Jim White and Trey Blake – Precious Bane
As far as musical partnerships go, Jim White and Trey Blake don’t exactly fit the standard industry narrative. White (née Mike Pratt), a Georgia-based singer-songwriter-artist (and father to Willow Avalon, whom we reviewed in this space two weeks ago), is one of those odd Americana-adjacent musicians who’s found a consistent following across the Atlantic. Blake is a neurodivergent, hardscrabble artist living in Brighton (UK) who slipped White a copy of a century-old novel, Precious Bane (by English writer Mary Webb), at one of White’s London shows. Because the pair share artistic curiosity and determination, they conjured up a joint musical project which, while perhaps borrowing inspiration (and a title) from that novel, ends up being a creation existing wholly its own. Precious Bane is an extended piece of musical worldbuilding unlike anything else you’ll hear this year.
If you’re expecting a light, countrified record from White and Blake, you’ll find something…quite different here. The songs on Precious Bane are musically dense, featuring cello, woodwinds and bowed bass, and the album carries a sense of loss and foreboding throughout. The first track, “Ghost Song,” is a Jim White composition about getting derailed – “I tried to swim back home, but there was always/Something pulling on me, just pulling on me” – leaving a lover behind, and praying for redemption – “Let there come a time/Where this hurt reveals the engine/That sets my soul to shine.” Blake lurks in the background here, but the album’s next track, “Rushing in Waves,” with lyrics written by Blake, pushes her craggily haunting voice to the front. Seemingly featuring the woman abandoned in “Ghost Song,” but actually penned three years prior, the song (much like the album’s namesake novel) focuses on love’s unpredictable nature – “Love comes when it ain’t called/Goes when it’s still wanted/Leaving nothing at all.” Blake’s character, over the course of a lifetime, never forgets the lost soul who left her – “‘Til the bottle that she had/Would somehow take the pain away.”
While most of Blake’s vocals on Precious Bane are ruggedly pretty, there are moments when the true beauty of her voice shines through. “His Lady” ends up as a duet between the two songwriters, but the true vulnerability in the song comes as Blake achingly sings, “The death in you reached into her/To strangle love’s sweet sighs.” Her song also contains a warning to any woman who dares let down her guard – “So all you pretty maidens/Pay heed to what I say/Not every man who tells you/You are beautiful will stay.” The truest beauty on Precious Bane comes from the realization that, even though these songs weren’t written together, and they were recorded an ocean apart (Blake’s parts were tracked by Stereolab’s Joe Watson), their mood, and their storylines, dovetail much more closely than if they’d randomly been thrown into a Nashville writing room together. This is best exemplified in the slowly unfolding “Tumbleweed Time,” a near-eight minute epic that portrays an aimless soul, unmoored by love and seeking a landing spot “Where all there is, is endless space/No busted husks of broken dreams/Remnants of what might have been/What could have been, what Should have been/Between you and me, but now I flee.” The song’s protagonist will never find that safe space, but in White and Blake, we see two longtime wanderers who, mostly by blind damn luck (and one obscure book), have found kinship.
Song I Can’t Wait to Hear Live: “The Long Road Home” – amongst the sadness strewn across Precious Bane, this tune carries a touch of twisted hope, even if you have to squint your ears to hear it – “Let me thank my friends who died young from drugs/Friends, you did not die in vain” – and some pretty kick-ass guitar work.
Precious Bane was engineered by Joe Watson and Jim White and mixed and mastered by John Keane. Songs written by Jim White/Mike Pratt and Trey Blake (“Rushing in Waves” written with Paul Roberts). Musicians on the album include Blake (vocals, guitar), White (guitar, banjo, keys, marimba, percussion, woodwinds, harmonica, melodica, vocals, backing vocals), Robert Exon (backing vocals, rhythm guitar, guitar arrangements), Marlon Patton (drums, bass), David Van Wyke (cello), Andrea DeMarcus (bowed bass), Clive Barnes (guitar), Steve Maples (additional bass), Nicolas Rombouts (additional bass) and Alex Wright (backing vocals).
Go here to order Precious Bane (out January 31):
https://jimwhite.bandcamp.com/album/precious-bane
Check out Jim White tour dates here: https://jimwhitemusic.net/events/