Bill Fox - Transit Byzantium (Vinyl 2LP - 2021 - US - Original)

Sold Date: July 10, 2024
Start Date: June 3, 2023
Final Price: €30.99 (EUR)
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These newly remastered editions of Bill Fox’s second album are the first since its 1998 release, including the first-ever vinyl pressing. Listeners will hear a wider soundstage, more detail, and improved listenability. Recorded on 4-track cassette, the fidelity belies the sophistication and nuance of the songwriting, This adept remaster by John Golden Sr helps bring definition to the intimate, at-home feel of the album. It sparkles. Very similar in feel and quality to Fox’s debut album, much of Transit Byzantium draws from the same group of recordings. It has the same feel of musical inevitability, that the songs exist beyond time itself, their eventual manifestation guaranteed by Apollo. He could’ve given them to the Everly Brothers, or the Byrds, or the Who, but instead they were channeled through an everyman from Cleveland with an aversion to the limelight. And while a traditional folk influence colors several songs, even those possess the indelible stamp of Fox’s charismatic voice and personality. Although nearly entirely acoustic and with minimal percussion, these eighteen songs cycle through a remarkable variety of textures and moods. While much has quite rightly been written about the god-tier songwriting here (“Song of a Drunken Nightingale,” “My Baby Crying,” “I’ll Give It Away” for starters), it should also be noted that this is a guitar player’s record, though more in terms of conception than flash. Lines of harmony and counterpoint wander between parts, sublime in their invention though sometimes crudely documented.

Trackliste

A1 From A Dark Night
A2 Down To Babylon
A3 I'll Give It Away
A4 Thinking Of You
A5 Lay You Down
B1 Song Of A Drunken Nightingale
B2 Quartermaster's Wintertime
B3 Sycamore
B4 Mary Of The Wild Moor
B5 All Dried Up
C1 Dixie Darling
C2 My Baby Crying
C3 Burning Down A Snowflake
C4 Bonded To You
C5 Saga Of Bus Station Joe & Rag Luck Annie
D1 Portland Town
D2 For Anyone That You Love
D3 When I Blow