New debut release by The Delines
July 21, 2014
Artist - The Delines
Album - Colfax
Released on - CD
Featuring Willy Vlautin from Richmond Fontaine and members of The Decemberists, Minus 5 and the Damnations.
The debut album from The Delines, Colfax is a stunning & timeless collection of songs with the intimacy of a midnight confessional. Like a beat-up Dusty Springfield after too many long nights working a dreary after-hours bar, Colfax has the skid row heart of Tom Waits, the street-tough weariness of early Rickie Lee Jones, and the cool, laid back sound of Mazzy Star.
The Delines are led by vocalist Amy Boone (The Damnations TX), alongside the keyboard work of Jenny Conlee (The Decemberists) as well as fellow Portlanders Sean Oldham and songwriter/novelist Willy Vlautin (Richmond Fontaine) and on pedal steel, Tucker Jackson (Minus 5). Vlautin is no stranger to critical acclaim in the UK, enjoying cult success and stellar reviews from the like of Uncut, The Observer, The Times and Q Magazine as the frontman of Portland alt-country outfit Richmond Fontaine.
The seeds for Colfax were sown in 2012 when Vlautin, so beguiled by Boone's heartbreakingly longing, yet resilient voice, wrote an album worth of songs and built a band around her. Recorded at Flora Recording and produced with John Askew (Dodos, Alela Diane) in Portland, Oregon, Colfax tells haunting, modern stories through the musical lens of soul and roots music of decades past.
Vlautin is currently promoting his 4th novel, The Free, for Faber and Faber, which has seen the best reactions yet from fellow authors (and musicians alike- Drive By Truckers frontman Patterson Hood is a huge fan and even named his newest track after one of Willy's characters) and was out early February, 2014. His first novel, The Motel Life, hit UK screened this April so 2014 looks like it could be Willy's year.
Track list:
1. Calling In
2. Colfax Avenue
3. The Oil Rigs At Night
4. Wichita Ain't So Far Away
5. I Won't Slip Up
6. Sandman's Coming
7. State Line
8. Fit 31
9. He Told Her The City Was Killing Him
10. I Got My Shadows
11. 82nd Street