The California Recordings by Mike Tod is a special album. Sure there are comparisons to be made and styles to compare but I think a better understanding of the album is gained from understanding how and where it came into being. Tod was travelling from place to place in Northern California (as the title suggests), trading songs and smokes with country singers and generally living the life of a wanderer. This somehow seems vitally important when listening to the tracks. I think (especially here in the UK) there is a traditional idea of the vast continent North America, inspired by cowboys and Keroauc, that is romantic and exciting. It’s good to know it still exists somewhere.
The songs were recorded live on tape on a single afternoon (with Scott Munro, from Chad vanGaalen’s band), and it suits the style perfectly. There’s something about a folk song that deserves to be captured in one go, some personality unique to each telling that can be lessened or eradicated with over-production. There’s an interview with Damien Jurado (from the fantastic Room 125 Productions) where he says that he feels that songs always exist and musicians just wait for them to appear; a near spontaneous discovery of a particular song occurs before he writes it down and records it. There is no critical dissection or agonizing over details, just a set of sounds and words that are allowed to live and breathe in their original form. I don’t mean this to sound as if songwriters stumble upon songs, or as if I’m taking anything from the writing, but there is something within songs (something that may well go deeper than the words) than develops and blooms during the performance. Sure, it may work for some people to write a song then continually change parts of it, maybe recording the deconstructed components separately before building it all up again, but I don’t think it suits the true folk music that Mike Tod is creating. He (at least to my ears) discovers songs as their complete entity and shares them as that, with no tricks. This is basically a long-winded way of saying that there is something admirably true and alive about the songs on this record – as if they were innate objects within Tod and people he met and Californian wilderness itself which he harnessed for us to hear too.
Garden song (inch by inch) by Mike Tod
I guess I should describe the music a bit more to give you idea of what it is like. Anyone who is familiar with his previous releases (such as the excellent ’The Northern Country’ album) will find The California Recordings a lot more restrained and melancholic. The catchy foot-stomping whistle-inducing pace has been replaced with contemplative strumming and a noticeable reduction in tempo. There is great variety in the songs and characters on offer; from the old time tale of ‘The Ballad of the Miner’ and the nostalgia of ‘The Lass and The Lad’, to the hopeful ‘Garden Song’ and the sentimental mixture of love and regret of ‘You’ll Have To Excuse Me’. Across the album you get the feeling that the songs have been collected rather than written, tales foraged from the woods and their inhabitants and recorded with a keen ear and expert hand and large heart. The collection of songs feels organic and real.
You’ll Have To Excuse Me from Dylan Rhys Howard.
The album is available to pre-order now on Bandcamp and will be released by Cabin Songs on 26th January with a show at the Lantern Community Church with Tyler Butler, The Bitterweed Draw and Robbie Banks. More details can be found on the Facebook event page. Mike is touring Western Canada in Jan/Feb (dates here) and I have heard whispers that he plans to tour further afield in the coming year so keep an eye out for him near you.