To the Races
In the early 1990s, Eric Bachmann achieved a modicum of success by playing decent, fun, and derivative indie rock that borrowed heavily from music that groups like Pavement, Versus, and Superchunk had made a year or two earlier. It's a touch ironic, then, that today Bachmann's records sell fewer copies, even though he himself was ahead of the whole hippie folk shtick by at least a few years. The songs are lovely and unapologetically retro; if you dig Phil Ochs, Tom Rush, and solo Steve Earle, you have a new favorite artist. The arrangements are subtle and stark at once. Most songs begin with deft acoustic finger-picking, and slowly other instruments and vocals are brought in. There's very little freaky about this folk, but that doesn't mean it fails to strive to be visionary. "Man O' War," a six-and-a-half minute tale of Man vs. Nature, might be the best thing this artist's ever done.--Mike McGonigal