What kind of dinosaur is a Drakkansasauna?
Drakkar Sauna is their name and their first and only album is "Drakkansasauna". Drakkar Sauna are classified as folk or roots music. What I have heard from them is clever, funky, surreal and/or dark. Comfortably familiar and refreshingly original.
AMG says, "The Lawrence, KS-based (hence the album title) duo of Jeff Stolz and Wallace Cochran creates a peculiarly Midwestern take on the mid-2000s subgenre of "freak folk." In other words, this album is pretty weird, but in an appealingly unpretentious way: Drakkar Sauna aren't trying to convince you of how weird and out-there they are in the manner of the increasingly annoying Devendra Banhart: a closer point of comparison is the first couple of albums by the Holy Modal Rounders, when they were just a couple of Harry Smith-obsessed city boys who liked to turn the old weird songs into the new and even weirder ones. The results are obvious in tunes like the clattering "The Debut of the Tambourine Shoe," which features the titular instrument up against a wheezing pump organ and glorious, whining anti-harmonies by Stolz and Cochran, and the jolly "There Is No Boon for Which We Do Not Render Service." Just catchy and straight enough to appeal to folks whose interest in folk music pretty much ended with Arlo Guthrie while maintaining its experimental art cred, Drakkansasauna is as endearing as it is quirky."
AMG says, "The Lawrence, KS-based (hence the album title) duo of Jeff Stolz and Wallace Cochran creates a peculiarly Midwestern take on the mid-2000s subgenre of "freak folk." In other words, this album is pretty weird, but in an appealingly unpretentious way: Drakkar Sauna aren't trying to convince you of how weird and out-there they are in the manner of the increasingly annoying Devendra Banhart: a closer point of comparison is the first couple of albums by the Holy Modal Rounders, when they were just a couple of Harry Smith-obsessed city boys who liked to turn the old weird songs into the new and even weirder ones. The results are obvious in tunes like the clattering "The Debut of the Tambourine Shoe," which features the titular instrument up against a wheezing pump organ and glorious, whining anti-harmonies by Stolz and Cochran, and the jolly "There Is No Boon for Which We Do Not Render Service." Just catchy and straight enough to appeal to folks whose interest in folk music pretty much ended with Arlo Guthrie while maintaining its experimental art cred, Drakkansasauna is as endearing as it is quirky."
posted by Deming at 3:16 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
It looks like they have a second album out, called Jabraham Lincoln. "Rover" is due out in Ocober. Great t-shirts, but all sold out :-(
There's three MP3s on the Marriage Records site (one under each album). There's one MP3 at Just for a Day. (Two links but both go to the same song.) Two songs at Patchcord.
Obviously these few songs may not be representative of their entire repertoire, but I thought it was a little too strident and whiny for sustained or repeated listening. "Stamp Her Out of My Heart" was an interesting exception, an a cappella number with a nice harmony. I'm glad I checked them out; definitely worth a listen. Thanks!
I just looked at my iPod and I have songs from Rover, too. I also have some tunes from http://www.daytrotter.com/. Thank God for mp3's because they have allowed me to only have to listen to the successful songs.
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