James Cruickshank, acclaimed guitarist and keyboardist for the Cruel Sea
James Cruickshank, acclaimed guitarist and keyboardist for the Cruel Sea, releases his third solo album, Note To Self, through Mullumbimby’s Vitamin records.
Albums:
Note to Self 2011
Flashes of Sam Cooke, David Bowie, Tom Waits and Beefheart reveal in the swinging gait and crooked instrumental passages of a moody serenade through Cruickshank’s yellowed back pages. Tinkering with strings and keys, swamp jazz and electronic propulsion, these meditations on maturing in a Peter Pan era could have been recorded in a time capsule, but the production, resolutely 21st century, lands it safely in a contemporary quarter.
NOTE TO SELF album out now on Vitamin Records
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Hello Human 2007
After an intensive incubation the former Cruel Sea cavalier, onetime Beast of Bourbon, occasional Dark Horse, seasonal Blackeyed Susan, and honorary member of the Mick Harvey and Nick Barker clans, James has made a celebrated reappearance with his latest creation Hello Human.
...an earthy, warm collection of rough hewn neo-folk, rock & reggae, shot through with hints of Tom Waits. Check out the closer ‘Thom Yorke’s Blues’, which lives up to its name, ironically and otherwise." – D.L Rolling Stone Magazine Sept 2007
Hello Human released through Vitamin Records
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Hymn For Her 2003
James’ first conception, Hymn For Her, released in 2003, is an assortment of beautiful folk songs such as Did You Forget and Sea Shanty.
There's a touch of Tom Waits's eerie melancholy in the discordant piano and accordion and floating falsetto of Elsie May, a bleak tale of death and loneliness. There's a hint of Let It Bleed-era Stones to the country-ish Did You Forget, while Down the Well echoes the swampy strains of his band's past. A mellow, at times beautiful album.
Iain Shedden, The Australian
Hymn For Her released through Vitamin Records
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