CD Review

Considering their (our) Athens, Georgia roots I’ve been remiss in my duties as a music journalist, having ignored New York City’s Mendoza Line. The expatriates deserve an exploration, but as is often the case, a history lesson begins by examining a snapshot of the present. The View From the Floor (Misra) is an impressive debut from songwriters-lovers Shannon McArdle and Timothy Bracy. My arrival at the Mendoza Line will be preceded by a pleasure cruise down the eloquent, languid tributary of Slow Dazzle.

She is breathtaking. For folks in need of landmarks for guidance-- take the soft semi-Southern hush of Margot Timmons and a dash of Shirley Manson’s vim and vigor. Both hands tug at opposite poles to tie together a finished product that is an accessible Southern gothic swoon.

Before Ms. McArdle’s arrival, the saloon had not seen such sophistication (or scandal) in recent memory. “The Extent of My Remarks” is everything you’ll never find in Nashville, but might run into on the set of Jerry Springer. “Sometimes a man acts foolish / just because he can / so it is I came to take another woman’s hand,” she chimes on top of clinking ivories and a six string strum, accented by electric country licks

He is Greenwich Village folk and contemporary indie-country oracle. Urban flesh with a rural skeleton telling stories you’d imagine sound fine behind just the piano or only an acoustic guitar, but, together…

They, along with (essential) third wheel, instrumentalist and engineer Peter Langland-Hassan, deliver songs with moxie. They’re transmitted through a makeshift orchestra of atmospheric sounds that are timeless and organic, yet possess that near-future quality-- born of a science fiction mind

Witness brilliance when harmonica sets the table for the brooding “Welfare State” where even futility doesn’t sound so bad. “Bits of wood and paper walls crash utterly deficient / Nations rise and nations fall / and ours will be no different,” Bracy bemoans in a narrative that would earn Springsteen a Grammy. Watch your fingerprints evaporate from the glass table you’ve been lazily tapping.