Ok – It technically doesn’t come out for a few weeks but you can go grab this on our greenmonkeyrecordsbandcamp.com site right now if you want- pretty great!
Green Pajamas: Phantom Lake; Northern Gothic Vol 3 (Green Monkey) byGraham Reid
For almost 15 years Elsewhere has been telling readers about the gifted Jeff Kelly in Seattle and his band Green Pajamas (and his solo work). When we first encountered him he was releasing often sublime albums informed by the psychedelic pop of the Beatles between Rain and Revolver. To these songs he brought his own personality, and over the years he, his intellectual pursuits and artistry have changed, as the subtitle of this album with Laura Weller suggests.
Kelly has something of the spirit of a painter who looks at the world differently (his wife Susanne is an artist, he had a penchant for interesting corners of art history and literature) and here the duo explore some dark territory (Long Black Shadow is about someone who feels the Devil is inside the vacuum cleaner, talking), the lonely and bleak woods, mysterious outsiders, death and crows filling the sky, betrayal . . . But these needle sharp and allusive lyrics are wrapped in music which yearns (Paulina, the disturbing cello-enhanced Cognac written by singer/pianist Eric Lichter) or has the bite of Neil Young/Crazy Horse guitars (Lisa Lou). There is a spare and timeless folk element also (a kind of contemporary take on old weird Americana on Red Bird, Weller’s Monica Talks to Angels) and Kelly heads back into disturbing folkadelic rock (Ana, the mythic narratives of No Way Outta This and the evil menace of The Shepard Well).
We’ve said it before many times but it still bears repeating, Jeff Kelly/Green Pajamas (and the Green Monkey label) are worth any effort you care to make.