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Blacklight Braille
In A Dark Garden and Dietles Tavern to Shadowland Latitude 22 Give Your Attitude Some Latitude
Although there's really no precedent for such matters, this Cincinnati-based collective has become a testament to the spirit of independent music since the late '60s. Through hippiedom and punk DIY, through Option/OP and web networking, vocalist/poet/visionary Owen Knight has supervised the band through 30-plus years of their genre-splicing "fringe-rock"- a self-administered term to address all of the influences that surface during a BB recording. With a prodigious output of vinyl and CDs that must number in the hundreds by now, Knight and the Braille mix medieval madrigals with tribal jams, beat poetry with spacerock, and all virtues between. Not only does their latest, In A Dark Garden, bask in musical eclecticism (featuring some ethereal scenery based upon the fables of King Arthur's Knights), but the group’s free-flow of ideas, revolving membership (21 players during this session), and irrevocable curiosity seems to have rubbed off on many post-Dead units like Ominous Seapods and Disco Biscuits. Since the digital era, Braille have also transferred a few older titles to disc, including Dietles Tavern to Shadowland (a ravenous favorite of mine), where they really took their music “outside,” in a dream-like sequence of musical vignettes, like “The Passing of Old Man Cigar” and “Joe Joe Chopped Off His Big Toe.” Those wishing to experience the band (albeit, an offshoot minus Knight) in a more down-to-earth, blues rock vein may want to pick up Latitude 22’s debut. With the music a little closer to home, these Cincy vets fashion themselves as a backwater boogie band, with thrill, spills, and licks to spare. –virginia reed (530 Flatt Terrace, Cincinatti, OH 45232)
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