Sophomore Album Presents An Array of Styles Rooted in the American Desert
This Utah-based band name looks strange but it really isn’t if you break it apart – it’s simply a “three hat trio.” And the three hat trio plays a sublime, passive type of American desert music – as they call it on their new eleven track CD. Now, words like sublime, passive suggest valium induced type music – something to put you to sleep. On the contrary.
The music is constructed with performance precision, a natural presence of melody, not forcing the music but allowing it to seep into your ears the way a good medicine seeps into your body and does some good work and as for the music — you won’t realize its benefits until you patiently give it a few listens. Patience is a virtue.
The first track has quite a good melody, sung with a rusty aching vocal – a rock band from the 70’s Siren and its late lead vocalist Kevin Coyne had a similar approach (For those unfamiliar with Mt. Coyne’s legacy, Elektra Records once considered Kevin as a serious replacement for Jim Morrison in The Doors. But Coyne turned them down). A European group by the name of Interview who released two major label records in the 70’s also had a vocalist ( I believe his name was Jeff Starrs) who had a cool demeanor and sounded like no one. (This band cut demos with Peter Gabriel). The song that comes to my mind is their breezy “Style on Seaview.”
This album by 3hattrio is in that similar vein with a unique calling card of a vocal. 3hattrio have three distinct players: Greg Istock — Acoustic bass, foot percussion, vocals; Hal Cannon – guitars, banjos and vocals and finally Eli Wrankle – violin.
The first track is relatively short, but the combination of deep bass tones, pristine acoustic guitar and rural, pastoral vocals adds lots of character to an otherwise simple tune. Sometimes it’s not so much the picture as it is the frame. And this is looking good. The band has “created” a new sound – it’s not quite Americana, roots, folk or country. But, it does have mud, it has sand, cactus and humidity in its presentation. Considering the sparseness in the musicianship there is quite a bit going on.
“Dark Desert Night,” is their sophomore album – and it seems to present an array of styles dipped into their American Desert condiment.
“Carry Me Away,” to my ears sounds like something inspired by the “folk” music of Australia-New Zealand. I have not read at this point their PR so I am guessing. But there is a warmth, a graceful tenor in their acoustic playing and the melody sewn together when the violin chimes in. The percussion is a steady traditional style, Native American crossed with Aborigine? I’m not sure – but the strings are plucked in a manner similar to down under and it quietly becomes provocative, effective and with some deep ancient folkish depth.
A little more American in nature is the banjo driven “Nothing.” Deep vocals swell as the melody hauntingly trudges along and the bass winds around the banjo and violin. It will slowly sweep you up into its arid fiery drama. It’s like watching someone build a little fire and they are blowing on the cinders, fanning the flame, waving a piece of cardboard over it, and repeating the process until suddenly before your eyes a generous fire bellows forth. The entire album seems to take on that cohesion.
“Tammy’s Sister,” is a little more upbeat – vocals border on Steve Earle and the banjo seems to cut a rhythm as catchy as anything Keith Richards and the Rolling Stones devised. It’s a cool hook as the banjo hammers its notes and supports the vocalist’s Tom Waits’ like meter in the lyric. The violin, of course, is a supporting character here and it does fine. It just flies above the bass and banjo like a high flying bird – gliding without flapping its wings in that graceful supernatural style high above everything. There are times, unless they tracked the violin, that it sounded like more than one violin. “Off the Map,” is reminiscent of Poco, Seatrain, a pensive Hot Tuna, a slight touch on the Medieval-folk band Amazing Blondell (or more specifically, one of its founding members the great Eddie Baird). The rustic vocal doesn’t sound like an old timer, the vocal has youth but a youthful voice with shards of wisdom and experience with melancholy. This is quite dramatic and the violin is prominently featured.
