BONNIE STILLWATTER
THE DEVIL IS PEOPLE (TEMPORARY RESIDENCE)
label:
TEMPORARY RESIDENCE
BONNIE STILLWATTER is a conceptual collaboration of artistry and friendship between WILL OLDHAM (aka BONNIE 'PRINCE' BILLY), experimental rock group WATTER (featuring a member of GRAILS), and STILLWATER ARTISANAL, a nomadic brewer that mixes equal parts art and alcohol.
This collaboration is an inspired one, the roots of which are a mutual respect and love, and the fruits of which are two side-long trips into dark cinematic folk-rock determined to find the light at the end of the tunnel.
"The Devil Is People" begins not unlike the east-meets-west melancholy of Watter and Grails.
Oldham's penchant for weaving singer with song is particularly resonant here; his firstperson storytelling has an uncanny way of sounding communal - almost hymnal - when wrapped in ever-unfolding layers of warm sound.
On the b-side, mercurial multi-instrumentalist/producer Bundy K. Brown (Tortoise, Gastr del Sol) explodes "The Devil Is People", rearranging and reinterpreting its multitude of instruments and voices into something more sinister - less a remix, more like a vital new limb growing from the belly of the beast.