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(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)
The multi-instrumentalist Anders Parker formed Varnaline in Portland, Oregon, in 1993, shortly after moving from New York, and recorded the first single, Party Now/ Iron Horse (Clubland, 1995), on a modest four-track recorder, along with the material for Man Of Sin (Zero Hour, 1996), recorded in 1994, from which the single The Hammer Goes Down was taken.
Parker played guitar in Space Needle, led by Jud Ehrbar, a schoolmate from his New York days, who returned the favor by playing drums on Varnaline (Zero Hour, 1997), composed between 1993 and 1996. The catchy Lights serves as an opener, but the heart of the album lies in two tracks haunted by the ghost of Neil Young: Meet Me On The Ledge and Why Are You Unkind. Parker, however, is still an introspective romantic and vents this in the lyrical Sky'd Out and the tormented Really Can't Say, for voice and piano alone.
The EP A Shot And A Beer (Zero Hour, 1997) again presents Parker alone with his acoustic guitar and intimate ballads such as Don't Come Home.
Sweet Life (Zero Hour, 1998) completes the shift toward country music, toward a softer and more personal style than the almost hard-rock excesses of the first album. Parkers romanticism overflows in Gulf of Mexico (with references to The Band, Rod Stewart and Neil Young), All About Love (perhaps the most melodic track on the album), and Tonite (the closest to the fragile tenderness of the EP). Much of the album exudes spirituality: Saviours is a mix of Cajun, swing and gospel, and sparse songs like Northern Lights and This Is The River are suspended in a melodic continuum that is almost transcendent. Underneath the Mountain is the only track that reconnects with the raw energy of the previous record.
But the nine-minute title track tells a different story, one that links back to the bacchanal of Why Are You Unkind: a violin introduction followed by a violent psychedelic crescendo.
(Original English text by Piero Scaruffi)
Varnaline definitely went country with Songs In A Northern Key (E-Squared, 2001),
that ideally completes the metamorphosis begun with the second album.
Parker is undoubtedly a modern master of the gentle folk ballad
(Still Dream, Blackbird Fields), a master at
spinning desolate yarns such as Indian Summer Takedown and
Broken Song,
a master at coloring each song with a different palette (rhythm, arrangement,
dynamics, vocal register). There is hardly a song whose development is
predictable. Eccentric noises pop up everywhere, tempos blow with the wind,
guitars battle and drums beat like tom-toms.
To top the concept,
Varnaline can also sound majestic (Blue Flowers On The Highway) and
aggressive (Anything From Now, the mesmerizing Green Eyed Stars,
the devastating bulldozer-like Let It All Come Down),
bestowing on the whole a plesantly varied feeling of genuine inspiration.
The problem is that Parker is in a bad mood and
we get a rosary of funereal dirges that would make a gregorian monk chuckle.
The good news is that, occasionally, Parker attains a mournful Nick Drake-ian
(anti-)grandeur.
Anders Parker's solo album
Tell It To The Dust (Baryon, 2004) continues Varnaline's project.
The mini-album The Wounded Astronaut (Baryon, 2005) contains music from the same recording sessions.
Gob Iron, a collaboration between Parker and Son Volt's Jay Farrar,
wed alt-country and traditional folk on
Death Songs for the Living (Transmit Sound, 2006).
Parker also released:
Anders Parker (Baryon, 2006), recorded with Eric Heywood (The Pretenders, Son Volt), Ken Coomer (Wilco, Uncle Tupelo), Jen Condos (Warren Zevon), Kirk Swan (Dumptruck) and Sally Timms (The Mekons);
the double-disc concept Skyscraper Crow (Bladen County, 2009);
the all-instrumental guitar album Cross Latitudes (Skycap, 2010);
There's A Blue Bird In My Heart (Recorded and Freed, 2014);
and
The Man Who Fell From Earth (Recorded and Freed, 2017).
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