We should be grateful we live in this age of insane mass commercial availability, but rehashing the pointless and unimportant can get a bit sickening. However, some reminiscences are no-brainers, and a gentle rekindling of appreciation is required. Take, for example, Loving Takes This Course: A Tribute to the Songs of Kath Bloom, which eases into life by Chapter Music today, April 7.
Apart from the formidable Ms. Bloom, who gets a full disc to herself, the collection will feature some big-name admirers taking on her best and beloved songs. Hot-blooded men like Bill Callahan, Devendra Banhart, Mark Kozelek, The Dodos, and others have recorded tracks for the project. The female contingent boasts absolutely no slouches either: Josephine Foster, Meg Baird, Scout Niblett, Mia Doi Todd, and Corrina Repp all give props to the sad-voiced lady of the lowlands (of Connecticut?).
Bloom is mostly known for a number of lovely avant-folk, small-label records and limited CD-Rs she recorded with guitar guru Loren Mazzacane Connors in the late-1970s/early-1980s, but after returning to the recording arena in the 1990s, her too-few solo albums have garnered a great deal of praise as well. And no, while you will notice two versions of "Come Here" on each disc listed below, it is not because the song gained popularity after being featured in the Ethan Hawke/Julie Delpy film Before Sunrise. It is simply Bloom unleashing her inner Neil Young, who is a master of the duplicitous double song shots on some of his rekkerds. For Kath Bloom, it’s better to always burn brightly than to fade away.
Disc One (The Covers):
1. Marble Sounds - "Come Here"
2. Bill Callahan - "The Breeze/My Baby Cries"
3. Laura Jean - "When I See You"
4. Mark Kozelek - "Finally"
5. Mick Turner & Peggy Frew - "Window"
6. Devendra Banhart - "Forget About Him"
7. Scout Niblett - "I Wanna Love"
8. The Dodos - "Biggest Light of All"
9. Josephine Foster - "Look at Me"
10. Mia Doi Todd - "Ready or Not"
11. Corrina Repp - "Fall Again"
12. Marianne Dissard & Joey Burns - "It’s So Hard to Come Home"
13. Amy Rude - "In Your School"
14. Tom Hanford - "If This Journey"
15. Meg Baird - "There Was a Boy
16. The Concretes - "Come Here"
Disc Two:
1. Come Here
2. The Breeze/My Baby Cries
3. When I See You
4. Finally
5. Window
6. Forget About Him
7. I Wanna Love
8. Biggest Light of All
9. Look at Me
10. Ready or Not
11. Fall Again
12. It’s So Hard to Come Home
13. In Your School
14. If This Journey
15. There Was a Boy
16. Come Here
Bloom recently completed a small handful of dates in California, playing with the likes of Little Wings, Mia Doi Todd, and Be-Gulls, but she will be sticking closer to home for a couple shows in the next couple months. Come here, no, below here, to see the sites of her shows.
05.02.09 - New Haven, CT - Café Nine
06.21.09 - Litchfield, CT - Haight Vineyard
