Sunday 15 March 2020

Log #181 - A Lift To The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads

Eddy Bamyasi

Why have I not heard this stupendous album before? Loving the The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads album from Lift To Experience and I've only played the first half. Fronted up by Josh T Pearson I was vaguely aware of his original band but had never heard this, their only album. 


This is the story of three Texas boys busy mindin' their own business when the Angel of the Lord appeared unto them.

The double album (I've only just realised there were 2 CDs in the carboard sleeve!) was released by the Texas-based indie trio in 2001. Mixed by Cocteau Twins Simon Raymonde and Robin Guthrie the album is a marvellous mess of noise casting Texas as the "promised land" in a "second coming of Jesus" concept. Having seen Josh T Pearson live solo where he projected a hardly disguised "messiah" persona I'm not surprised. 


Josh "Bear" Browning's, Josh T Pearson and Andy "the Boy" Young

Indeed Pearson's solo album Last Of The Country Gentlemen is certainly unusual. When I first heard it I couldn't decide if it was the worst or best record I'd ever heard. But The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads is a whole new level. 

Readers' Note - there are two versions of the album, the 2001 original and a "remixed as God intended" version released in 2017 (my version is the 2001 release).


Cluster - '71
Cluster - II
Tangerine Dream - Zeit
Fennesz - Endless Summer
Brian Eno - Ambient 4 On Land
Lift To Experience - The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads (CD 1)

The Lift To Experience offering is opposite to the other records in the player this week where we have 5 ambient favourites - although maybe not completely opposite. Where last week's Eno album Apollo is no doubt lovely musically, his Ambient 4 On Land is much more experimental in terms of soundscapes and odd noises. Then the Cluster albums, certainly the debut '71, is the industrial sound of an electrical power plant. The Fennesz album Endless Summer has its moments of beauty but these are submerged in plenty of grating clicks and fuzzes, and the strings heavy Zeit comes from the discordant school of classical mininalism.



About The Author

Eddy Bamyasi

Eddy is a music writer from Brighton, England, named after a Can record. Each Sunday he logs and reviews the albums that happen to be in his vintage Pioneer 6-CD magazine changer, amongst other things.

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