My Morning Jacket - At Dawn: 20th Anniversary Edition

Darla
(DRL358-2: 708527035825/DRL358-3: /DRL358-4: /DRL358-1D: 708527035818/DRL358-1E: 708527035818)

$18.00

2xCD in double Digipak.

Darla Records is pleased to offer the expanded 20th Anniversary Edition of My Morning Jacket's classic breakthrough record At Dawn with the added bonus of a complete Jim James live acoustic set of seven tracks recorded by Erik Wofford in the Radiology X-ray Room of the old Student Health Center, University of Texas, March 17, 2001, just three weeks before the release of At Dawn. The live performance was recorded and later broadcast on KVRX. Featured all together here for the first time are six previously unreleased tracks from the session, plus Bermuda Highway (Live KVRX) from the same, which is also featured on the compilation Chapter 2: Early Recordings. This is a recording of outstanding quality and captures a peak performance by Jim James.

Original tracklist:

1. At Dawn

2. Lowdown

3. The Way That He Sings

4. Death is the Easy Way

5. Hopefully

6. Bermuda Highway

7. Honest Man

8. Xmas Curtain (Album Version)

9. Just Because I Do

10. If It Smashes Down

11. I Needed It Most

12. Phone Went West

13. Strangulation!

14. Untitled

Jim James Live KVRX 3/17/2001 bonus CD2 and LP3 tracklist:

These recordings were selected by Jim James. Recorded live by Erik Wofford 3/17/2001 in the Radiology X-ray Room of the old Student Health Center, University of Texas. All songs recorded in one take live to tape. No artificial reverb was used in the making of these KVRX recordings. Thank you Erik!

Jim James Live KVRX 3/17/2001 bonus CD2 and LP3 tracklist:

1. Bermuda Highway (Live KVRX)
2. Lowdown (Live KVRX) - previously unreleased
3. Hopefully (Live KVRX) - previously unreleased
4. Nashville to Kentucky (Live KVRX) - previously unreleased

5. I Needed it Most (Live KVRX) - previously unreleased
6. I Will Be There When You Die (Live KVRX) - previously unreleased

7. Just Because I Do (Live KVRX) - previously unreleased

It was recorded live, but not broadcast live. I multi-tracked to an 8 track Otari mx5050 tape machine and mixed it at a later time. The main thing to take away from this is there is no artificial reverb on these tracks. That’s just what that surprisingly small 15x15 room with tile walls sounded like; essentially a chamber reverb. Jim liked reverb so much during this time that he loved being right in the middle of it, playing around with its natural decay. Notes are made a little more percussive so he could enjoy the wash of reverb bathing him, almost like a conversation with a room. This recording will stand out in my mind as one of the most special moments I’ve been involved in. I still own the cheap acoustic guitar he played for this session and will cherish it forever. A few years after this recording, the KVRX building was torn down so this is one of the few documents of what this special room sounded like. I still want to build a chamber reverb with these dimensions and materials some day.

- Erik Wofford, 1/12/2021

Many consider their second record At Dawn (2001) their best record. Singer/Songwriter Jim James’ soulful voice and lonely country-rock songs are more intoxicating than ever here. Jim has a voice that's both honey and charcoal, like Neil Young at his most vulnerable. The songs are great deep south gothic canvases filled in with gracious acoustic and electric guitars, painterly strokes of harpsichord, harmonica and lap steel, drums swimming in the deepest, darkest, widest pools of reverb, dirigible harmonies that will have you weeping, with incensed atmosphere so thick, it's absolutely biblical. At times melancholy to the point of desperation, there's still a fiery joy to the proceedings, the same sense of euphoria meets-tragedy that Neil Young and Johnny Cash can muster, with a serious sense of traditional folk, the collective conscious of American Blues, Country, and Rock 'n' Roll. The Country influence isn't artifice, no indeedy, it's coming straight from Jim James' soul. Check out the Allman Brothers' styled exorcism that goes by the name "Honest Man" if you need some heavy with your duty. James is indeed a young man with a great gift. Jim James mixed At Dawn with David Trumfio at Kingsize Sound Labs. Listen and get hooked.