Originally posted at http://www.prefixmag.com/reviews/between-the-pine/friends-foes-kith-and-kin/23947/

Friends, Foes, Kith and Kin, the second album recorded by James Diotte under the Between the Pine moniker, is an exercise in mood, with the pervasive feeling being contemplative sobriety. The album logs in at a lean thirty-eight minutes but nevertheless feels expansive, as Diotte utilizes a variety of instruments, found sounds, and help from a variety of guests, including wife Robin Toste, to create a full narrative landscape. Friends, Foes, Kith and Kin is dense, ambiguous and sometimes unsettling, lovingly constructed and haunted by Diotte’s presence.

As with his debut, Diotte is unquestionably the main presence on the album. His voice, which he describes aptly as a “splinter” gives his music its point of view. After a brief instrumental introduction on “Clarinets,” Diotte appears on “People We Were Before.” His vocal delivery is not typical or easily accessible; the first couple of listens sound as if Smeagle landed a recording contract. As one song bleeds into another and one listen  follows the next, a simple truth is revealed about Friends, Foes, Kith and Kin. Diotte is well aware that, even though he might be working with a limited instrument, he can use it to good effect in creating the mood he wants on his songs.

When his vocals are considered just another part of the larger picture, Friends, Foes, Kith and Kin emerges as a creation that achieves its beauty and purpose from the fact that it arises from imperfect pieces. Diotte’s vocals, a repeated banjo or recorder line, and even seemingly missed notes at the end of a song bleed into one another, even from song to song to fortify the dreamy, disconnected environment that is the album’s most compelling aspect. Between the Pine is definitely an acquired taste, but Diotte’s careful work is the type of art that repays investment on the part of the listener.

http://weeklyvolcano.com/2008-12-04/cd-reviews/3108/

Ever thought the world needs more singer/songwriters who make sad, experimental music alone in their basements and make band names for themselves even though they don’t have a band?  No, me neither, but Between the Pine is well worth a listen despite falling in this category.

James Diotte, the man behind the Pine moniker, recorded Friends, Foes, Kith and Kin in his basement studio with some vocal help from his wife and his father on guitar.  With found sounds and haunting vocals, Friends is reminiscent of Phil Elvrum back when he was The Microphones, but the album is far from the impromptu sound that Elvrum usually creates.  Instead, Diotte has carefully constructed his songs with layered string arrangements, keyboard, and murky guitars, and manages to make songs about sandwiches and Coca-Cola sound very significant.  The star tracks include the short instrumental “Clarinets” along with “I know You Can Hear Us” and the album’s title track.

Friends, Foes, Kith, and Kin, the second album from Between the Pine, is full of instrumentation that’s beautiful, soothing, and more complicated than what you’d expect from a one-man-band in his basement.

cool UK music store Boomkat reviews Between The Pine:

http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=150236

Loose and organic post-folk songwriting from James Diotte, whose music dwells in the the same sort of brooding depths plumbed by Mount Eerie or Phosphorescent, whilst always pushing the arrangements down the road least travelled – layering instruments atmospherically and in a most un-singer-songwriterly fashion.

Originally posted at http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2009/01/between-the-pine-%E2%80%93-friends-foes-kith-and-kin/

Creeping, slow-burning and haunting are the buzz-clichés that spring to mind when listening to Friends, Foes, Kith and Kin.  As hackneyed as they are, they’re descriptions I find myself compelled to use.  This sophomore release for Rhode Island-based James Diotte, aka Between the Pine, is a carefully crafted record, an American indie epic converging with gentle, traditional British folk.  Nothing stands out, nothing catches, or hooks into your psyche.  But, as the closing bars of ‘The Wall & The Moon’ fade to black, it’s easy to find yourself snapping back to reality, having become entranced in the album’s subtle, underlying beauty.

There’s an undeniable quality to Between the Pine’s new offering, one that shines through its clever instrumentation, ethereal vocal melodies and droning rhythms.  It’s also a very deliberate, held-back collection, with a coy sincerity to its gentle ambience and low tempo.  Its highlights come in the unlikely guise of tracks such as ‘People We Were Before’, a warbling dream of a song with thematic borrowings from the post-rock genre; and in the more immediate, keyboard-driven ‘Enjoy Yourself’, evoking memories of Radiohead’s more experimental work.  But at its weakest, Friends, Foes, Kith and Kin begins to sound a little uninspired and somewhat derivative.  Many of its more upbeat passages are reminiscent of The Shins’ more laid back sounds, but without the emotional pull that drives the latter.  In fact, in its more generic moments, Friends, Foes, Kith and Kin fails to encourage much of a response at all, and long segments fly by unnoticed, merging together into one perfectly palatable yet ultimately unimportant stretch of music.

