Teen-Beat 336.
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ARTISTS
Aden
Air Miami
Andrew Beaujon
AKA JK
Autoclave
The Ballet
Barbara Manning
Bastro
Bells Of
Blast Off Country Style
Bloody Amateur
Bloodthirsty Butchers
Borthwick / hollAnd
Bossanova
Bratmobile
Bridget / Kathi / Doug
Butch Willis
Cath Carroll
Tha Cheeky Bastid
Circus Lupus
Clarence
Cobalt
Containe
Coral
Cotton Candy
Courtney Love
Crispy Ambulance
Currituck Co.
Draw the Kitten
DUSTdevils
DVS
Eggs
Fang Wizard / Party Milk
The Feminine Complex
Flin Flon
Flowers of Discipline
Flying Saucer
The Fontaine Toups / TFT
Fred & Ginger
Gamma Rays
Gastr del Sol
The Gollipopps
Grenadine
Helter Skillet
hollAnd
horse ing TWO=HIT
Hot Pursuit
In Camera
In Interview
Jeff Zitofsky
John Lindaman
Jonny Cohen / Love Machine
Juliet Swango
Jungle George & The Plague
Justin Chearno
K-Stars
Kevin Hewick
The Krokodiloes
The Last Wave
Latin Hustle
The Long Goodbye
Los Marauders
Loudest Boom Bah Yea
Lu
Luna
Mark Robinson
Maybe It's Reno
Mirah & Ginger
MMM's Live Archive
Naomi Wolff
The Naysayer
Nethers
New Carrollton
No Trend
Olympic Death Squad
The Pacific Ocean
Panax
Party Milk / Fang Wizard
Phil Krauth
+/- {Plus/Minus}
Pocket Rockets
The Positions
The Project
Que Verde
Rhonda Harris
Rive Gauche
Robert Schipul/Ascension
Robert Zitofsky
Romania
The Rondelles
The Ropers
Scaley Andrew
The Screamer
S.C.U.D.
Section 25
Sexual Milkshake
Sharky Favorite
Sisterhood of
Convoluted Thinkers
The Soft Rock
Somerville Speakout
Sprites
Stereolab
Stick Insect
The Still
Superconductor
Synthetic Socks
Talk It
Teenage Gang Debs
Tel Aviv
Thirsty Boys
Tracy Shedd
True Love Always
Tsunami
The Tube Bar
Tuscadero
Uncle Wiggly
Unrest
Velocity Girl
Versus
Viva Satellite!
Volumia
Vomit Launch
Wall Drug
Whysall Lane
William & Vivian
HELLO
FORMAT
Anniversaries
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Compilation Albums
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ET CETERA
About / Contact
Design
Gift Certificates
Home
Items in Stock
Never Released
Pals and Chums
Shopping Cart
Teen-Beat Newsletter
Tag Sale
Unpacking My Library
Introduction
Hang Your Coat
Antichrist
The Collision
Where Is My Friend?
Nightmares Are The Sounds
Your Sway
Texas
Henry
Let It Rain
Staynor Family Breakdown
Concrete
Lie Beside Me
Paris
Now You're Leaving
Old Song
Outroduction
Compact Disc (CD) ($14,44)
In deluxe slip-case with full-colour booklet.
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DESCRIPTION
The second full-length album from Kevin Barker's Currituck Co. Kevin was in Teen-Beat band Aden and now performs under his own name.
LINER NOTES
PLAYERS
Kevin Wai Kwong Barker, vocals, guitar, drums,
banjo, melodica, et cetera
GUEST PLAYERS
Terrence J. Black, baritone guitar solo on 5
Eddie Carlson, upright bass on 3, 10, 12, 15, 16
Mark Greenberg, bass guitar, electric piano,
melodica, vibraphone, et cetera
Christopher M. Sienko, tabla on 13
Ruth E. Welte, violin on 16
RECORDED BY
Mark Greenberg,
at Mayfair, Chicago, Illinois, USA
May, 2001
MIXED AND MASTERED BY
Ken Sluiter,
at King Size, Chicago, Illinois, USA
June, 2001
MUSIC COMPOSITION
Kevin Barker
DESIGN
Kevin Barker
with Mark Robinson, Teen-Beat Graphica
ET CETERA
The final track, "Outroduction," was performed by The Mayfair Melodica Trio of Greater Chicago Illinois. A Death Rattle of the West Production. (DR-04). From the booklet interior: "Please listen to Mississippi John Hurt, I'm serious."
BIOGRAPHY
"Unpacking My Library is the first country rock album in 30 years. That is, if the point of country rock isn't for rockers to put on funny accents and pretend to be drunk and bittersweet, but to try and make something new out of those beautiful alien worlds locked away in dead white people's records. Currituck County don't sing one word about booze, but their songs are lit by the shining notes of steel-stringed guitars and the lightning rhythms of banjos so fast they drone. And as gentle and funny as it is, Unpacking My Library is dark, sometimes almost black, with a sense of lost time and impossible things. But the very loneliest moments of a song like "Henry" are detonated with insane pop hooks and a mesmerizing Bluegrass riff--as indulgently sweet as a hard cry, without any stains.
Currituck County's mentors--John Fahey, Bert Jansch, The Byrds --were collectors who worked alchemy with traditional music. For them, tradition wasn't sterile or cute. It was a seductive force, something at once homespun and exotic that could take you to a universe richer and deeper than ours, or just get you hopelessly lost. It's no accident that Fahey--the mad record collector who used his thousands of lost 78's to invent his own guitar style--wrote an autobiography called How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life. Yet in Currituck County's hands this sad, faraway music feels close-up and welcoming.
