The Court and Spark 'Hearts' album

Since 2000, The Court & Spark has made a series of critically acclaimed albums with engineer Scott Solter (Spoon, Mountain Goats) - the autumnal Ventura Whites, the elegiac Bless You (featuring Gene Parsons of The Byrds), and the soaring, hypnotic Witch Season- as well as the homespun Dead Diamond River EP (featuring M. Ward and British folk legend Linda Thompson). Hearts is the first full-length album to be wholly engineered and produced by the band at their communal home/recording studio, The Alabama Street Station, and is permeated by an easy camaraderie and joyful, exploratory vibrations.

The heartbeat rhythm section of Kim and Carr anchor The C&S's trademark otherworldly instrumentation -- from the rippling wah-wah of album opener "Let's Get High" to the tea kettle tape-flutter of "Berliners," the heartbreaking Moog and dancing toy piano of "Your Mother Was The Lightning" to the hazy typewriter chantdown of "High Life." Friends Jason Molina (Magnolia Electric Co.), Inara George, and Zoe Keating (Rasputina) all lend a hand to the proceedings.

Yet, despite it's eclecticism, the album is a portrait of what brilliant arrangers The Court & Spark have become, and at no time do the sounds hijack the songs. Taylor's writing is the sharper than ever, managing to be both sky-expansive and as intimate as a Buddhist koan, with a rustic, mystical voice that would make Pop Staples proud. Hearts operates at an altitude seldom reached by other travelers.

Only a band like The Court & Spark, tempered by more than a decade of living, traveling, and playing together, could have written such a wonderfully saturated hymn to the new millennium.

“Every note is perfectly placed...The ultimate effect is the score to a sumptuous dream. This album has a virtual lock on my Best of 2006 list.” - Honest Tune Magazine

The Court and Spark are:
M.C. Taylor - vocals, guitar
Scott Hirsch - guitar, back-up vocals
James Kim - drums
Tom Heyman - pedal steel
Dan Carr - bass

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The Court and Spark - Hearts