There’s an apparent self-awareness to the album, one that’s necessary to develop such an effective mood. Its admirable successes rest largely on Diotte’s clear vision and occasional bravery.  But, ultimately, it’s a record that struggles to engage on any meaningful level.  An album with soul, unquestionably; it’s just a shame it lacks the charm to go with it.
71%

Friends, Foes, Kith and Kin is out now on Sad Music

originally posted at http://howwastheshow.com/index.cfm/action/reviews.view/reviewKey/1085

Dark Dark Dark

“It’s been a really great year,” Dark Dark Dark banjoist Marshall LaCount announced towards the beginning of their set at the Cedar Cultural Center Saturday night. LaCount went on to say that it was also great to be home, an understandable sentiment considering the band had been on tour in Europe and the U.S. since before Halloween and spent a good chunk of 2008 on the road.

And that time spent on the road really shows in their performance. In October they released a full-length album, The Snow Magic. The album was produced by Robert Skoro and was the first release for Supply And Demand Music.

Dark Dark Dark, who hail from both Minneapolis and New York, are Nona Marie Invie (accordion and vocals), Marshall LaCount (banjo), Jonathan Kaiser (cello) and Todd Chandler (stand up bass). They play haunting, dreamy and dark eastern-European sounding music with influences from the cabaret and folk traditions.

One of the first things that strikes you about the band live is their earnestness. There are similar-sounding groups that go for over-the-top antics and are as much a barroom brawl at times as they are a band. Though the inevitable dark carnival atmosphere pervades Dark Dark Dark’s music on disc, watching them live is as enchanting watching a classical string quartet. Perhaps the pin-drop quietness of the sold-out Cedar during songs contributed to that feeling. But it’s also there in the tone the band purveys from the lush warmth of the cello and bass flanking LaCount and Invie. This band is deadly serious about their music and it shows.

“We’re the least rock and roll band we’ve encountered on the road” LaCount said later in the show, pointing out that they can actually be a little shy, especially in their own hometown. The Cedar crowd showed their love for the band and their Twin Cities shout out, rising into a slight cheer when they sang the line, “It’s too bad there’s no ocean in Minneapolis” from the song “Colors” which appears on their new disc.

Saturday the band was not joined on stage by Martin Dosh who contributed drums to the album, but they were joined by friend John Davis on bass clarinet.

Dark Dark Dark goes back out on tour after the first of the year with a show at CBGB in St. Louis. LaCount also talked a little bit about a movie Todd Chandler has been working on in NYC that may surface within the year. (Watch the teaser here.)

originally posted at http://www.playbackstl.com/content/view/8361/157/

In the mood for a little tense, back-alley Eastern European gypsy folk shot through with existential angst and prominently featuring accordion and banjo? Not a chance, you say? Well, too bad for you, ‘cause you’ll miss hearing one of the most original and daring albums to come out this year, even if the commercial odds are stacked against it. The Minneapolis-based quartet, Dark Dark Dark, have chosen a name that some might call pretentious — and it’s arguably even misleading, as this intimately rendered, worldly music is no soundtrack for slitting your throat. Rather, it’s energetic and throbbing with life, even if the themes do explore loss, pain and the difficulties of survival. But the contingent of listeners who’ll come running to check out an album where accordion and banjo are lead instruments (and drums are largely absent, as well) is a small one.

So, DDD are likely not chart bound, but for fans of compelling, original music, this recording is a stunner. The two primary vocalists—Nona Marie Invie and Marshall LaCount—both have memorable pipes, which they blend in haunting style on tracks such as “Ashes,” “Colors” and “New York Song.” LaCount’s voice sparkles with intelligence and conviction; timbre-wise, it’s pitched somewhere between Thom Yorke’s lower range and the cool sophistication of Norway’s Sondre Lerche.

