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LP
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12XU 158LP
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"Four years after his rock juggernaut Puritan, Chris Brokaw delivers Ghost Ship, a landscape meditation (at sea) for vocals and electric guitars. You need to listen to Ghost Ship from beginning to end. Stand too close to the speaker holding a plastic cup of seltzer with lime and really crank it up. If you have a purple light bulb, screw that into the ceiling fixture, and it will be like seeing Brokaw play the kind of live Brokaw set that puts you on the bottom of the ocean, standing under a transmission tower with a semicircle of effects pedals at its feet. If this sounds vaporous, consider the conversational chords of '8 Or 9 Things', the sharply descending final notes of 'Profile', or the extinction burst of 'Anything Anymore'. Think of echolocation: sonics defining space and distance, time elapsing, the disappearance of something -- maybe drugs or a doomed love, possibly in the same form. Chris Brokaw is perhaps best known for his work with the bands Codeine and Come. He has released over two dozen solo albums of instrumental and vocal music since 2002, and played in The New Year, Pullman, Charnel Ground and the Lemonheads. He has scored nine films, most recently Crookedfinger by Julia Halperin and Jason Cortlund, and written for dance and arts associations, most recently Lowlands with Rimi/Imir in Stavangar, Norway. He has recorded and performed as an accompanist to Thurston Moore, Christina Rosenvinge, Rhys Chatham, Jennifer O'Connor, Steve Wynn, and GG Allin. Currently he plays in Lupa Citta (with Sarah Black and Jenn Gori), the Martha's Vineyard Ferries (with Bob Weston and Elisha Wiesner) and the Chris Brokaw Rock Band (with Clint Conley and Luther Gray). He continues to perform periodically with Codeine and Come. Recorded and mixed by Paul Kolderie at Wool\y Mammoth MA and Camp St. NY October and November 2024."
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LP
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12XU 122LP
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2022 repress, 2021 release. "Chris Brokaw is the consummate underground rock musician. In a career spanning thirty-plus years he has been in countless bands (Come, Codeine and The Lemonheads, to name a few) has been a sideman with everyone from Thurston Moore to GG Allin, pounded countless stages on nonstop tours, and played on over seventy recordings. Puritan is his tenth solo album and it's a killer. From the hypnotic repetition on the extended instrumental outro of title-track opener 'Puritan', the wounded grace of 'Depending', to the fragile beauty of the Velvets-esque duet with Claudia Groom, 'I'm the Only One for You', and the ghost of Alex Chilton echoing through 'The Bragging Rights', onto the GBV-like firestorm of 'Periscope Kids', and ending with the On The Beach era Neil Young minimal strum of his cover of Karl Hendricks' 'The Night Has No Eyes', Brokaw has crafted an understated masterpiece. Puritan is an album that is all heartache and rebirth, resignation and joy, the kind of record that is so needed but all too rare these days. A classic from front to back." --Mark Lanegan, 2020
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LP
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VDSQ 024LP
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End of the Night was conceived based around a simple, yet extremely emotionally resonant concept. Late one evening the musician and myself were listening to records at home. After many hours it got to the point where everything became completely still, the silence permeating the walls, reverberating. We agreed to listen to one more record, but what would it be? What music could answer that existential quandary of the perfect last record of the night at home? Several years passed before the execution of the concept could take place but Chris Brokaw was collecting notes in the back of his mind the entire time. I suggested collaborators like Greg Kelley (on Chet Baker style trumpet, knowing Brokaw's strong affinity for that player) and Samara Lubelski (whom he played with briefly in Thurston Moore and the New Wave Bandits). Bringing in guests such as Lori Goldston, David Michael Curry, Luther Gray, Jonah Sacks, and Timo Shanko, each track has its own unique combination of small group formations (duos, trios, quartets) very much like jazz, both in instrumentation and mood, if not style or standards. While Brokaw himself is a brilliantly narrative guitarist, known for taking collaborative projects he's involved with to new heights, rarely has he opened his solo work to the same collaborative spaces as with his group projects. The result is a multi-hued, jazz-tinged instrumental record with a melancholy resolve and a deep blue/purple filter. Very much a product of his song writing and playing, End of the Night's guests allow the guitarist to show his interplay and prowess in a variety of settings rooted around a common theme. The album art was done by Hollywood legend Sandy Dvore (Buffalo Springfield, The Cake, Partridge Family), who composed the drawing after hearing the album in full, directly inspired by the music, adding a visual element similar to the stylistic innovations of David Stone Martin.
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CD
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GB 075CD
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Glitterbeat's instrumental music imprint tak:til, is undertaking an exciting label partnership with VDSQ Records, the acclaimed US based label specializing in "21st century guitar". Boston-based Chris Brokaw has made an indelible mark on rock music both on his own as well as with his iconic bands Codeine and Come, and as a collaborator with Thurston Moore, Evan Dando, Stephen O'Malley, and many others. On End of the Night, he leads a group of renowned players to create an album of entrancing instrumentals. Featuring lush, indigo-tinged arrangements of horns and strings, the album expands on VDSQ's solo acoustic spirit, evoking a sublime jazz mood appearing as night passes into the early morning hours.
"End of the Night was conceived based around a simple concept. Late one evening the musician and myself were listening to records at home. After many hours it got to the point where everything became completely still, the silence permeating the walls, reverberating. We agreed to listen to one more record, but what would it be? What music could answer that existential quandary of the perfect last record of the night at home? I instantly asked him to make me the very record we needed to hear at the moment, a record for the end of the night. Several years passed before the execution of the concept could take place but Brokaw was collecting notes in the back of his mind the entire time. I suggested collaborators like Greg Kelley (on Chet Baker style trumpet, knowing Brokaw's strong affinity for that player) and Samara Lubelski (whom he played with briefly in Thurston Moore and the New Wave Bandits). Bringing in guests such as Lori Goldston, David Michael Curry, Luther Gray, Jonah Sacks, and Timo Shanko, each track has its own unique combination of small group formations (duos, trios, quartets) very much like jazz, both in instrumentation and mood, if not style or standards . . . The result is a multi-hued, jazz-tinged instrumental record with a melancholy resolve and a deep blue/purple filter. Very much a product of his song writing and playing, End of the Night's guests allow the guitarist to show his interplay and prowess in a variety of settings rooted around a common theme. The album art was done by Hollywood legend Sandy Dvore (Buffalo Springfield, The Cake, Partridge Family)." --Steve Lowenthal
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CD
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ALP 158CD
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"Soundtrack from the Roddy Bogawa film, as performed the inimitable cb. Guitar bliss out -- c.f. Red Cities and beyond -- deftly delivered by the man whose pedigree has few peers (Come, Pullman, The New Year, Codeine...). If Red Cities was a soundtrack without a film: one of the most versatile, expressive & thoughtful talents in the pool now has moving pictures to move hand-in-hand with his music."
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CD
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ALP 134CD
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"Red Cities, Chris' solo debut. It's both organic & deliberate, epic & detailed, part spaghetti western & part road flick -- all masterfully delivered to your auditory canals by a truly gifted multi-instrumentalist. Kindred spirits and reference points include Calexico (sans South of the Border vibe), Pinetop Seven & Giant Sand (sans vocals), and even late-period Savage Republic. The mammoth sheets of guitar texture, powerful drumming & intricate elements that provide the foundation for Red Cities are simply a pleasure to hear; these are big, bad-assed desperado noir numbers done right..."
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