The Night’s Bloom

The Night’s Bloom
Label: Barbary Coast
Rated: NONE
WorkNameSort: Night’s Bloom, The

While the fluid collective of Chicago musicians known as Pinetop Seven has never exactly produced the happiest music around, this is their darkest and most moving record to date. Centered around Darren Richard (songwriter/vocalist/conceptualist), Pinetop Seven has included nearly two dozen members in its ranks over the years, each contributing to the inverse Americana the group excels at. Again on The Night’s Bloom, Richard blends his own vision of songcraft (off-kilter; anyone who claims Harry Partch and Dock Boggs as equal influences is just not right in the head) and lyrics (morbidly abstract and vaguely Gothic) with the contributions of various guests. Strings and brass find their way into these pieces, as does a toy piano, a double bass and a marimba, resulting in a rich, graceful – and quite dire – sound.

This article appears in Oct 26 – Nov 1, 2005.