T-Bone Burnett

[KiwiCoromandel]

An LA-based producer who has released a handful of records but found his greatest success with the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, T Bone Burnett is a kid's worst nightmare: a middle-aged hipster with an axe to grind. A fine storyteller expounding apocalyptic narrative tales of decadence and the bizarre, T Bone surrounds himself with clacking old west drums and atmospheric guitars and keyboards. It's like a steamy night in some sinful Mayberry. T Bone's songs are full of cool characters that pass by decked out in garish suits and evil desires. And the drums crackle and thump, and the guitars bend and contort as T Bone speak/sings weighty lyrics like "Accent the positive/Destroy all the negatives/Before the black mass media gets a hold of them." Gets your attention, right? The songs throb and thrum in sound effects heaven, and they all pretty much sound the same. Only the lyrics offer variation: "Machines always do what you tell them to do/As long as you do what they say" and "Frankie was swank/Robbed a bank/With a tank for a prank." The lines are humorous, and the songs rock and roll in 1950s sci-fi fashion, but it's all studio trickery, delivered by expert craftsmen of the analog old school. "It all comes down to a moment of truth… from Corpus Christi to Duluth, from Genghis Khan to Babe Ruth." Ouch.

source:yahoo music/reviewer:Ken Micallef