Roots Music from the Melting Pot
by Chris Zebo
Kara Suzanne and the Gojo Hearts’ debut album, Aumsville, was self-released in 2006 with a limited budget and all of the attendant hurdles facing any first-release indie group. In addition to being broke, they had little experience in the music biz. And without a label, a distributor, and cash flow, Aumsville was destined to be another indie album buried deep in the bottomless record crate of the Internet.
But they had resolve. They endured a lot of donkey work to get their music into people’s ears. They promoted it on MySpace (yes, MySpace still existed back then), they produced artful CDs (yes, CDs still existed back then) and they sent them to every critic and industry executive in the solar system (back when Pluto was still a planet). When they weren’t promoting online, on the phone, or in the mailbox, they took it to the streets—cutting their teeth at gigs all over Manhattan to generate a following.
Their tenacity paid off. Aumsville was discovered (somehow) and it became a critical success, if not a financial one. Within a few months of releasing the album, the group walked away with the Independent Music Awards’ Album of the Year.
In 2009, Kara and the Gojo’s returned to the studio to record their second full-length album, Parlor Walls (released January, 2010). The band drove north out of NYC, a hundred miles into the countryside, far from the five boroughs and smog-soaked trees. They arrived at Dreamland, a quaint, turn-of-the-century church converted into a stained-glass recording studio. Nestled in the idyllic, rolling hills of the Hudson River Valley, Dreamland was the ideal setting to record 11 songs with heartland tendencies. For seven long and slow days, they inhaled the country air and exhaled it into their microphones.
Sure, Parlor Walls is certainly more Nashville than Big Apple. Yes, there’s country in this album. But don’t expect paeans to pickup trucks or tear-in-the-beer ballads about cheatin’ hearts. Elements of folk, rock and blues are all there, too. But the brilliant thing about this release is how all of the genres congeal together, melodiously, in the same pot.
The band bridges the divide between blues, country, folk and rock; but they’re also not afraid of burning those bridges when the muse summons. The music fits under the umbrella of Americana/roots music without getting wet, but in another sense, this is roots music without roots. It’s as close to the farm as it is to the freeway. And that might be what’s most refreshing about this release; it’s homeless and it belongs somewhere at the same time.
Lyrically, the songs in Parlor Walls are not as much about a sense of place as they are about a person trying to grasp a world that’s perpetually shifting. The album takes its name from Ray Bradbury’s dystopian sci-fi thriller, Fahrenheit 451. In the novel, books are banned and burned at 451 degrees Fahrenheit (the temperature at which paper combusts). Television has become the dominant medium of exchange (now imagine that). People sit in TV “parlours” with walls constructed of TV screens, and they bathe in a glowing stream of moving images—thousands of them, all vying for their attention. The effect is paralyzing. People lose their grasp of reality. They lose their ability to frame cogent thoughts and to communicate effectively with one another. In short, they’re out of touch.
Well, the future is now and the walls are covered in liquid crystal. But Parlor Walls is certainly not a rueful album and Kara is not chanting revolution. If anything, Kara’s new album is a testament to how music can still bring us together and make sense out of the crazy world we live in. A very powerful record and an excellent production. Highly recommended.
You can listen to the album and download it at www.karasuzanne.com.