Jim Roll, Inhabiting the Ball - 39m 45s

Tracks & Durations

1. Inhabiting the Ball	1:28
2. Bonnie and Clyde	3:13
3. You	3:35
4. Killjoy	1:54
5. Kicking at the Traces	2:47
6. Blue Guitar	5:03
7. Handsome Daniel	1:07
8. Eddie Rode the Orphan Train	4:20
9. Curious One	3:25
10. In Flight Magazines	3:00
11. Heartbreak Song	1:30
12. Desperado in the Parking Lot	3:29
13. To Be Alarmed	4:46

Note: The information about this album is acquired from the publicly available resources and we are not responsible for their accuracy.

Review

Jim Roll is not only a literate singer-songwriter, he's plainly an expert networker. His previous collaboration with producer Walter Salas-Humara lent Roll's songs the sound of Salas-Humara's band, the Silos. Here he enlists a couple of unlikely songwriting partners, novelists Denis Johnson and Rick Moody. Both are music fans, and the results are all over the artistic map. As framed by Roll, Johnson's contributions tend toward traditional balladry--banjo-driven narratives of blood and betrayal that would fit fine on Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music. ("Handsome Daniel" could be a musical cousin of "Long Black Veil.") The collaborations with Moody are more eclectic, with "Killjoy" recalling the industrial-strength distortion of Nine Inch Nails, "In Flight Magazines" splitting the difference between the Rolling Stones and the Velvet Underground, and "Blue Guitar" sounding like a whiny Eagles parody. Roll also wrote five of the 13 songs on his own, and he shows as much narrative command on "Eddie Rode the Orphan Train" as his songwriting partners. With a little less help, he might seem more like an artist who has his own distinct imprint, and less like a fan with great taste in music and books. --Don McLeese

Please note: we do not provide any Jim Roll music downloads, have no any mp3 music including music samples and music ringtones, and can not assist you where to buy music CDs and used CDs. You can search for it on music sites all over the Internet or visit one of our advertisers. We appreciate any ideas and comments about this experimental music database.