Kevin Bronson on June 5th, 2012

0

On one hand, you have to doff your bowler hat to Kris Hutson and Pearl Charles, who as the Driftwood Singers embrace traditional folk music with tender loving care, crafting dark but uplifting tales with little more than voice, guitar and autoharp. On the other, you wonder what motivates southern California-bred art-schoolers to look and sound like they just rolled in from the Dust Bowl with one change of clothes, their instruments and a Victrola. As aesthetics go, it beats face paint and glowsticks, I guess. But the answers really rest in the tomes on the duo’s self-titled debut, which comes out next week. Hutson and Charles, their voices so perfectly braided they act as one rope, pull the listener through their mini-novellas with exceptional grace and lyrical aplomb. From start to finish, “The Driftwood Singers” serves as an argument that vintage Americana remains the most emotionally direct form, cinema that almost predates cinema. Serve at 78 rpm.

||| Download: “Come Across the Tracks”