Darkland Express:
I originally had it in mind to do an album along the lines of more roots blues, but maybe more with an early 60s sound, British blues. I'd been listening to some of John Mayall's earliest stuff and loved it. But I was also really into Lightnin' Hopkins and Memphis Slim and John Lee Hooker...I liked the idea that the best stuff was raw and very expressive. Eventually other things started coming out of me, as they always seem to, and it developed into something else altogether. But that vibe still influences the album. I'd been fooling around with bits and pieces that eventually became "Darkland Express" for close to 10 years by the time I finally formed it into this. I thought it would fit if I went in that bluesy direction.
The percussion sound, which evokes trains and rails and such, is actually "thunderdesk", which was what I called it when I played the piece of sheet metal that formed the back wall of my desk. I'd been playing on it since about the age of 13, and vowed that one day I'd record it. When you crawled under the desk and got into this little area, you were surrounded on three sides by sheet metal, and when you hit it, it sounded great. What you hear has no effects on it, that's what it sounded like under there. I'm playing with the pads of fingers and fists, and my fingernails for the more clicky sounds. If memory serves, I held the mic with one hand and played with the other. Not the first time during these sessions something like that would be necessary.
The weirdness at the end just sort of developed because I wasn't near the tape deck and had to get out from under the desk to turn it off. What to do with the dead air? Whistle, at first; then a siren became audible out my window, so I went with that, pointed the mic in that direction. The guitar for the whole piece was put down after, and I just went along with this new bit for the ending. Part of that was the riff for "Hellhound In My Heart", which was improvised here and then turned into that song later. It all served to influence the sound and direction of the album.
credits
from Darkland Express part one,
released April 29, 2016
GS: guitar, thunderdesk, bass, sniffs and mumbles, ambient sounds, locomotive breath, whistling
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