reviewedDirty Linen MagazineDecember 2005/January 2006 page 30/31 by Mitch Ritter The Northwest's freestyle cellist of choice, Skip Von Kuske, curator of the Thursday night Diva Series at Imbibe (in Southeast Portland's blossoming Hawthorne District) had scheduled Myshkin's Ruby Warblers well before Hurricane Katrina made land, deluging New Orleans. Yet there we were at day 10 of the evacuation, with Crescent City transplant Myshkin taking the stage alongside her newly assembled Ruby Warblers with a faraway look in her eyes and her concerns clearly far removed from her moment as designated Diva Laureate. Although she spent 2001 through aught two recording her internal apocalyptic masterpiece, Rosebud Bullets (DoubleSalt records) in the Ninth Ward Pickin' Parlor with long-time co-conspirator and Binky Records multi-instrumentalist Mike West behind the studio board, Myshkin chose to open with new songs drenched in toxic ooze. "1,000 Gallon Hat" panned the skies above New York with 15 other planes and echoed a coda warning to "see through the lies of emancipation" even as the chorus bellowed "put on your party hat / all for a thousand gallons of gas / put on your party hat and dance." Myshkin slipped between a tiny tenor guitar and precisely picked steel strings as her rhythm section of Leila Chieko on drum trap-set and Sailor Banks on ominous upright bass linked up in double-time tempo. She'd frantically written a tune she played that might be called "bayouwater" on day 1 of Hurricane Katrina, venting churning emotions spiked with lucid observations like "hasn't rained all summer here / now the sky is crying through the sunshine / for you New Orleans / I feel like a traitor / a prodigal daughter / and I ain't never going home / How can you leave a place that breaks so big and hard / bodies floating down the bywater / grab me by the ankle wrap around my thigh / plant my feet in fertile soil I get that faraway look in my eye / my body floating down the bywater / feel like a traitor a prodigal daughter / I ain't never going home." Indeed, the songs from Myshkin's farewell to Louisiana, 2002's Rosebud Bullets, and from her hello to the dreamy moist Northwest coast on 2004's Corvidae (DoubleSalt Records), take on visionary qualities when listened to through the prism of unfolding natural disaster. Von Kuske's wicked arco gusts on cello, overtaken by Chieko's internal combustion cymbal-shorn traps, opened the late set as Myshkin leaned into Banks' tense double bass premonitions on 2002's oracle come-aground, "Big Wind". Myshkin had written and recorded this back in the Ninth Ward Pickin' Parlor to reflect an internal storm, as she once made clear to a fan who approached her after a gig lauding her eye for Armageddon. Could she have been aware back then of the President's appointment of a FEMA chief whose inadequate credentials were not in emergency relief services, but as chairman of the National Arabian Horse Association? With it's all-hell-breaking-loose tempo change to a fiddle breakdown transcribed for wailing alto/guitar/bass/drum-driven rave, "Big Wind"'s spiral into crescendo carried the prophetic lines in 2002: "Flowery cross on the roadside bend / big wind gonna take it away / trees round the barn and the chicken in the pen / big wind gonna take it away / black angus in the pasture running faster than you can catch her / on your daddy's famous arabian / big wind gonna come it'll all come undone / you better figure out what's worth saving / get in your car and drive…/ better figure out what's worth keeping dry…" Other latent images plucked from Myshkin and the Ruby Warblers musical maelstrom included "Gypsytown" and "Drunk" from her recent Portland recording, both evocative and unsparing reports from within her adopted Pacific Milieu. Perhaps most volatile of all the new pieces is "Pipeline", with it's femme fatale narrator capable of creeping out a close listener, as she doth protest a tad too insistently that she doesn't know who could've set the spark to the pyre, or who put those holes in the pipeline. The Ruby Warbler sings: "All that I know / gasoline flowed from those holes / like silver wine." Home in on Myshkin's fugitives and 'fugees and Ruby Warblers. Trust me on this one. Washington PostThursday, April 7, 2005; Page C04 - by Pamela Murray Winters Tuesday, a day that brought a promise of spring, also brought Myshkin's Ruby Warblers to alight on the stage at Iota for a set that was both lyrical and politically pointed. Fortunately, singer-guitarist Myshkin and her performing partner, bassist Sailor, emphasized the former over the latter. Myshkin, who has lived all over the country but now makes her home in Oregon, remarked that she was currently on "the wrong coast" and sang songs slamming industrialists, segregationists, meat purveyors and warmongers. But although she shares with Michelle Shocked an affinity for traditional acoustic music, she's blessedly free of the rhetorical excesses that weaken Shocked's performances. The self-described "gypsy torch punk chanteuse" is all about the sound: a rich blend topped with her broad-ranging, keening voice. It was hard to escape the bird imagery in this vernal performance, from "Ruby Warbler," which featured an arresting, fluttering guitar