Tracklist:

1. Pretender's Laments
2. Bed of Wood
3. Fantasies
4. Find Her
5. (Till Then It's Just) You and Me in This World
6. Sheva Shanim (Seven Years)
7. The Man He Killed
8. Country Traveller
9. Dusty
10. Song for Dodo

Sometimes I like to sit out on my back patio, in wrought iron lawn chairs, white and flowery, listening to music. The sound from the speakers needs to be whispery – flowing and merging with the warm air blowing into my face – and needs to communicate with the rustling leaves, the birds chirping, the wind. It should create a feeling of serenity, a moment in time where one can get lost in only what is in front of them, as their minds are pushed to the background.

And sometimes I like to lie alone in my bed, worn-in clothes still on, with the soft, hotel-stolen sheets wrapped over me, listening to music emanating from my headphones. I think about things: what went wrong, what I could have done to prevent loss, what I’ll do now that I’m alone. The voices filling my head with thoughts and feelings that ring true no matter what my disposition is. Lyrical content relates to every single facet of my life; dream-like singing lulling me into a hallucinatory state. This is the ideal situation for this time.

There is a trio of Israeli folk musicians who play music suitable for both situations, all collected simply on one album of ten meticulously crafted songs, Songs of the Turly Crio, released in September of last year, to little or no fanfare at all in the States. The blogs have yet to discover them, other review sites have seemingly ignored them, and the casual music listener is totally unaware of this beautiful, unassuming melodious treat of a band.

They are Goldoolins, a married couple and a friend, breathlessly singing wonderfully happy and melancholy (often at the same time) tunes, accompanied by acoustic guitars, piano, harmonica, glockesnpiel, etc. They play the kind of music that your friend, who paints on himself and wears no shoes, would listen to as he fixes his bicycle in his front lawn, smoking cigarettes and singing along, sometimes getting up to dance a little hippie-child jig, swaying in the summer sun.

“Fantasies” is just a low-key soft-rock ditty about a man dreaming of a girl, and wondering why she doesn’t dream about him. “I dream about you every morning, I dream about you late at night/ In my dreams we were kissing, in my dreams you held me tight.” This is a song that I would listen to on that back patio, my eyes closed, tapping my feet to the beat.

Then there’s the closer, “Song for Dodo,” the quintessential bedroom song. Elliott Smith would be proud. Accompanied only by piano and tape hiss, the tormented voice is nearly sobbing as it sings: “Here is one that won’t ever leave you alone when there’s trouble on your mind/ When you’ve reached one of your dead ends and the exit is hard to find.” But the chorus is what will really choke you up, as it is repeated over and over as the keys roll up and down, the pain seeping through, into your ears. “Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it helps.”

The album begins with “Pretender’s Laments,” a song about a man who’s finally leaving home, as his mother watches him go, begging him to stay. An ominous tone is felt as the acoustic guitars create a sense of despair and longing. Tadlik N. Doolin’s soft singing accentuates this feeling exactly, her near-whisper croon soothes as you writhe in pain at the message present in the lyrics: “This ain’t what I dreamed of/ This is just pretending/ This is never ending, my friend.” This being one of the longest songs on the album, a instrumental interlude fills the middle. Jangly guitars, raspy percussion, and glockenspiel ringing true. When the singing comes back in, multiple voices are heard, man and woman, both different sounding but harmonizing perfectly. The song fades out just as it should.

Taken cohesively, Songs of the Turly Crio is all about leaving and loss. Not one song is uplifting, even if the music is often joyful. It’s a push and pull phenomenon, a masterful trick that is hard to come by. The music is catchy and easy to sing along to, without being overly hook-y or obvious. The musicianship is top notch, with each aspect and part crafted and placed directly where it should be, never overbearing or trite.

Goldoolins are the kind of band that play the music they feel they should play. They don’t play folk music because that’s what the indie kids are getting into nowadays. They have apparent influences, but I wonder if they are aware of the obscure artists they remind of (namely Heron, in the lyrical and musical sense).

This thought of their untouched innocence and utter sincerity is comforting for me to envision; the thought that they may go undiscovered for a long period of time lets me pretend that they are a band all my own, a group I can put on and know that I am possibly the only one in this entire country who is listening to them at that given time. I imagine them singing directly to me, writing for me, living parallel lives, both of us experiencing the same things… only they write the perfect soundtrack for the troubles I (we) have. I can only sit back and listen as their waves of sound and vision crash over me and their musical water clogs my ears with its gorgeous hopelessness. It’s nice to know someone else out there shares your plight, and is so goddamn happy about it.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 24th, 2006 at 10:00 am and is filed under Record Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Edit this entry.