Technodyke.com
Marie Fleischman

CD Review: Rosebud Bullets, Myshkin’s Ruby Warblers

I first met Myshkin in 1994 at the humble wooden music-house The Neutral Ground in uptown New Orleans. Her smooth voice haunted me from first note. A sinfully good combo of plucking, strumming, and singing lured me, and a room full of old-school Southern musicians, through the entire set. I think I actually gasped at her first long vocal note. Whew. Myshkin’s Ruby Warblers put out the latest album “Rosebud Bullets” with the help of her long time friend and musical partner in crime Mike West at The Ninth Ward Picking Parlor in New Orleans. It is stunning. I was suddenly transported to years and years of smoky parlors and ship decks where ladies high-kick with raucous laughter and sailors dance and strum the deep melanocholy that true travelers know. Myshkin’s Ruby Warblers have given us a taste of the magic that is Rosebud Bullets. From the first track, Myshkin on acoustic, electric, and tenor guitars, Scott Magee on drums and bass clarinet, Juhn Lutz on upright bass, Neti Vaan on fiddle and phonofiddle, Ben Schenck on Clarinet, Christopher Trapani on Piano, and Laura Freeman on harmonica offer the rousing and soulful mix of sounds that echo New Orleans and ten thousand other musical haunts all at once. This is truly one of those great albums where each songs brings your memory to a face you love, loved, or just can’t seem to forget, no matter how hard you try. Seldom does one find an album that feels like a gift each time it is heard. This is one of those albums. Welcome to the Pacific Northwest, Myshkin. We hope you stick around a while.

“And I had a motto. I’d try anything twice. And if it was still hurting and wrong, I’d keep trying til I got it hurting right…I’m a ruby warbler, and blood-rich my song rings, with the trills and the clicking and ticking of time, and waiting in the wings in the wings…” – title track, Rosebud Bullets, Myshkin’s Ruby Warblers.