Desert Sessions Vol.9 & 10 - Various Artists

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Definitely a cut above the rest
Lyrics	Thought-provoking
Quality and consistency of tracks	A couple of weak links
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Not applicable
Value for Money	Good

Advantages:	Mer and My Sofa Get Reaquanted
Disadvantages:	No Small Faces Covers

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

The word collaboration is one I do not like hearing when used to describe a piece of rock and roll, when I was a young man it was featuring a guest appearance by so and so, I dislike the word collaboration as it is dirty and soulless.

The Desert Sessions is Josh Homme (Queens of The Stone Age) artistic side project which enables him to indulge in "collaborations" with various other artists he is interested in working with. It enables him to explore musical territory outside of the entity the is Queens of The Stone Age. In less pompous and pretentious terms it is basically an opportunity for him to go to Rancho De Luna Studios in the high desert town of Joshua Tree and have some fun with folk he likes or admires. The idea is that they will come up with whatever they feel like coming up with and have a lot of fun.

"At Desert Sessions, you play for the sake of music" - Josh Homme

This CD contains Volume 9 "I see You Hearin' Me" and 10 "I Heart Disco" of the desert Sessions and features:-

Polly Jean Harvey, Dean Ween (Ween), Alain Johannes (Eleven), Joshua Homme, Twiggy Ramirez (ex-Marilyn Manson), Chris Goss (Masters of Reality), Dave Catching (earthlings?, Mondo Generator), Joey Castillo (QOTSA), Josh Freese, Brian 'Big Hands' O'Connor, Troy Van Leeuwen and The Tuff Gentlemen.

Volume 9 "I See You Hearin' Me"

"Dead In Love"

A wonderfully sleazy piece of hard rock with Josh's montonic croon swooping over the music. Moderately strange and spooky with a sense of urgency.

"I Wanna Make It Wit Chu"

A sweet bouncy piano driven tune with laid back funky guitars, and back ground vocals by Polly Jean Harvey. Incredibly catchy, slightly trippy, laid back and one of those tunes that sticks in your head without annoying you.

"Covered In Punks Blood"

An instrumental that blasts you out of the laid back vibe of the previous song, just guitars bass and drums.

"There Will Never Be A Better Time"

Preformed by Polly Jean Harvey and Chris Goss once, just acoustic guitars and Polly singing over the top like a tortured siren / chanteuse.
"Crawl Home"

Polly Jean Takes on the lead of this superbly strange and moderately trippy rock number. Highly atmospheric stuff.

"I Am Here For Your Daughter"

A happy little folky ditty about daughters.

Volume 10:- "I Heart Disco"

"Powdered Wig Machine"

Described on the press release as "off-kilter electroid group-piece ", and really I can't say anymore than that. Strange atmospheric and wonderful.

"In My Head……or Something"

This one made it onto the new QOTSA album, and is a lot rawer that the Queens version. I prefer the urgency of this one, and just love the grove that you get into whilst this is playing.

"Holey Dime"

A laid back bit of psychedelic blues, Dark with scary slide guitar bits.

"A Girl Like Me"

More sort of highly strange psychedelic indie rock with spoken passages by Polly.

"Creosote"

Quite simply completely demented bluegrass

"Subcutaneous Phat"

Described as "railroad funk". It has prince and non prince drums on it with a great rumbling bass line and choir vocals. A wonderfully atmospheric merging into the sofa piece of music.

"Bring It Back Gentle"

Exactly what you would expect for a song with this title. Slow atmospheric, trippy and relaxing.

"Sheperds Pie"

"unfortunately, is not a Small Faces cover"

The CD also includes an enhanced section which auto plays as soon as you slap into your computer featuring a video montage of the songs from the album, and them mucking around, photos and a bio. In reality this section is not much to write home about.

These volumes were written and recorded within a week and rather than suffer from it I think it is a lot better. There is a sense of urgency and fun in the recordings, which is quite often diluted when writing and recording takes longer than this.

This is for more than just Queens of The Stone Age Fans and for anyone with an interest in US alt. Rock then definitely worth checking out, pop over to http://www.desertsessions.com/ and have a look and listen………