Reviews
BARNUM BROWN Polly
Making a drop from the area’s underground, Murfreesboro’s folk/bluegrass/ roots cabin crooner Alex Tumbleson released a self-produced, solo debut EP, Polly, under the stage name Barnum Brown. The release captures the darkly swooning discipline of a local multi-instrumentalist, a haybale/brewery-circuit picker proud to remain subterranean. But the music will probably earn some attention, because Barnum Brown throws around Dostoyevsky quotes like a true, traditional-style Middle Tennessee circuit picker. Polly was recorded as a simple, no-BS production of triple talent—picking skills, lyric stylings and vocal discipline—arranged for a bluegrass-steeped, cabin-lit mood in each of its six tracks. Polly opens with “Change Is Coming Soon,” featuring a strummed acoustic guitar accompanying vocals sounding like a late-middle-aged but still throaty Ralph Stanley singing a Dan Tyminski-penned song, one about a conflicted man awake at night, at the train station, thinking about his woman. Brown’s picking stumbles onto deft pinkie-ing of high-string 7th, 9th and 11th notes for the melody while the chorded down-strum of the lower three or four strings of the instrument act as the bass line. It’s a backwards, melodic claw-hammering technique borrowed from banjo masters like ’Boro-area legacy and early Opry star Uncle Dave Macon. A possibly area-telling “Vine Street Girls” livens up Polly as a Jewish-folk-sounding
ALBUM
MOVIE
minstrel tune, properly layering the high-register, mandolin-style strummed banjo over a waltz-ish acoustic guitar, accompanying lyrics of a drunkard’s nightcap about three doors down on Vine Street. All three of Brown’s triple talents play an equal part in this banger and EP highlight. Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor likely influenced the vocal style on the homely, solo acoustic homage to the area, “Tennessee.” Brown’s vocals then closely resemble those of Trampled by Turtles’ Dave Simonett on the title track, as traditionalist clawhammer banjo picking plays, while lyrically the song explores a dark combination of time and failure, truly giving up, and having only Polly to say goodbye to. “Undertow” follows as another soloacoustic number, with noticeable impressive breath control as a sub-talent of Brown’s vocal discipline, all over some Neko Caseesque minor-chord rise-and-fall. Brown string-smacks and mutes for a percussive effect, and the resulting crescendo keeps feet tapping while sounding as if the artist was raised by wild, roving open-mic musicians. Brown goes to town with a vocal style reminiscent of Andrew Bird on “The Bitter End” for an ultimate track utilizing guitar parlor tricks, acoustic mute strumming and chiming intonations while keeping a solid picking flow and running a bass line that fills in a wonderful, dark jazz/folk vehicle for a bluegrass-accompanied apocalypse (or acquiescing to an opioid death and succumbing to a true underground . . . “if you do not deign to give me your attention,” as Dostoyevsky would say). Find Polly by Barnum Brown/Alex Tumbleson on Spotify or at alextumbleson.bandcamp.com. — BRYCE HARMON
A CLASSIC
OUTSTANDING
THE BLACK PHONE DIRECTOR Scott Derrickson STARRING Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Ethan Hawke RATED R
The Black Phone is one of those movies where if you’ve seen the trailer you basically know what is going to happen. But, it’s like reading the CliffsNotes for a classic novel; you might know all the plot points, but you don’t get the true experience. Based on a short story of the same name by Joe Hill (son of Stephen King), The Black Phone is about a masked serial killer the kids call “the grabber” in a sleepy north Denver suburb in 1978. When the grabber abducts Finney (Mason Thames), it’s up to his younger sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), whose dreams sometimes come true, to help find Finney. Meanwhile, Finney receives help from the ghosts of the grabber’s victims via a disconnected black phone attached to the wall of the grimy basement in which he’s being held. Coming from the son of Stephen, it’s all very King-esque: the dreary neighborhood, kids cussing and riding bikes, bullies, alcoholic fathers, a creepy child predator, and just a touch of the supernatural in Gwen’s visions and Finney’s phone. And it all comes together on the strength and simplicity of the source material, the direction, and the performances. Scott Derrickson, whose early horror films landed him the first Doctor Strange AVERAGE
standalone, nails the late ’70s aesthetic of oppressive browns, and he allows the film to breathe and the characters to grow between plot beats. His writing too, along with co-writer C. Robert Cargill, is sharp yet natural, being scary and tense when it tries, and funny when it means to be (the reactions of the sparse audience were more pronounced than most movies with a fuller crowd). The performances, from a mostly teenage cast of unfamiliar faces, stand out. In our current Stranger Things world, Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw, as well as the other young actors in smaller roles, play on that nerdy nostalgia, albeit in a more grounded and realistic manner. McGraw is the real highlight as Gwen, stealing every scene she’s in with her impeccable delivery as a kid who knows the cuss words but hasn’t quite grasped the context of how to use them. Ethan Hawke is one of only two familiar faces in the entire film (the other being Jeremy Davies as Finney and Gwen’s abusive alcoholic father). Hawke keeps his face covered throughout with a series of grotesque devil masks with interchangeable smiles and frowns, à la the comedy and tragedy theater masks. Hawke’s performance behind the mask is troubling and disturbed, a deliciously scary turn. Initially, the trailer for The Black Phone turned me off. I thought it revealed too much, that there would be no surprises or subtleties left. I’m glad I was wrong, because The Black Phone is a taut horror/ thriller that does a lot of things right and earns its thrills, making me a new fan of all involved. — JAY SPIGHT
BELOW AVERAGE
AVOID AT ALL COSTS BOROPULSE.COM
* JULY 2022 * 17
