Sparrow Steeple - Tin Top Sorcerer (2019)

Sparrow Steeple's music exists in its own universe. An imagined utopia (or is it a dystopia?) of wolfmen, murderous wizards, whispering woods & leprechauns. Their second album "Tin Top Sorcerer" arrives near the front end of 2019, just in time for spring to blossom.

Comprised of four members of inscrutable indie legends Strapping Fieldhands (who blazed many musical trails in the Nineties via records for Siltbreeze, Shangri-La & their own Omphalos Records), Sparrow Steeple specialize in mini-opuses that drift & careen haphazardly like Grimm's Fairy Tales sung by Syd Barrett - psychedelic tales of rapturous joy & sinister machinations by creatures real & imagined, all wrapped around dreamlike tunes of avant folk, psychedelia, and outsider music. "Roll Baby"s drunken-tavern sing-a-long is peppered by blistering guitar leads & wobbly harmonica (courtesy of Philly-legend "Harmonica" Dan Balcer) while "Stabbing Wizards" backwards guitar lends a foggy aura of disquiet to the tale of treachery & betrayal. Despite the fantastic yarns spun (see the tragic tale of the "Wolfman of Mayberry", or "Girl of the Whispering Woods"), "Tin Top Sorcerer" has an air of realism - or perhaps "magical realism", that place these songs in a place simultaneously out-of-time and from a possible future, permeated by a sense that these things could actually have happened (or will happen) at some point in our shared existence.



Track List:
01 – Roll Baby
02 – Leprechaun Gold
03 – Stabbing Wizards
04 – Wolfman of Mayberry
05 – Your Mom’s Twin Sister’s Daughter’s Twisted
06 – Duchess of Eden
07 – Handy Andean Indian
08 – Waterboarded By the Lord
09 – Girl in the Whispering Wood

-Barry Goldberg: Vocals, Guitar, Percussion
-Jeff Werner: Drums, Percussion, Recorder, Castanets, Myrtle Wind
-Jacy Webster: Lead Guitar, Percussion, Penny Whistle, Trumpet, Moog, Bouzouki, Background vocals
-Bob Dickie: Bass, Double Bass, Cello, Viola, Hulusi
-Dan Balcer: Harmonica
-Dustin Burrows: Keyboards
-Jesse Ross: Xtra Guitar on "Stabbing Wizards"
-Virginia Mae Smith: Vocals on "Roll Baby"
-Erika Wagoner-Goldberg: Vocals on "Girl In the Whispering Wood"
-Isobel Sollenberger: Vocals & Flue on "Wolfman of Mayberry"

All songs written by Sparrow Steeple
Recorded by Bob Dickie at Steeple Sound Studios, Philadelphia, PA
Isobel Sollenberger appears courtesy of Fire Records
Front Cover art by Jacy Webster
Photography by Brice Goldberg
Layout/Design: Barry, Jacy, Jeff
Bob Malloy: additional lyrics on "Girl In the Whispering Wood"
All songs ©Sparrow Steeple, 2019

More Music in My Blog
Follow My RSS Channel