Morton Valence
Black Angel Drifter
Release Date: 04/30/2021
Format: LP
Label: Cow Pie – COW FIVE
Release type: Vinyl LP Pressing
This, the seventh studio offering from Urban Country duo Morton Valence (Anne Gilpin and Robert Hacker Jessett), started life as their experimental side-project back in 2016. Legendary UK country label Cow Pie Ltd - established in 1978 by BJ Cole and Hank Wangford - sensibilities were especially tweaked and they were convinced it was time this spectacular album finally got the airing it has always deserved, remastered and repackaged for a new era. The album features ten tracks. From the explosive intro of Skylines Change / Genders Blur, coming at you like the illegitimate lovechild of The Jesus and Mary Chain and Ennio Morricone, to the down-at-heel Black-Eyed Susan, replete with sweaty priest and bullwhips, Morton Valence also flirt with the blues on Sister Pain, deliver sorrowful, divine love songs like The Visit & Hymn Four and breathe fresh discordant life into the late 80s Bob Dylan classic, The Man with the Long Black Coat. As antithesis to a no regrets-type torch song, If I Could Start Again, where a man recounts his misspent life from a prison cell, could have been penned by Merle Haggard. The unrelenting Trail of Tears is more akin to late-70s Martin Rev robotics than anything ever created on a guitar. Alongside Gilpin and Hacker, Alan Cooks sublime pedal steel guitar is omnipresent throughout the album. Black Angel Drifter is an alt-country album that puts the rulebook through the shredder and starts again, set to put Urban Country on the map and give UK Alt-country an authentic new voice of its own, a voice that is genuinely original, new and exciting.
- Skylines Change / Genders Blur 4:26
- Black-Eyed Susan 3:15
- Sister Pain 3:31
- The Visit 4:45
- The Man In The Long Black Coat 4:51
- If I Could Start Over Again 4:10
- Trail Of Tears 3:43
- Lead On, Take It Away 3:38
- Hymn Four 4:28
- Crickets 24:33
