Bonnie Stillwatter - Devil Is People [Vinyl]

Bonnie Stillwatter is a conceptual collaboration of artistry and friendship between Will Oldham (aka Bonnie 'Prince' Billy), experimental rock group Watter (featuring a member of Grails), and Stillwater Artisanal, a nomadic brewer that mixes equal parts art and alcohol. This collaboration is an inspired one, the roots of which are a mutual respect and love, and the fruits of which are two side-long trips into dark cinematic folk-rock determined to find the light at the end of the tunnel. "The Devil Is People" begins not unlike the east-meets-west melancholy of Watter and Grails. Oldham's penchant for weaving singer with song is particularly resonant here; his firstperson storytelling has an uncanny way of sounding communal - almost hymnal - when wrapped in ever-unfolding layers of warm sound. On the b-side, mercurial multi-instrumentalist/producer Bundy K. Brown (Tortoise, Gastr del Sol) explodes "The Devil Is People", rearranging and reinterpreting its multitude of instruments and voices into something more sinister - less a remix, more like a vital new limb growing from the belly of the beast.