IN DOWNTOWN NEW YORK CITY, somewhere between 14th St and the Brooklyn Bridge, lies the heart of the East River Delta. As mysterious as it is powerful, this is the illusive center for a new kind of blues. EAST RIVER DELTA, the new LP from the EDISON ROCKET TRAIN, has drawn on the spirit of the mythological power of the East River to create an album of unprecedented soul and depth.
Along with producer JON SPENCER, MIKE EDISON (ex Raunch Hands) ripped apart the roots of whisky-driven rock’n’roll and dug deeper into the blues than anyone before him.

While songs like PASSIONATE MAN scream old-school boasting in the Jerry Lee Lewis tradition (I know how to drink, and I know how to fuck, I know how to roll, and I know how to rock… I’m a passionate man!), slide guitar numbers like HOLLER and MILK COW BLUES recall the Mississippi Delta and ANOTHER MAN DONE GONE harkens back to African Slave songs. INTERSTELLAR STOMP is like the SONICS in outerspace, and STRUT combines New Orleans street rhythms with STOOGES-like attituded and guitars. Edison plays SUGAR BABY, an old Kentucky banjo song from the 1930s, on his two-string guitar which he calls a Diddley Bow.

On THIS TRAIN, Edison leads a gospel choir along with Jon Spencer and Matt Verta-Ray on guitars and MR AIRPLANE MAN on vocals.
But the real surprise on the record is MONSTER FREE TOKYO, an accoutic song Edison wrote about September 11 using a science-fiction metaphor.
“I was nervous about singing it,” says Edison, who rarely seems nervous about anything. “But Jon (Spencer) told me that if I had something to say, I should say it. I should sing it. Besides getting great sounds and getting them down on tape and all that, his faith in me singing, especially a dark song like this, is what made this record so great.”
As usual, the version of the Edison Rocket Train that performs on EAST RIVER DELTA had no bass and no cymbals… just drums and maracas and tambourines. And yet the sound is complete and full.
“Heavy strings and a lot of percussion,” that’s the secret, says Edison.
He also plays a stylophone, a primitive electronic toy, on Beep! Beep! “I wanted to sing that song in Spanish,” says Edison, but I never finished translating it. One night Jon said just do it the way you have it, half English, Half Spanish. I was very drunk. It came out Spanglish!”

more info : www.rockettrain.com

MailOrder