Invie, however, is a force to be reckoned with. Hers is a raw, emotive instrument that delivers every bit of pain, disillusionment and an “I don’t suffer fools gladly” attitude that’s likely at the forefront of her psyche every day. It’s not always comfortable listening, in other words; no laid-back prettiness or showstopping big moments are on display here. But Invie is a powerhouse vocalist if you like music that’s totally authentic, where the singer sounds 100% invested in what they’re sharing with you. I don’t know what this woman grew up listening to, but she sure doesn’t sound American, and her aesthetic is miles away from anything as ordinary as radio-friendly pop. All that said, this is utterly hypnotic stuff.

“A Cloud Story” and “Colors” are riveting tracks that constantly build in intensity, taking you somewhere you can’t predict. The eccentric “Ferment in Dm” finds Invie unleashing one of her most memorable vocals, and you can make of this verse what you will: “You’ve got a strong fermenting body/ You’ve got a body made of lead/I want to hold you under water/And calculate your next breath.” Yikes!

But there are a lot of “yikes” on this album, and that’s meant as a compliment. It keeps you off balance throughout, even as it encourages you to twirl for release on such movers as “New York Song” and the aptly named “A Spell for Letting Go.” Another standout track is “That Light,” a sort of delerious mad waltz on which piano, saw and cello vie for attention with Invie’s voice. “Where’s that light you’re reaching for?” Invie sings repeatedly, as Robert Skoro’s stellar production hits another high with its equal attention to every sound in the mix. Hard to say what “light” Invie is referring to here, but in terms of inspiration and fierce originality, just about everything is illuminated in this Dark Dark Dark gem of a debut. B+ | Kevin Renick

originally posted at http://crawdaddy.wolfgangsvault.com/Review/Dark-Dark-Dark-The-Snow-Magic.html :

On stage, Dark Dark Dark lives up to their name with an anti-charismatic presentation that’s nonetheless riveting. Nona Marie Invie cradles a giant accordion on her lap, squeezing out gloomy, minor key chords that complement the stygian rumbling of Todd Chandler’s bass and the mournful counter-melodies of Jonathan Kaiser’s cello. Marshall LaCount’s banjo supplies the brightest accents, but they come from some dark hollow where the bluest elements of bluegrass dance with the clanking rhythms of the Balkans. The band dresses down with a wardrobe that suggests clothing acquired from a late-’80s Seattle—comfortable plaid shirts, faded jeans, Doc Martens, and tattered footwear, the timeless garb of student radicals, street musicians, and working class youth with low-paying jobs. Invie’s face is barely visible behind her accordion. She peers over her instrument and her large eyeglasses give her the look of a librarian well-versed in arcane tomes full of forbidden secrets. LaCount dresses in black from head to foot, with a black cap on his head, looking like a turn of the century Wobbly or an American anarchist ready to hit the road and fight the good fight for truth, justice, and the American way. They all have the rumbled look of hobos that just stepped out of a cross-country boxcar ride, and that impression isn’t too far from the truth.

Dark Dark Dark’s principals met on the road. Invie had indeed hopped freight trains and wandered aimlessly around the United Stares and Europe playing music and soaking up the sounds that surrounded her on her sojourn. LaCount had run away from home and spent time drifting down the mighty Mississippi on a homemade raft singing for his supper at myriad ports of call. When they met, they recognized each other as kindred spirits and began writing original songs in an effort to busk their way down to New Orleans. They played anywhere they could—smoky bars, the homes of kindly strangers, student lofts, and street corners, developing a sound that blends the dark folk music of American and Eastern Europe. Kaiser and Chandler joined up somewhere along the way as the band crisscrossed America on a never-ending, impromptu tour that honed their sound into a singular, haunting style that suggests the freedom and loneliness of the wandering musician looking for a worm place to stay the night and a sip of something to warm the bones and keep away the melancholy. After two years of travel, they settled down in Minneapolis long enough to record The Snow Magic, a powerful collection that lives up to the band’s chosen moniker.

The album opens with the startling wintertime clatter of “Ashes”, a skewed waltz that blends gypsy exuberance and Appalachian fatalism into a tale that likens romance to attempted murder. Invie wails, “You won’t scatter my ashes,” while the band surrounds her with a wall of bracing discord. The rest of the album is almost pastoral in comparison, but the landscape that the band paints is bleak, gray, and inhospitable, with muted tones of loss and solitude. “Colors” uses a marimba, played by guest drummer Martin Dosh from Andrew Bird’s band, and bowed cello and bass to create an ominous mood. Boy meets girl and then they merge into an explosion of psychedelic desire and frustration. The vocals of Invie and LaCount are full of longing, but they’re soon overwhelmed by brooding bass and cello lines that obliterate the moment.

