Paper Moon

There's a special place in the world for the "burnt desert" song...a world of sneaky rattlesnakes and echoed canyon noir, songs of traveling and dust, the cactus dry yet alive, the kicking vintage truck transporting all manner of bad behavior and innocence freighted belief.  Where the laws of men  inhabit the expected, and the pistol could jam with sand and the Mariachi band is playing not for profit but for survival.  The outpost is an empty tank away, the beer is on ice, melting, and the lizards are scrambling, hissing and flared.  Step into the sepia-toned light, then, with bleached bones and death rattle and cosmic, red-hued hum..Georgiana Starlington.

Not a person, but a band.  The darkest twilight criss-crossed lightning across the plains, finding the patter of a windstorm on vagabond tin-roof porch, beat beat beat the rhythm of safety and danger, lone yet part of the mythology of the West. 

Georgiana Starlington is made up of  husband and wife Jack and Julie Hines (also of the mighty K-Holes), along with Daniel Sheerin on  drums and percussion , Andy Curtin on pedal steel, and Vashti Windish on singing saw. Their record, Paper Moon (out on Hozac),  occupies the space inbetween the raindrops.  The curdled muddy footsteps of bad deeds and the sinister sway of hardboiled regret.  Jack and Julie trade vocals, occasionally as cow-noir duets, his voice a bourbon ramble, hers a gauzy gingham chanteuse, and surround themselves with hazy blanched rhythms and sound.  A rumbled sand-surf guitar line, lonesome desperate pedal steel, the keening of a singing saw, midnight church harmonica.  All hymns of hazy, steepled mesas. 

Tracks like "Hard Grave",  "The Great Divide", "Dry As A Bone", and "Days Like Heaven" shimmer like pale desert nights. "Moonlight" the saddest pedal-driven cowboy lament,  campfire and crickets. And "Gust" is perfect, a rough-hewn diamond, sparkling darkly.

An essential album for anyone visiting these here sites, and easily one our best records of the year.


From Paper Moon LP (ripped from vinyl, natch):

Georgiana Starlington: Dry As A Bone (mp3)


From The Paper Moon Demos (free on Bandcamp)

Georgiana Starlington: Johnny Come Listen (mp3)


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