Already released digitally through his own i-Dot imprint, One Little Indian release Emit Bloch‘s Dictaphones Vol. 1 on 5th April, 2010.
Recorded for £6 on a Sony cassette dictaphone as a demo for his soon-to-be music publishers (MuteSong), Emit Bloch’s ‘Dictaphones Vol. 1′ is truly a credit-crunch album.
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Fueled by Bloch’s rapid-fire lyricism, unique guitar styling and cosmic/comic imagery, the 16 songs collected here are a tour through a wild west of eloquent grifters, talking rivers, bleeding clouds, interplanetary frontiersmen and neighborly psychopaths.
Born on a cattle ranch in Utah and transplanted by his professor father to Berkeley, CA – ground zero for all things beatnik – Bloch has a rich history to draw on when creating his distinct American music.
“I’d demoed these new songs at my kitchen table in London. They got me a publishing deal and some money to record with. As usual, the raw demos sounded better than the studio recordings, but quite unusual everyone agreed to put them out instead,” says Bloch.
Helpful was the fact that when an early edition of the dictaphone recordings was issued to iTunes through Bloch’s imprint, iDot (via One Little Indian), the recordings were chosen by iTunes editors as a front page pick.
With cattlemen, turn-of-the-century train conductors, Mormon polygamists and Jewish slum-lords in his ancestry, Emit Bloch fuses pioneer spirit, Woody Allen-wit and California transcendentalism to create modern bluegrass and country music that retains the old time values of innovators like Jimmy Rodgers and Hank Williams.
“People think I’m gimmicking but I actually learned guitar on a porch in Utah watching a cowboy named Dave King pluck Hank Williams songs silhouetted against the kind of burnt russet sky that only the Southwest desert can supply”, says Emit, who subsequently studied guitar with Joe Satriani while a teenager in Berkeley.
Sonically akin to field-recorded Lomax blues, ‘Dictaphones Vol. 1′ is an idiomatic paradigm shift, the nostalgic mixing seamlessly with the modernist and fantastical.
Throughout 2009, Emit Bloch has gleaned critical attention for his solo live show – described by one blogger as ‘Avant-folk documentary’ – combining experimental soundscapes with story telling, traditional finger-picking and expert song-craft.
Recently, Emit has opened for Seasick Steve, Dan Sartain, Moriarty, Beth Jeans Houghton, Jason Ringenburg and Paloma Faith and is playing dates thoughout the UK in March, April and May 2010.
Watch “Chequered Past” video:
“An exceptional songwriter…utterly remarkable.” ***** – UNCUT
“Like a modern day Woody Guthrie he rattles through 16 songs filled with wry obsevations about life, love and hugging trees. And while tapping into the DNA of the great American songwriters, he delivers something fresh, vital uncluttered, brilliant” – 4.5/5 The Sun
Emit Bloch 2010 tour dates:
(Dates and information subject to change.)
March 2010
21 Mar Resonance FM Bonanza London
25 Mar Lock Tavern Camden – Album Release Party! London
April 2010
2 Apr Roaring Psychedelic Octopus @ The British Legion Wigan, Northwest
5 Apr Old Queens Head London
11 Apr The Adelphi Hull, Northeast
15 Apr Portobello Acoustic Sessions London, London and South East
May 2010
2 May Camden Crawl – Loose Music Stage London
4 May w/ Caitlin Rose The Local @ The Black Heart Camden, London
For the latest tour dates, music and more, go to:
Emit Bloch MySpace