Raising Sand

Product Description

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss – RAISING SAND – That is the primary recorded collaborative effort between two of essentially the most distinctive vocalists in fashionable music. RAISING SAND includes a stellar solid of supporting musicians, together with guitarists T Bone Burnett, Mare Ribot, and Norman Blake, Multi-instrument-talist Mike Seeger, drummer Jay Bellerose, and bassist Dennis Crouch.

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Maybe solely the fantasy duo of King Kong and Bambi might be a more strange pairing than Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. But on Elevating Sand, their haunting and sensible collaboration, the Led Zeppelin screamer and Nashville’s most hypnotic music whisperer appear made for one another. This, nonetheless, shouldn’t be the howling Plant of “Entire Lotta Love,” however a much more exact and softer singer than even the one who emerged with Dreamland (2002). Irrespective of that Plant appears so subdued as to be on downers, for that is one of many keys to this most inconceivable assembly of musical galaxies–almost all of it appears slowed down, out of time, otherworldly, and at occasions downright David Lynch-ian, the product of an altered consciousness. But in all probability the principle cause all of it works so effectively is the selection of producer T Bone Burnette, the third star of the album, who culled principally lesser-known materials from among the nice writers of blues, nation, folks, gospel, and R&B, together with Tom Waits, Townes Van Zandt, Milt Campbell, the Everly Brothers, Sam Phillips, and A.D. and Rosa Lee Watson. At occasions, Burnette’s spare and deliberate soundscape–incisively crafted by guitarists Marc Ribot and Norman Blake, bassist Dennis Crouch, drummer Jay Bellerose, and multi-instrumentalist Mike Seeger, amongst others–is almost as dreamy and subterranean as Daniel Lanois’s work with Emmylou Harris (Wrecking Ball). Often, Burnette opts for a reasonably easy manufacturing whereas nonetheless remodeling the unique music (Plant’s personal “Please Learn the Letter,” Mel Tillis’s “Keep on with Me, Child”). However a lot of the brand new flesh on these outdated bones is oddly unsettling, if not nightmarish. On the opening monitor of “Wealthy Lady,” the soft-as-clouds vocals strike an optimistic temper, whereas the instrumental backing–loose snare, ominous bass line, and insinuating electrical guitar lines–create a spooky, sinister undertow. Plant and Krauss commerce out the solo and concord vocals, and whereas they each enterprise into new waters right here (Krauss as a mainstream blues mama, Plant as a gospel singer and honkytonker), she steals the present in Sam Phillips’ new “Sister Rosetta Goes Earlier than Us,” the place a dramatic violin and tremulous banjo strike a foreboding gypsy tone. When Krauss begins this unusual, seductive music in a voice so ethereal that angels will take be aware, you might cease respiration. That, amongst different causes, makes Elevating Sand an album to die for. –Alanna Nash