GREEN BLUES

"Recently, the rural Vermont mavericks Matthew Valentine (MV) and Erika Elder (EE) have been receiving a good amount of belated attention for their roles as free-folk pioneers. Typically enough, however, this recognition has come at a time when the wayfaring duo have already begun moving their sound out onto virgin pastures. Together with their current group the Bummer Road, in their latest work the two have largely abandoned overt folk gestures in favor of heavier, more electric space-blues. This subtle directional shift was much in evidence on the group's massive 2006 double album Mother of Thousands, and is even more pronounced on their Ecstatic Peace debut Green Blues. Here, for the first time, MV and EE make music that might almost be briefly confused with conventional rock, before it eventually mutates and spirals away as ever into the duo's own uniquely stylized private solar system." www.pitchforkmedia.com