set, but the 11 new songs here feel fresh and unforced, with a grace in the wordplay that matches the natural flow of the music, and whether the mood reflects hope ("For Every Field There's a Mole"), longing ("Lie Down in the Light"), or contemplation of the mysteries ("You Want That Picture"), these songs hit their target true and clean. Lie Down in the Light doesn't sound like an immediate masterpiece in the manner of 2006's The Letting Go, but on the whole it's as strong and satisfying as anythingOldham has released in the last ten years, and it's encouraging that he keeps getting stronger and refining his gifts with the passage of time. And who knows what will happen if he keeps seeing that vocal coach.

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Ease Down the Road

Will Oldham has long confused record buyers with his constantly changing monikers. Though the persona attached has remained fairly consistent, his releases under Bonnie "Prince" Billy brought a subtle but undeniable shift. Following the cracked, wayward style he adopted on 1997s Joya, Oldham settled on the steady understated "Bonnie" voice of I See a Darkness. The lyrics became more direct and the narrator's strange mythology deepened. If that album embraced its subject as a necessary, even beautiful aspect of life, Ease Down the Roadfinds the singer comfortable with this new-found acceptance. Backing Oldham is a cast of new and old faces who deliver their parts with an unusually soft, smooth touch. The singer eases into this setting, singing of his estranged upbringing, plans to construct his own kingdom (through questionable means), and love. The latter is Oldham's biggest preoccupation, finding its way into nearly every song, like the album's subplot. Though unable to choose between the love of one woman and the ability to be with whomever will suit his needs, the narrator is largely unconcerned with the conflict. Ease Down the Roadfeatures some of his most direct dealings with the subject on "May It Always Be" and "After I Made Love to You." As the album develops, this material is balanced with the more characteristic musings of "The Lion Lair," "Sheep," and "Grand Dark Feeling of Emptiness": songs that trace the same fictional histories found on I See a Darkness. The end result is the natural and necessary expansion of a unique songwriting voice. Seeming more confident than ever, Oldham's Ease Down the Road is a wonderful addition to a catalog that should earn him a place among the finest songwriters of his age, or any age.

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V. A. Jazz Manouche Vol. 1 y 5

Variada compilación del género. Varios volúmenes. Muy interesante para introducirse al mismo.

bajar acá (vol 1)

y acá(vol 5)

El 2 y el 4 los pueden encontrar acá