Jesse Morris - With These Hands (Album)
I have a Dwarf exclusive for you. I will let you in on a little known happening, shrouded in mystery, the birth of roots music. This is how it transpired.
A musician, we will call them Jack Johnson, visited a psychiatrist (name withheld), that specialises in colour therapy.
‘So Jack, using only your voice and this guitar, describe the colour black’
Jack thought for a moment then unleashed a note perfect rendition of War Pigs by Black Sabbath.
‘Very good Jack, now describe to me the colour beige.’
And, thus, Roots music was born. Surely, the dullest form of music yet inflicted on mankind since the panpipe renaissance of the ‘60s.
Listening to Jesse Morris’ With These Hands EP was like freebasing the entire discography of Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, and the Freeport Convention. After the 5-tracks on this EP I had lost so much of my will to live I felt like climbing the nearest clock tower and popping off every ‘dude’ I could see in the vicinity sporting a 3-day growth and a panel van. Every track sounded the same just like every roots record sounds the same.
Maybe I just don’t understand roots music at all. Sure, they are chilled out dudes blah blah blah. But seriously, so are Rastafarians and their music has vitality and melody. In fact, roots music has borrowed the rhythms of reggae but imbued it with a complete lack of life. I know noble gases with more personality. It has so little energy that albums should carry a warning label, ‘this album is not to be played to children under the age of 10. They may never wake-up.’ This album put my heart in such a catatonic state I thought it was going to stop completely. I can’t believe they hold whole festivals of this stuff and they don’t finish up like Jonestown. Men, women, and children, strummed to death.
Imagine an archaeologist unearths this record in 10,000 years, the last remaining example of 21st century music. The excitement they would have before they listened to it. And then after, as they sit in stunned, disappointed silence, they would all breath a sigh of relief that the human race had managed to evolve a personality over the preceding 10 millennia.
The very thought of exchanging money for this album makes me shake.
