Buffalo Nichols
The Fatalist
(Fat Possum)
3 1/2 out of 5 stars
Videos by American Songwriter
Drum machines, samples, synths… and blues? Is that a thing? Should it be? The answer, at least to bluesman Buffalo Nichols, is an unqualified “yes.”
“I tried to reimagine the blues…as if it were allowed to grow and progress uninterrupted, uncolonized and ungentrified,” says Nichols in this album’s notes. Fair enough, and one spin of his second release is all it takes to hear how organically he incorporates various electronics successfully into some deep, often dark, Delta-styled blues.
“The Long Journey Home,” starts with the plucking of a forlorn banjo, imbuing understated beats and a crying violin to capture the song’s melancholy, even disturbing, spirit as he sings We live to suffer / And know not why. He follows with the title track—more ominous techno beats and squiggly synth sounds—where he bemoans the lack of control over his own destiny. And on a striking, stripped-down version of Blind Willie Johnson’s “You’re Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond,” the disc’s only cover, he samples Charlie Patton, adding thumping keyboard drums, subtle washes of synthesizer and his own lone, eerie, acoustic slide guitar. That infuses more darkness in an already gloomy song with the lyrics And when its late in the midnight and death come sneaking in my room / I have somebody on my bond.
It helps that Nichols’ bellowing, gruff, talk-sung voice, somewhat like a less demonstrative Tom Waits or Howling Wolf, could make even “Happy Birthday” sound threatening. He closes the set with a slithering National Steel guitar on “This Moment,” a duet with Samantha Rise which also includes portentous fiddle. When they sing Father say goodbye to this child /The world you left for me is wild it feels like some long lost field recording from the ‘30s.
If authentic blues is going to stay current with technology without watering down its basic messages of loss, hurt, frustration, and hope for a better future, it will be through channeling the music’s decade-old feelings into a present-day context.
Buffalo Nichols takes a cautious but assertive step in that direction. He keeps the approach raw and rich, adding just enough contemporary touches to subtly yet noticeably update the murkier musical concepts that have kept the blues a vital art form for nearly 100 years.
Photo by Samer Ghani / Courtesy Chromatic PR