“Dig a Grave” is a mysterious lament played on banjo and accordion, with intimations of murder and suicide, a wrenching performance with Invie’s weeping harmonies and sinister sustained notes from the cello adding to the song’s chilling ambience. “New York Song” is another waltz, this one mellower, a salute to winter in the city that dreams of the coming joy of springtime, even as it nods to the summer suicide of two hopeless lovers. “Trouble No More” lives up to its ironic title, starting out as a jaunty “Babe, I’m leavin’ you” country song before slipping into a hopeless, self-destructive dirge. LaCount and Invie end the tune with wailing Southern gospel harmonies full of dispiriting gloom. There’s nothing really uplifting on the album, but the music of Dark Dark Dark weaves an inviting psychedelic web, all the more powerful for its reliance on acoustic instruments. The album’s organic feel makes these desperately poetic grievances perfect companions for long winter evenings in lonely candlelit rooms.

from http://prod1.cmj.com/articles/display_article.php?id=97547808

BETWEEN THE PINE: Friend, Foes, Kith, and Kin
Dec 5, 2008
By Michael Tedder
Rhode Island songwriter James Diotte has it all figured out. As evidenced by the sophomore album from his group Between The Pine, it’s clear that he realizes that if one makes their songs simple but pretty enough, and then slathers enough sonic gauze onto the mix, even lyrics about sandwiches and coca-cola will sound haunting. Diotte’s circular, ringing guitar playing and subdued voice (supplemented with the occasional gust of guest harmony) along with the occasional keyboard and string break congeal together into an album of idealized hangover rock.

Friend, Foes, Kith, and Kin is actually a bit of a bargain. When played in the background after a hard day at work, it functions as a superior balm for your anxieties. (Hushed harmonies and hazy guitars are often good for what ails you.) But upon closer listen, the meticulous craft and delicately balanced melodies and ambiance of Friend reveals that Diotte has a rewarding ear for detail that only becomes apparent with repeated plays.

originally printed in Flagpole Magazine, Athens, GA: http://flagpole.com/Music/RecRev/DarkDarkDark/2008-11-12/

The Snow Magic captured me immediately and has been twisting my mind for the last couple of hours, through two listens to the disc and a page of publicity information.

It seems the band formed out of life’s great plan for travelers: chance meeting. Accordionist/vocalist Nona Marie Invie met runaway banjo-playing raftsman Marshall LaCount sometime in 2006, and they began playing music as a way of “earning passage to New Orleans.” Eventually they met the cellist and upright bass player, and they played around the country for about two years, then went into the studio with Andrew Bird’s live drummer and musician/producer Robert Skoro.

The result of these studio sessions is an elegant, honest and captivating blend of Eastern European- and Appalachian-influenced folk with a touch of the cabaret: it swings as well as it broods. And if you even think a group of vagabond gypsies would dare begin a story without intending to add a piece of your soul to its folklore by the time of their closing remarks, then you, my friend, are crazier than I.

http://obscuresound.com/?p=2320

Within the packaging of their debut album, the Minneapolis-based Dark Dark Dark opted to include an eight-page booklet of photographs that featured a few pictures of the group in settings that proved more reminiscent of the late 19th century than the present, a stark contrast from the technologically dependent promo shots that most bands utilize today. Courtesy of photographer Timothy G. Piotrowski, the style most often indicated a nostalgic feel that was primarily attributed to his fascinating use of blended monochromatic and yellow shades. It also helped that the individuals featured in the photos usually had no visible expression on their faces whatsoever, alluding to the stereotypically deadpan stares that were so typical of the preceding eras. As evidenced by the sample exhibitions on Piotrowski’s site and this freely distributed shot of Dark Dark Dark, the photographer utilizes contemporary photography techniques to put a new spin on styles that may be deemed outdated. But this big question will likely loom in the minds of first-time listeners: What exactly prompted Dark Dark Dark to feature this photographic style so vividly in their first full-length release? When listening to their music, it should make sense. Like Piotrowski’s photography, the group takes advantage of all the resources that modern music technology has to offer them to create a stirringly nostalgic sound that becomes all their own.

