Messenger Records
2005
Soft Dangerous Shores
About This Album
After a pair of internet-only live solo acoustic releases -- the excellent Weed and War Crime Blues -- the enigmatic Chris Whitley returns to the studio with Soft Dangerous Shores. Produced by Malcolm Burn -- who also chaired Whitley's 1991 debut Living with the Law -- the set is a deeply atmospheric, intricately textured collection of skeletally arranged expressionistic tunes that have their roots in folk, jazz, rock, and mutant, witchy blues. And unlike Living with the Law, this is a more nocturnal affair and owes no allegiance to country. Accompanied by a small band, Whitley digs deep into drones, open tunings, and edgeless dissonance. Along with his trademark guitar sound, Burn, who plays keyboards, layers in eerie sounds; they float and hover, drift and wave over and through the guitars and percussions. The shuffling snare and bass drum on "Fireroad," anchors Whitley's shapeshifting melodic frame as the National punctuates it all with a taut urgency: "I been making then making the song trespassing home/Engine of Blood, flywheel of bone/Illuminate Me, illuminate you/We could escape fireroads for two..." Feedback and Dan Whitley's electric slip into the middle to add edge and tension.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,8 and 11)

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