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Como Now

It is a relief once again to fall in love with an album -- an entire album -- to become enraptured by the music of artists who are unknown to me. To discover something of such great and glorious sounds that it is worth moving from the truck to the house stereo and back, to find music so rewarding to listen to that I have not opened the mail for a week, because this is enough. This is plenty.

The album is called Como Now: The Voices Of Panola Co., Mississippi, and it is formally released on Tuesday, August 19 by the Daptone label.

Panola County, Mississippi, was the site of several Alan Lomax field recordings in the 1940s and '50s. It is, apparently, a citadel of gospel singing. Como Now was recorded during on July 22, 2006, and offers 16 a cappella tracks from a variety of strong, singular voices, from the aged and revered Brother and Sister Walker (whose harmonies remind me of Blind Willie Johnson) to the extraordinary Como Mamas, who sing counterpoint to the equally extraordinary Mary Walker.

It is a funny thing, coming to gospel as an unbeliever. As a nonbeliever. As someone who does not seek, does not need that kind of truth. I would argue generally that mine is a simple faith: That things work, that doing right is worth doing for its own worth. That if there is a god, he or she or they is unknowable, and none of our human efforts to describe the such a being have done any justice to the job. Nor led to much justice, for all that.

But I love the music, when it soars. (Hell, I love all music when it soars. When the magic is in full force.) It is possible that I am now drawn to gospel because it is sufficiently close to the other sounds I have spent the last 13 years listening to that it is familiar to me, and sufficiently removed from those sounds to be new. All that said, I have to trust the evidence of my once-trained ears, and this is a striking album. Whether one believes, or not.

Como Now is not a field recording, though it was recorded in a small brick church, and the best of the region's singers are said to have shown up for the occasion. It is neither professional, nor unpolished. There are times when one yearns for slightly better microphone placement, but they pass quickly.

I would particularly like to draw your attention to Irene Stevenson's "If It Had Not Been For Jesus," which she wrote. Of course she wrote it. It is too personal, too private a testimonial to learn from a book.

And to draw your attention to "Trouble In My Way," with the trio of Como Mamas backing Mary Moore, the most extraordinary and exhilarating song on the album. Had I any formal musical training, I could perhaps explain how the harmonies work, but I don't, and they work fine without my knowing how. It's not quite call and response, more like question and answer...the chorus isn't simply a counterpoint to Moore's leads, but a full-throated response. The song spins around a simple riff (the answer is mostly "Jesus, he will fix it"), and then, after a litany of woe, resolves simply and beautifully not with "Jesus, he will fix it" but with a tempered line of acceptance: "After a while."

Ah. And the John Edwards Singers' "New Burying Ground," which I so much wish to start a radio show simply so I can segue into "Wreck On The Highway," and maybe the version Jon Langford sings.

I may no longer be a good judge of such things, but this is -- by far -- the best album I've heard this year.

Posted by grant on August 14, 2008 10:42 AM | Permalink