Doing it for the kids
Hardcore lullabies from the Louisville all-stars.
By John Mulvey.
Music has the right to their children: (from left) Salsburg, Billy and Trotter.
Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Nathan Salsburg, Tyler Trotter ★★★★
Hear The Children Sing & The Evidence
NO QUARTER. CD/DL/LP
WHEN WE sing to our children, are we tr ying to soothe them towards sleep, or embedding our excellent musical taste in their minds? Maybe a bit of both, as the creative parent can make a workable lullaby out of the unlikeliest source material. Take Nathan Salsburg, the Louisville guitarist and folklorist, who as a new father would sit in a rocking chair with his guitar held in one arm and his infant daughter Talya in another. His favoured song was, of all things, The Evidence by Lungfish, a gnarly band from Baltimore whose music from the 1990s and early 2000s could usefully be described as shamanic post-hardcore. The Evidence first appeared on Lungfish’s fourth album, Pass And Stow (1994), close to a tune not obviously aimed at kids called In Praise Of Amoral Phenomena.