A four-piece at its heart, Dark Dark Dark consists of an instrumental arsenal that is not typical of most indie-rock favorites. In addition to the rhythm section of bassist Todd Chandler and drummer Martin Dosh, the group maintains a heavy focus on cello, banjo, accordion, and piano. Jonathan Kaiser takes control of the cello, Marshall Lacount strums the banjo, and Nona Marie Invie makes use of her skills at piano and accordion. LaCount and Invie prove to be unconventionally resounding vocalists, serving as a double-edged sword with overlapping melodies that capitalize on an appealing formula that blends irresistible vocal harmonies with instrumentation that ranges anywhere in the mood palette from ominous to optimistic. In addition to Chandler, these three are the constant members, though Dosh contributed some excellent drumming to the entirety of the group’s engrossing debut, The Snow Magic. The name Martin Dosh may sound familiar to fans of percussively-based electronica; the Minnesota native has been regarded as a “superstar” prodigy for his innovative fusion of post-rock, electronica, and a consistently emphasized form of percussive involvement. Signed to the Anticon label in 2003, he has released four impressive solo albums, the most recent of which – Wolves and Wishes – was released in May of this year.

In addition to the collaborations from Dosh, the steady members of Dark Dark Dark remain just as interesting. Bassist Todd Chandler is directing and writing a film project by the name of “Flood”, featuring an accompanied score by his very own band. Subsequent to his work in another locally esteemed Minneapolis-based band by the name of Woodcat, LaCount worked on Dosh’s Wolves and Wishes on a handful of tracks, one being “Kit and Pearle” with Andrew Bird. Invie contributed vocals on that very same track, already acquainted with LaCount after the duo had formed Dark Dark Dark in 2006. Dark Dark Dark’s debut, Love You, Bye was an EP that was released in October 2007 and recorded by now-cellist Jonathan Kaiser. After Kaiser pushed his production duties aside to focus entirely on cello, the group handed the role of producer to Robert Skoro for their debut full-length, The Snow Magic. A new staple of the Minneapolis music scene due to his intuitive mixing abilities, Skoro also is an aspiring solo songwriter whose material can be checked out here. To map out an ambitiously stylistic album like The Snow Magic, I imagine that it may have looked initially intimidating to the young producer. Looking at the final result though, I may not have given him enough credit; Skoro did a fantastic job. The atmosphere that he and the band have instilled into this memorable debut is extremely commendable with a consistent vision that goes hand-in-hand with a batch of great songs.

As evidenced by their name alone, the fact that Dark Dark Dark’s stylistic territory treads on the gloomy side of things should not be surprising. Any other conceptual focus would be a mistake though, as the instrumentation glides cohesively with the content at hand. “Dig a Grave” features a gradually expanded melody that is accentuated by the simultaneous sounds of an accordion and cello. “Your ghost can stop and stay for a round, I would truly be living it up,“ LaCount sings, adding a bit of ironic humor to a song centered on the question of whether being haunted by a loved one is so bad after all. “Junk Bones” is a more melodically exuberant track that, once again, centers on the topics of ghostly spirits and death. Led by Invie’s creakily enjoyable vocals, it features an excellent chorus that sees a simultaneous collision of an accordion and reverbed keys. “All that rope you hang your neck with,” she repeats after the chorus, an effective measure of words considering these preceding lyrics: “Now you’re a ghost, you can find a home away from here; I’ve always wanted to find a home away from here.” The fact that the narrator expresses jealousy for the deceased because of her miserable state of existence is tragic, but the somewhat jovial melody makes the track fulfilling and undeniably interesting.

“Ashes”, the opening track on The Snow Magic, also serves as one of the most captivating efforts on the album. Dark Dark Dark once again takes a look at the effects of death – this time at the spreading of ashes – over a swirling instrumental accompaniment and pair of dual vocals that attribute nicely to the vigorous tenacity of the track with the ardent deliveries of LaCount and Invie. “I know you want to scatter my ashes, I know you want to spread them far and wide,” Invie sings. “Don’t scatter my ashes; I want to run by the seaside.” The content, of course, may be too dark and topically repetitive for some, but the musical style fits it well and anything else may have come across as pure desperation. In terms of dual harmonies, it would be difficult to argue against “The Benefit of the Doubt” to be one of the most impressive efforts in that regard. The instrumentation, led by a cello-accordion combo similar to “Dig a Grave”, is bare compared to some others, but it proves wildly effective as it places an emphasis on the vocal harmonies of LaCount and Invie. To be warned, The Snow Magic is not the most accessible or instantaneously gripping album out there, but successive listens will undoubtedly reward listeners in a way that few debuts will this year.