figure, to "Bluebird," which asked, "Do you feel absurd / Calling out, calling out / To your false dawn?" Myshkin also offered several songs from the new Ruby Warblers album. Most notable was "Gypsytown," which she wrote after watching two old women drink a young man under the table in a Northern England pub: "Few are as rough as a Gypsytowner in her cups." Performing SongwriterSeptember / October 2005 - Myshkin's Ruby Warblers - Corvidae "Two old gals from Gypsytown, drinking with a youngish Yorkshire man/ He is tattoed up and down, they are only marked by time's cruel hand," begins Myshkin on Corvidae. The story grabs and doesn't let go until you've traveled with her across time and landscapes, accompanied by a soundtrack of jazz-influenced guitar and swinging drumbeats -- and that's just the first tune. Every song is brilliant. 'Drunk" begins with train sounds, then a Django Reinhardt-style guitar. "Savin of the Day" incorporates electronic drum beats as Myshkin raps over the top: "When did we decide we could decide each other's course?" But strongest of all is "The Dance", a piano-infused story of life in a concentration camp: "I sleep...so I can dream...spin me round before I wake." Stuff this good just doesn't come along every day. All Music GuideCorvidae - Myshkin's Ruby Warblers - by Alex Henderson Corvidae isn't the first album by Myshkin's Ruby Warblers, a band that singer/songwriter Myshkin formed in 2001 (after having been recording as a solo artist since the early '90s). But it is a fine place to get acquainted with their moody style of folk-rock, which draws on influences ranging from jazz, cabaret and the blues to East European gypsy music. With a name like Myshkin, it isn't surprising that the singer/songwriter (who wrote all of the songs on this 2005 release) would have some East European influences--and when Corvidae is playing, one often thinks of the musical contributions that gypsies have made in countries like Russia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. But Myshkin is very much an American--she grew up in the Midwest, which has attracted is share of East European immigrants over the years--and she certainly gets plenty of creative inspiration from the United States. Jazz, in fact, is an influence throughout this 41-minute disc; dusky, haunting gems like "Caledonia," "For Mimi in Jail," "Blackberry Winter" and "The Dance" essentially fall into the folk-rock category, but their debt to the jazz-noir/torch song aesthetic is obvious. No one will accuse Myshkin of sounding like someone who doesn't have eclectic tastes; Corvidae gives the impression that within the course of several hours, she is quite capable of listening to everyone from Rickie Lee Jones to Billie Holiday to the great Romanian singer Maria Tanase (with perhaps a little Marlene Dietrich thrown in for good measure). But Corvidae, for all its risk-taking, never sounds forced or unnatural; while Myshkin is all over the place in terms of influences, her work never fails to sound totally organic on this excellent, if brief, CD. Chicago Free Press by Greg ShapiroDescribed as "folk pop torch tronic," the 11 songs on Corvidae (Double Salt) by Myshkin's Ruby Warblers are timeless country jazz numbers with the occasional synthetic beat, placing them as firmly in today as tomorrow. Myshkin's steamy blues belt gives songs such as the finger-snapper "Gypsytown," the whiskey-soaked toe-tapper "Drunk" and the erratic heartbeat beat-box of "Saving The Day" their own distinct personalities. Like a queer Shivaree, Myshkin and company are unique unto themselves, which is why songs such as "Pipeline," "Human Cannonball," "Blackberry Winter" and "Bird of Paradise" are simply impossible to shake. This is one flock of birds you wouldn't mind having singing outside your window. Left Off The Dialleftoffthedial.com - 8/29/05 The arc of Myshkin's career has been a long one. After years spent touring alone from her home base of New Orleans, the one-named singer gathered her Ruby Warblers in 2001. Since then, the band has continued to tour, establishing themselves in smaller venues across the East coast and Europe as an enigmatic fusion of jazz, folk, and blues. Corvidae is burnished and lustrous, due in no small part to Myshkin's arresting and pervasive voice. It is the true warble here - throaty, smooth, an elastic tool that she has obviously honed through her touring and collaborations with other local artists. The band is as accomplished as its guitar-playing front woman, though - soft cello, bass, piano, seesawing violin, and brushed drums abound (pay special attention to the cello in "For Mimi in Jail" and "The Dance," and to the violin solos in "Blackberry Winter" and "Pipeline"). They even dare to use a few loops and samples, none of which are overpowering. The electronic touches one occasionally picks out only add a near ambient street feel to the album; it's like happening upon a tiny blues club with the door propped open to catch the breeze, carrying in traffic and voices other than the purr from the smoky stage. Corvidae is a classic New Orleans album - blues, jazz, folk and messages of social and political struggle rolled into a smooth blend that is entirely Myshkin's own. From the first track to the last, it's not