Oh, Manchester, So Much To Answer For

My buddy Ben Kreider, whose writing can be seen here (he does CD reviews and longer multi-subject music columns for All Access, an offshoot of Muncie, Indiana's Star Press newspaper), sent me a marvelous "care package" yesterday, including his 3CD "best of 2003" set, and the Cold Mountain soundtrack. This album, like its big brother O Brother Where Art Thou?, was put together with care by T-Bone Burnett - and while it's gotten reams less press, it may actually be better. As opposed to O Brother's harkening back to the 1930s, Cold Mountain, obviously enough, takes on the music of the Civil War era, and does so in fine fashion. Jack White turns in some of his best work ever on five tracks, attacking traditional songs such as "Wayfaring Stranger" and "Sittin' on Top of the World" with gusto and in great voice (hearing White backed by acoustic instruments, he reminds me quite a bit of Beck, actually). If you watched the Oscars, you heard golden-voiced Alison Krauss's two contributions, nominated songs written by Sting, and Elvis Costello and Burnett. Sting's "You Will Be My Ain True Love" is easily the best song he's written in over a decade, a truly haunting, almost beyond-the-grave song sung in the voice of the film's Ada to her love Inman, as he journeys back to her after deserting the Confederacy in the war. Sting's vocal assist to Krauss on this song is note-perfect, too, never overshadowing Krauss's delicate yet sturdy tones. [And between her songs here and on O Brother, how badly I'd love to hear an entire Krauss record produced by Burnett!]

Burnett apparently took many of his cues for this soundtrack from hearing the Sacred Harp Singers, a phenomenal group of vocalists whom I find reminiscent of Tuvan throat singers (cf. Huun-Huur-Tu). They're this amazing conglomeration of southern singers who chiefly sing traditional Southern Gospel standards, and do so with such perfect pitch and in such glorious harmony as to nearly be alarming. This is, if you'll allow me the stretch, the music of heavenly choirs. The contributions of unsung artists such as Cassie Franklin (whose "Lady Margaret" is this album's "O Death" - not only a cappella, but a bit unsettling lyrically), Stuart Duncan, and Tim Erisken help round out the disc, along with four selections from (Oscar-nommed) Gabriel Yared's magical, more-evocative-than-words score. Released in December of last year, this late-breaker may end up with a place on my year-end album list for 2004. A