The River Strumming

Cotton Jones Basket Ride | Format: MP3 Download

Product Details

• Original Release Date: September 23, 2008
• Label: St. Ives
• Copyright: 2008 St. Ives
• Genres:
• ASIN: B001GD3G0Q
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #139,592 Paid in MP3 Albums (See Top 100 Paid in MP3 Albums)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars The Coolest Record Under The Radar, March 10, 2011

By 

Graveyard Poet (St. Louis, MO USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The River Strumming (MP3 Download)

Imagine if Van Morrison, rather than Jim Morrison, had been the lead singer of the Doors. Imagine if the Doors had been a bar band stranded somewhere in the Midwest instead of a counterculture phenomenon in L.A. Imagine if their showcase was the Grand Ole Opry, not the Whisky-A-Go-Go. Imagine if their music conjured dreams of roadside attractions, river hideaways, ghost towns, and empty highways rather than hallucinations of deserts and jungles. Imagine if the mantra was not "Break On Through" but "Exist And Pass."

That's the beauty and wonder of Cotton Jones, evident even on their obscure debut aptly entitled The River Strumming.

From the ghostly opener "It Comes To Me Now" (an ambiguous washing machine tumbling in an abandoned basement while the dead souls of ancestors stare at you in your bedroom) to the simple yet deeply spiritual closer "I Don't Suppose" with its lines "Nothing's real anymore" & "You're only here, there's nothing more", the band truly take you on a journey. The album has a seamless flow, each track segueing into the next perfectly.

"To Death With You" is the best ballad of heartbreak Mazzy Star never wrote, "The Spinning Wheel" sounds like a lost gem from the Velvet Underground's third (and by far best) album, "Midnight Monday" is a cinematic marvel, "I Was Stoned By The Choir" contains will-o'-the-wisp background vocals and then morphs into an almost reggae rhythm, and "I Do What I Do" has a damn good danceable nocturnal groove, impossible not to nod your head along to.

If you want to hear the coolest record under the radar, this is the one.

5.0 out of 5 stars To Death Review..., March 3, 2011

By 

AK - See all my reviews

This review is from: The River Strumming (MP3 Download)

Cotton Jones flew into my radar when introduced by my elder brother. So after a thousand listens to Paranoid Cocoon I wanted more. Now Tall Hours in The Glowstream wasn't a really good follow up, so I went backwards and got this album. And I have to say excellent! The pace varies, the sound does so as well but this album is a great listen. From "It Comes To Me Now (In Fuzz)" to "I Don't Suppose (Unrelaxed)", it's great. If like psychedelia and folk meshed and rearranged you'll like The River Strumming.