an album to raise your spirits, but it is absolutely perfect for slow evenings, hot afternoons, and drinking. This reviewer rarely has had the pleasure of contemplating such a beautiful album, which grows more complex on each repeated listen. This album is one of this reviewer's most pleasant discoveries and highest recommendations of 2005. Rootstown Music Magazine (Belgium)Up till a couple of years ago, Myshkin's name was mentioned here next to Mike West's, even though we remember being quite positive about her solo-projects Blue Gold (1998) and Why Do All The pretty(Country (ed)) Girls Leave (2000), both on Binky Records. Since then, a lot of things seem to have happened to Myshkin, who's operating from Portland, Oregon, these days. One of these things is the creation of a band, the Ruby Warblers, with whom she recorded 2 albums so far; the first one, Rosebud Bullets may sound a little unequal, it also shows some signs of the direction Myshkin is taking. I think, she's going to become this generation's Joni Mitchell, not less, not more. What do I mean by that ? Well, I mean songs that don't sound like they've been made to be pop-singles. Songs you have to listen to, before you're able to discover them but once you've got them, they're often "stay-ers ". On Rosebud (besides, "our" Neti Vaan plays more than just some fine fiddle-lines on it) you'll find a couple of these: the hopping King of Kankakee, for instance, or the super delicious Unearthed. They're the kind of song that makes you wonder why you never hear them on the radio. The triple answer is simple: because they have not been released as a single - because they have not been issued by big record companies - because they have not been put on the right desks. On Corvidae, the Warblers seem to have found their definitive way and sound. Sailor Banks is on trumpet, organ, bass, guitar and piano and Scott Magee takes care of the percussion. The record is a nice, jazz-tinged collection of songs, where every now and then a dash of gypsy and a shot of punk are mixed into. I have no doubt that Myshkin is one of the greatest songwriters of her generation and on this one, she seems to have become an adult, mature songwriter. That leaves you listening rather breathless to each and every one of the 11 songs. The lyrics have something to say, Myshkin is singing so well and the arrangements are both rich and simple at the same time: rich in a way they're not obvious, simple in a way you get maximum effect with minimal input. This disc is never less then fascinating and most of the time it's just super. Besides that, I want Myshkin's songs on the radio, NOW ! Songs like Saving of the Day and Candle to the Gun should be heard everywhere. BLOGCRITICS.ORGCD REVIEWS by Jon Sobel March 15 2005 This is an unusual fusion of cabaret, singer-songwriter, lounge-jazz and gypsy music, yet it's not quite any of those things. Myshkin's promo material says "Gypsy torch punk" but the word "punk" must just be an attention-grabber, because although there are faint hints of anger and brashness in some of her lyrics, there's nothing remotely punk on this CD. Punk is rebellious. Punk is snotty. Punk is intentionally ugly. But Myshkin is world-weary, resigned, with much beauty in her music and in the achy thickness of her voice. Also, while punk's roots are in Britain and America, this music hardly seems a product of Anglo-Saxon culture at all in spite of its jazzy elements and English words. I hear echoes of French chanteuses, of Jacques Brel, of Spanish and Gypsy music. OK, maybe a little bit of Elvis Costello too, circa Spike. And though she's now based in Portland OR, and there's plenty of mist here, it sounds as if Myshkin's years in New Orleans were most formative to this music, which has both the prettiness and the grittiness of salt air and ancient streets. In one format or another, Myshkin has been making recordings for over a decade. Here the singer-songwriter-guitarist and her able bandmates weave multicolored soundscapes for bittersweet (heavy on the bitter) tales of love and wartime. "Drunk" is haunting tune about not putting down roots. "Caledonia" suggests Albeniz set to a electronic beat. "Pipeline" is truly creepy, with its innocent-sounding melody and lyrics of near-surrealistic horror:
I don't know why there were holes in the pipeline All that I know, gasoline flowed from those holes like silver wine I caught that gasoline in any old jar I could find Caught that gasoline in any old bottle One hundred or more of my neighbors caught gasoline by my side The fumes made you dizzy the gas burned your skin The fumes made you sick and the gas burned your skin But we shouted and laughed like it was silver or silk we were bathing in True story? Don't know. Searing imagery? Check .Though it doesn't sound very much like any other particular artist, this CD should appeal to fans of Annie Lennox, Leonard Cohen, Erik Rohmer films, Felix Mendelssohn, Marianne Faithfull, PJ Harvey, Elvis Costello, and Yo-Yo Ma, to name a few. Myshkin sums up a pretty reasonable approach to art and life in "Bird of Paradise":
But it's good if we say it anyway Help you loose your storms it helps me Find all my scattered pearls Village Voice
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