Kevin Barker's vocals have a conversational intimacy you could compare to Elliot Smith or Townes Van Zandt; on songs like "Concrete" and "Nightmares" he's alternatingly ghostly and sweet. The spare, deadpan voice contrasts starkly with the sumptuousness of his music, playful arrangements flawlessly produced and backed up by Mark Greenberg (the Coctails, Archer Prewitt). But what makes Unpacking My Library completely distinctive is the guitar. It's played by Kevin Barker, who contributes Television-esque melodies to Jeff Gramm's dry, thoughtful songwriting in Aden. Here it's something entirely new: British folk hooks out of Bridget St. John or Nick Drake; fluid, hypnotic fingerpicking so delicate you'd be afraid it would blow away, til you hear the deliberate slownesses, jarring overlaps and bright chimes. Currituck County aren't bogged down by their influences--they turn a deep sense of what's come before them into something private and surreal that's also accessible and beautiful."
REVIEWS
"There's a lot to like about this urban hillbilly/post-modern folk album with its odd Americana-jazz-indie instrumentation and compelling lyrics ("Her spit tasted warm like from [sic] blood from my busted [sic] lip," sings a Beck-via-Donovan voice in car-crash song The Collision: "I couldn't help but feel I'm free at last"). Kevin Barker of Aden's solo debut mixes gentleness, vomit, disaffection and love as niftily as it does guitar, banjo and vibes. Where Is My Friend? could be the new-millennial Help Me Make It Through The Night."
- Sylvie Simmons, Mojo
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
[out of six stars]
"Sometimes guitar players step out of the shadows and reveal themselves to be kick-ass frontment= on solo acoustic excursions (think Elliott Smith). Judging from the quality of Aden guitarist Kevin Barker's recent full-length debut, it's nonly a matter of time before Currituck County becomes his primary musical outlet. The ridiculously intricate fingerpicked grooves found here sound like the result of serious hours spent honing expert musical chops, but Barker's guitar never strays into the terrain of technical showboating because all the skills are in service of great songs. Although lacking a conventionally pleasing voice, Barker gets the job done by focusing on instrumentation, frequently tacking on cool slide guitar overdubs or jaunty banjos to his sly brand of folk-pop."
- Rob van Alstyne, D.I.W.
RELEASE DATE
March 18, 2002
FORMAT
compact disc
LENGTH
52 minutes, 51 seconds
17 tracks
CATALOGUE No.
Teen-Beat 336
DETAILS
RETAIL EDITION
1,510 pressed.
SLIPCASE:
Full-colour O-card slip-case printed on coated stock.
BOOKLET:
full-colour 4-page folder and tray card printed on semi-gloss stock (one side colour and one side black and white).
JEWEL CASE:
with colourless transparent tray.
LABEL:
brown and metallic gold ink.
Printed by
Riddle, Beaverton, Oregon, USA.
Pressed by
Failsafe, Illinois, USA.
PROMOTIONAL EDITION
A small run of promotional-only deluxe editions were silkscreened and hand-crafted by Kevin Barker and sent to members of the press.
Includes:
- a cardboard book
- fabric binding
- silkscreened dustjacket
- compact disc with slipcover
- 40-page booklet
NORWEGIAN EDITION
Norwegian label Trust Me issed an abridged edition of the album with 11 of the 17 tracks in a jewel case with no slip cover and modified cover art.
DISCOGRAPHY
SINGLES
Currituck County
Punaluu
ALBUMS
Long Playing Record Album
Unpacking My Library
Ghost Man on First
Sleepwalks in the Garden of the Deadroom
Ghost Man on Second
COMPILATIONS
Words Worn Down to Nothing
Golden Apples of the Sun
2001 Teenbeat Sampler
Troubleman Mix-Tape
2002 Teenbeat Sampler
Invited to Dinner
Hand/Eye
2003 Teenbeat Sampler
Protect Our Handshake
2004 Teenbeat Sampler
Comes With A Smile Vol.9
Teen-Beat 20th Commemorative
The Wire Tapper 13
Teen-Beat Subscribers' CD, 2003
Independent Innovative Creative
I Am the Resurrection: A Tribute to John Fahey
ALSO
Teen-Beat's 17th Anniversary
Teen-Beat's 18th Anniversary
Teen-Beat's 19th Anniversary
UNREST: Teen-Beat 26th Anniversary
RELATED
Aden
Kevin Barker
SONGS
A Raga Called Nina
A Raga Called Pat Cohn
Antichrist
The Ark
The Collision
Concrete
Dedication: Fred Neil
Did I See You
Disembark
Don't the C Look Wide & Deep
Don't the Road Look Rough & Rocky
8 P.M. on a Friday
Embark
Evening Raga
Father's Day
Hang Your Coat
Henry
I Truly Understand
I Went Outside Today
In Turn Returns
Intertwining Flowers
Intertwining Hands
Introduction
Let It Rain
Lie Beside Me
Little Drummer Boy
The Mandolin Man and His Secret
The March of the People Who Do Not Know You
Medley: John Hurt Shiva Shankarah
My Home
Nightmares Are the Sounds
Now You're Leaving
Old Song
One Too Many Comforts
Outroduction
Paid for Grace
Paris
Prelude
Punaluu
Requiem for John Fahey
Run Away From the Sun
Sailing
Silly Woman
Sleepwalking I
Sleepwalking II
Space Cruisin'
Space Cruisin' Boogie (Remix)
Staynor Family Breakdown
Texas
The Tropics of Cancer
Variations on 'Colours'
Where Is My Friend?
Wisdom of the Weeks
Your Sway