The Letting Go

Bonnie"prince"billy&matt Sweeney, Bonnie Prince Billy

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 19, 2006)
• Original Release Date: September 19, 2006
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Drag City
• ASIN: B000H0MMKY
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #46,228 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Having long recorded as Palace Music or Palace, the enigmatic, elusive Bonnie "Prince" Billy continues to confound musical expectations. His latest may well be his loveliest, a series of meditations and tone poems on love and mortality, with the autumnal strains of a chamber quartet and the vocal counterpoint of Dawn McCarthy supporting Billy's tremulous expression of his surreal, stream-of-consciousness lyricism. Results range from the dreamy, bluesy "Cursed Sleep" and the evocation of a British madrigal on "No Bad News" to the discordant propulsion of "The Seedling" and the call and response of the folkish "Then the Letting Go." It all fits together in a manner that defies categorization and dares the listener to resist its aural seduction. --Don McLeese

Product Description

Limited Edition two CD set by Bonnie Prince Billy (AKA Will Oldham) featuring the 2006 album The Letting Go plus a bonus disc, Little Lost Songs, which features an additional 13 unreleased or rare tracks! The Letting Go is an overwhelming undertaking. There are strings-lovely charts that do so much more than just trace chord changes up and down the neck. Arrangements by Ryder McNair and Nico Muhly are threaded throughout the record, augmenting a simple quintet of players to provide a sixth sense. The deceptive nature of his band is on display from the top. ‘Filthy’ Jim White is known far and wide for his resource behind the drum kit and he proves it song after song, with sensitivity that provokes dynamic variety from skins, an acoustic depth to the room. Paul Oldham’s bass is a feeling accompaniment to Bonny’s guitar, played with brotherly clairvoyance and constancy. Young Emmett Kelly’s clean electric guitar lines roam within the web and suddenly shine, are blues and folk and R&B in shifting turn, guilelessly tactic and soulfully expressive. And up front with Bonny is the bewitching Dawn McCarthy of Faun Fables. Her vocal flights on those records can hardly prepare one for the intimacy and empathy of her harmonies and other voices on The Letting Go. Domino. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended, October 5, 2006

By	gordo_aka_thegrunter "gordo_aka_thegrunter" (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This might be the best CD that has come out this year. It may be Will Oldham's best CD since "Viva Last Blues." It may be better than "Viva Last Blues" although these are two different styled CDs. "The letting go" has a mostly very mellow sound. Almost every song is beautiful. The string and guitar melodies are uplifting. Will Oldham's voice is grounding, it is the familiar voice you have heard for the past decade or so. Dawn McCarthy's voice will then again lift you up. McCarthy's voice is a fantastic companion to Oldham's. Other singers/bands have tried to use a female voice to echo or accompany the lead vocal and it has often become irritating. This is not the case with "the letting go," McCarthy's accompaniment adds so much to the album but without taking away from Oldham. I haven't listened to a Will Oldham album since "Ease down the Road." This makes me want to go back and listen to those albums I have missed. One song in particular, "The Seedling" (I believe) has a different sound than the rest of the album. It has a harsher sound, but is still a good song.
This is a great introduction if you are new to Oldham or if you are returning listener.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow., December 12, 2006

By	Nathaniel P. Foster "NPFoster" (New Haven, Ct. United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The Letting Go has more than its fair share of hauntingly, achingly beautiful moments. It may be a cliche at this point to use the words "haunting" and "aching" in a review of Will Oldham's music, but music like this defies easy description (as Oldham's lyrics avoid easy, literal narratives), being so unlike anything out there. These songs evoke exquisitly beautiful emotional landscapes composed of memory, dreams, longing, desire, regret, hope, composed in lyrics hinting at the subconscious desires, fears, and haunted dreams of each song's voice. The music itself traverses many musical lands, sometimes within the same song, recalling bleak Nordic vistas (mainly), the Southern delta, and even Renaissance England. The instruments, almost entirely acoustic (with the exception of electric guitar), are perfectly suited to the songs, with a heavy emphasis on strings (guitar, violin, cello) that pair perfectly with the tremor in Oldham's voice. Will Oldham is obviously not satisfied to travel down musical roads already well mapped out. Thankfully, since in pursuit of his experimental muse he has taken himself, and us his listeners, to some strange and gorgeous places. It is a shame that one or two reviewers with an adolescent appreciation of music can alter the number of stars a work like The Letting Go receives overall, but in any case it is only an Amazon review. This music doesn't need any other affirmation other than its own inherent qualities. It speaks for itself.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous, only a couple of songs short of greatness, April 28, 2008

By	L. Sewell (australia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This album sounds great to me, I don't even mind Dawn McCarthy's accompanying vocals - they fit the context of these songs perfectly for me.

This album was a surprise for me after listening to Bonnie Prince Billy's recent work. I think I was expecting something more stripped-back, but this lush album cemented him as one of my favourite musicians in my collection.

I love the modern-folk sound throughout this album, my only reservation is that it could have maybe just one or two more great songs, to bump it up to 5 stars.

Or they could just edit out the "... hey little bird ..." part off the end of "No Bad News" and leave "I called you back" off the album altogether. Just my 2c, sorry Will - I still love your work!