The folk supergroup The New Basement Tapes performs two unreleased Bob Dylan songs on Jimmy Kimmel’s stage, getting raucous and encouraging the crowd to do so along with them.
Folk has another supergroup and Jim James is also in this one. They go by the New Basement Tapes, and they have reworked an album’s worth of Bob Dylan’s unreleased tunes. It will be called ‘Lost on the River’. They have exhibited their tunes on two other television broadcasts, The Ellen DeGeneres Show as well as Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show. Each time they play, they have used a different singer as the lead. In these two tunes, Jim James of My Morning Jacket and Rhiannon Giddens of The Carolina Chocolate Drops take lead vocal responsibilities. Each are distinctly different, and it is certainly interesting to hear Jim James’ voice without the cavelike reverb that he usually adopts in My Morning Jacket.
In ‘Duncan and Jimmy‘, Rhiannon Giddens plays an animated banjo and has a blast singing this great tune. The instrumental interludes are filled out tastefully by Elvis Costello and Marcus Mumford. In this tune, Jim James is playing bass. In total, there are five musicians singing, and their harmonization creates a dance hall big reel dance style ballad that will make you get up out of your computer chair the first time you hear it at the bottom of this post. Elvis Costello has a beautifully messy distorted solo on a four stringed orange Gretsch whose burnt hue matches the backlighting. Marcus Mumford matches this psychedelic section with a wavelike resonant feedback that is cut a bit low in the mix, while the two percussionists are unabashedly dueling each other. Its a very country sounding song, with the banjo lead and the harmonies in the chorus, but there is also a distinctly modern flavor added through the choice of instrumentation.
‘Nothing To It’, which features Jim James’ unique inflections without his usual reverb dose, offers something fresh. The progression of the song leads you along with it, and makes you feel like there was indeed ‘Nothing To It’, as you dance along bobbing your head with a nice smile on your face thinking of happy go lucky days. Then boom at around 2:40, Jim James unleashes a simple shred that is all lean cut meat, raw and rough to the touch, fiery and unrelenting. He rides it out until the very end of the tune, which is finished gracefully by the two percussionists once again.
We are excited about The New Basement Tapes, and what they have to offer. We wonder where we will witness their wacky incarnations of old Dylan tunes again, and whether or not their album release will lead to touring or headlining festivals. Stay tuned for more info. According to Consequences of Sound‘s coverage, we can expect a different lead singer on each of their subsequent television appearances.
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