The Spoils of NW

The Spoils of NW accept the idea that every heart is haunted; that there’s nothing any one of us can do about it. They know that hope, happiness, melancholy and despair are equally poisonous when undiluted by truth. They see the stage as a secular altar intended for the resurrection of dead souls (Charlie Patton, Hank Williams, Eric Dolphy, Pop Staples, The Carter Family, Memphis Minnie) and the worship of souls living. They are as far removed from Marvin Gaye and Link Wray as everyone else in the District of Columbia and the pop universe--but those are shadows whose outlines should be felt rather than traced outright, shouldn’t they? Spoils music is a reassurance to the cold, the sick and the ill-at-ease; a comforting mania to the listless. It’s a kind of forward-looking forgetfulness (From track 6: "I remember things that haven’t happened yet"). The listener is given a long, thin reed for breathing and an amphibian’s inability to drown. Below the swamp’s surface, he or she can flail or luxuriate and feel entirely at home in the cool, muddy choogle. ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------- Hear a review of the Spoils of NW’s debut "Seeing Things" on DC’s NPR station, WAMU: go to http://www.wamu.org/programs/mc/ -scroll to the bottom, where it’s available as an audio stream. Purchase "Seeing Things" on iTunes (http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/), CDbaby (http://cdbaby.com/cd/spoilsofnw) and at Amazon.com.