THE CD: “Brightblack Morning Light” (Matador)
PERFORMER: Brightblack Morning Light
WEBSITE: Click here.
SUGGESTED TRACKS: Start at the beginning and just go, man.
YOU’LL LIKE IT IF…: a juke joint pulse keeps you from a bad trip.

No one can accuse Brightblack Morning Light of being spread too thin. Rocking out in their California teepee, the hippie quintet rarely wavers from the gospel and blues roots of their native Alabama. They go home a little too long at times, such as on the 25-minute, four-track medley built on a single, three-note blues tune.

But you really don’t notice. By the time the song breaks into the light, hop-scotch organ on “All We Have Broken Shines,” you’ve been sucked into the zone. Notes with visible and distinct personalities mingle before you. Kissing and fighting. Living and dying, man. Even the lyrics — none exceed a few lines — become sounds as they are breathed rather than sung.

Rhythm and sound pilot this record and go to crazy places if you relax and let them drive. BML exalts your soul with the hymn “A River Could Be Loved,” boils your blood once more with the hard-nosed “Black Feather Wishes Rise,” then dumps your unconscious body at the edge of camp with the tribal crash of the closer, “We Share Our Blanket with the Owl.”

Trance or not, the song names warrant a chuckle. And look for granola marketing ploys like the 100-percent recylced paper jewel box. And the cannibis-adorned spectrum glasses, lovingly inscribed “resisting babylon system one rainbow at a time,” seen here:

Available at all local record stores.

– by Morgan Kelly

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