Opening next is the deep warm violin strains of “White Pressing Down,” that continues with that Amazing Blondell-Eddie Baird sound on the acoustic guitar. Here, the vocalist sings with the affirmation of a Dave Cousins (Strawbs) and a little of the eccentric vocalizing of one Tom Rapp (Pearls Before Swine). This was all back in the early 70’s when groups such as these really pushed the envelope. This is a ballad, but it also has a dark story that unfolds a little at times with the attitude and darkness of Brenden Perry (Dead Can Dance) during the era when they released songs like “American Dreaming.” Very effective, and shows the trio has excellent diversity…whether they were aware of these artists or not.
“Western City Nights,” is my personal favorite. There’s just something about this entire performance that takes a tight hold. The potency of the violin, the vocal angst, the deadpan percussion, the stirring of all the instruments as they come together in a swirl of mystery and mythic styles. “Get on the Bus,” starts with soulful vocals (probably Greg Istock since he wrote it). It is fueled with high octane words and inflections and Istock sounds more like an elderly black man who had a guitar and roamed the desert for decades. Instead of a legend of the crossroads he possesses the legend of the red rocks, sand and cactus, the mirages of Lucifer and the subtleties of raw passion and…blues. This is a jewel. At times the desert sound is obvious in these tracks. Obvious that these don’t possess the humidity of the delta or Appalachia and are indeed sandier, more lizard than snake, more adobe than clapboard shack, more tumbleweed than Spanish moss.
“Sand Storm,” has some gypsy style running through it – but it could easily be just migrant people passing through to another place. The sound conjures old pickup trucks loaded down with furniture, mattresses, canteens. It’s not the Dust Bowl days either…it’s now…today. The music is spare but because it’s threaded together with little sounds, intricately tied together like a spider’s web it unravels with little gossamer notes here and there in a mystical, raindrop on a web way.
If ever there was a more rural, dry version of Dead Can Dance – 3hattrio could be that band. The acoustic bass on this track is a dust-dry sepia portrait and there’s lots of mood in this. It possesses that heat of the day, and that cold of the night in its desert arrangement. “Left Texas,” has that Willie Nelson-sound in the acoustic guitar.
This is a reworking of an old traditional song about trail a drive in 1881. The entire melodic tale takes steps that are spookily unraveled in a story — very dark, amber-lit faced campfire, wide-eyed cowboys listening between chugs of whiskey. The tone in the voice is perfect for this tale. The final track “Crippled-Up Blues,” is a Hal Cannon original.
Banjo, violin, acoustic guitar and bass – unflinchingly trade off as if seated at the end of the day – not on some back porch like down South – but out somewhere between tall rocks, prickly pear cacti, Mexican poppies, wildflowers, horse-crippler cactus, ocotillo plants and sun-dried skeleton of a once wild animal.
The collection is effective, and creative since not many can whip up a group of songs that are derived from a musical desert. Some people would think that a desert has nothing to offer – emptiness. But, they would be wrong. The desert is like the big city – there are many buildings there. You just can’t see the homes and their occupants. The eyes that follow you are quite varied. Many “walks of life” reside in the desert and this is the surreal object of 3hattrio’s music. The music 3hattrio provides sheds a little musical light – amber as it is – on all the places to look. You just have to listen and you will see.
My only criticism is the CD art: Too dark, gloomy for the type of music contained. That beautiful open dirt road on the fanciful stitched lyric booklet would have been a more attractive cover. Suggesting to a listener – where are you going to take me?
Even the colorful back panel with the three members of the band is more inviting…and had they been standing on that long dirt road even more effective. Other than that, the CD package is designed very well, quite informative and again, as spare in instruments as they are credited, the trio has quite a full sound because their unity is authentic. These men enjoy playing and it shows.
Website: http://www.3hattrio.com/
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/3Hattrio/
BandCamp: https://3hattrio.bandcamp.com/album/dark-desert-night
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this review / commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of No Depression. All photography is owned by the respective photographers and is their copyrighted image; credited where photographer’s name was known & being used here solely as reference and will be removed on request.
John Apice / No Depression / March 2016