Rain Plans (Loose/Thirty Tigers, 2014)
Music fans wanting to dip into the sounds of Americana might want to give a listen to Israel Nash’s Rain Plans, out now on the joint production of Loose/ Thirty Tigers labels. Following up on the previous recordings Barn Doors & Concrete Floors, New York Town and 2011 Barn Doors Spring Tour: Live in Holland, Mr. Nash pays homage to his new home landscape of Dripping Springs, Texas.
Mr. Nash explains, “I wanted to make an album that sound like what I saw and somehow spread the peace that this place brings me. These songs are all about moving from New York to the reaches of Hill Country and what those hills represent to me, which is greater than just nature.”
Conjuring up a sound that feels as if it swept in on a stiff wind, rattled around the empty remains of an old honkytonk before picking up the drifting strains of 70s rock bands from the air, Rain Plans is deliciously nuanced and smartly worked so much so that the music crosses over genre. Country roots lashed to a feel good 70s rock base laced by an edgy psychedelia, the music of Rain Plans flows easily like that wind over a prairie.
Opening with the smoothly straightforward “Woman at the Well” before moving into the twangy goodness of “Through the Door,” Mr. Nash’s vocals evoke Neil Young, but there’s a pleasing personal touch that’s all Mr. Nash. Cutting his guitar work, harmonica and vocals with the help of Joey McCllelan on guitars, Eric Swanson on pedal steel guitar, Aaron McCllelan on bass and John Fleishman on drums, Mr. Nash builds up a layered sound as evident on such tracks like “Just Like Water,” the guitar savaged “Who in Time” and “Myer Canyon” with its dark, edgy opening. Title track “Rain Plans” and “Iron of the Mountain” are equally good, but its closing track “Rexanimarum” that shines as a true gem for me with its feel good twangy nature and vocals that evoke a Van Morrison richness.
About the music of Rain Plans Mr. Nash remarks, “It’s about my life and home. I really wanted to go new places and abandon any rules that had made me cautious before. It’s about creating an environment that is so much bigger than any individual.”
Mr. Nash and company hit the comfort mark with Rain Plans, soothing the listener with a sound where the listener finds a homey familiarity in the richness around us we just didn’t bother to notice until now.
Buy Rain Plans
Author: TJ Nelson
TJ Nelson is a regular CD reviewer and editor at World Music Central. She is also a fiction writer. Check out her latest book, Chasing Athena’s Shadow.
Set in Pineboro, North Carolina, Chasing Athena’s Shadow follows the adventures of Grace, an adult literacy teacher, as she seeks to solve a long forgotten family mystery. Her charmingly dysfunctional family is of little help in her quest. Along with her best friends, an attractive Mexican teacher and an amiable gay chef, Grace must find the one fading memory that holds the key to why Grace’s great-grandmother, Athena, shot her husband on the courthouse steps in 1931.
Traversing the line between the Old South and New South, Grace will have to dig into the past to uncover Athena’s true crime.
