| The Hill | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 2000 | |||
| Studio | Wavelab, Tucson Arizona, and "A Secret Location" | |||
| Length | 34:02 | |||
| Label | Overcoat, Merge | |||
| Producer | JD Foster | |||
| Richard Buckner chronology | ||||
| ||||
The Hill is the fourth studio album by Richard Buckner, setting poems from Edgar Lee Masters' 1915 Spoon River Anthology to music. It was released by Overcoat Records in 2000, and re-released by Merge Records in 2015.
In PopMatters, Lee Zimmerman wrote about "the album’s genesis. It was inspired by Buckner's stay at a scruffy, out of the way motel near the mouth of Death Valley, California, a week that found him bereft of a phone, TV or any other modern conveniences. With only his guitar and a copy of the anthology to help him pass the time, he worked up a few of the poems, recorded them on cassette and promptly forgot about what he had compiled. It wasn't until an acquaintance discovered the demos in Buckner's truck four years later, that the album actually came to life." [1]
Brian Howe wrote in Pitchfork , "In 1996, Buckner recorded The Hill while taking a break from recording Devotion + Doubt , but didn't do anything with it until the tape surfaced in his truck four years later. With a guitar, an E-bow, and a keyboard, he entered the studio with Calexico's Joey Burns and John Convertino, but forbade them any traditional percussion. Burns played cello, and Convertino improvised percussion from things around the studio." [2]
For Trouser Press, Eric Hage wrote, "It's a tribute to Buckner's rugged individualism that he emerged from his major-label dance to put together The Hill, one sprawling, 34-minute track based on early 20th century poet Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology (character pieces in which the dead in an Illinois graveyard ruminate on their often tragic lives)... The moody ruralism and tragic themes fit snugly in his canon; he crafts some gorgeously heart-piercing numbers from the ancient grief of such poems as 'Julia Miller' and 'Elizabeth Childers' and adds various sorts of haunting ephemera, including slow, rusty organ and wisps of feedback." [3]
Mark Deming of AllMusic wrote, "The Hill is a sterling example of Buckner's gifts as an interpretive performer, an area he doesn't explore often, and he brilliantly inhabits the characters of Masters' poems, especially the drunken and luckless 'Oscar Hummel,' the eloquently lovelorn 'Reuben Pantier,' and a mother to be shorn of all hope, 'Elizabeth Childers.' With The Hill, Richard Buckner began stepping out in a new creative direction, and if the album isn't as immediately effective or consistent as his first three offerings, at its best this is as powerful and poignant as anything he's ever released." [4]
In PopMatters, Lee Zimmerman said, "It's an eerie concept, but as a piece of sepia-tinted folk art, it works remarkably well. While all the songs, whether instrumental interludes or clipped acoustic ballads, are of the bare-boned variety, Buckner’s yearning delivery and the musical assists from Calexico’s Joey Burns and John Convertino turn these tracks into moving and memorable expressions of significant consequence. So even while the album is best considered as a whole, each selection stands out as a singular yet intimate encounter." [1]
Brian Howe, writing for Pitchfork , called the music "raucous and immediate, with many chorus-less songs abruptly slamming into one another...and the numerous, interstitial instrumentals mean we get fewer actual songs." [2]
Calexico is an American indie rock band based in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1996, the band's two main members, Joey Burns and John Convertino, first played together in Los Angeles as part of the group Giant Sand. They have recorded a number of albums on Quarterstick Records and City Slang, and their 2005 EP, In the Reins, recorded with Iron & Wine, reached the Billboard 200 album charts. Their musical style is influenced by traditional Latin sounds of mariachi, conjunto, cumbia, and tejano mixed with country, jazz, and post-rock.
Hot Rail is the third studio album by the rock band Calexico. It was released in 2000 through Quarterstick Records. A limited deluxe edition was released on November 15, 2010.
Feast of Wire is the fourth studio album by American indie rock band Calexico. The album was released on February 18, 2003, through Quarterstick Records.
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Los Super Seven is an American supergroup which debuted in 1998. According to Allmusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine, "Los Super Seven isn't a band, per se – it's a collective, organized by manager Dan Goodman, who comes up with a concept for each of the group's albums and assembles a band to fit." The collective has released three albums to date, with wildly varying personnel. Only Ruben Ramos and Rick Trevino are featured on all three releases.
Spoon River Anthology (1915) is a collection of short free verse poems by Edgar Lee Masters. The poems collectively narrate the epitaphs of the residents of Spoon River, a fictional small town named after the Spoon River, which ran near Masters's home town of Lewistown, Illinois. The aim of the poems is to demystify rural and small town American life. The collection includes 212 separate characters, in all providing 244 accounts of their lives, losses, and manners of death. Many of the poems contain cross-references that create a candid tapestry of the community. The poems originally were published in 1914 in the St. Louis, Missouri, literary journal Reedy's Mirror, under the pseudonym Webster Ford.
In the Reins is a joint EP by Calexico and Iron & Wine, released by Overcoat Recordings on September 13, 2005. Iron & Wine's Sam Beam wrote all of the songs, which were recorded by the two bands together at Wavelab Studio in Tucson, Arizona. The album peaked at #135 on the Billboard 200. Both later collaborated on a cover of Bob Dylan's "Dark Eyes" for the I'm Not There soundtrack, while Calexico's Joey Burns was featured on Iron & Wine's third LP, The Shepherd's Dog.
The Black Light is the second studio album by American indie rock band Calexico. It was released May 19, 1998 on Quarterstick.
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Richard Carl Buckner is an American singer-songwriter born in California, United States. After living in Edmonton, Alberta, for a number of years, he relocated to Brooklyn, New York.
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Algiers is the seventh studio album by indie rock americana band Calexico, released on 11 September 2012.
Tool Box is a compilation of instrumental songs by Arizona indie rock band Calexico. Released in 2007, the album was made available to purchase during their tour, and eventually, on their official website. Aside from a version of "The News About William" on 2008's Carried To Dust, none of these songs were ever released on any of their official studio albums.
J. D. Foster is an American record producer, bassist, multi-instrumentalist, composer and songwriter. He is known for working with country and Americana performers including Dwight Yoakam and Patty Griffin.
Edge of the Sun is the eighth studio album by indie rock band Calexico. It was released in April 2015 on Anti-.
Devotion + Doubt is the second studio album by Richard Buckner, and his first album released on a major label. It was released on March 11, 1997 by MCA Records. Buckner recorded the album shortly after the end of his first marriage.
Years to Burn is the second album by Calexico and Iron & Wine. The artists previously worked together on the EP In the Reins (2005).
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