Well I think we've figured out the new Blogging tools on this website so let's keep going shall we, maybe not every day but reasonably regularly. The old stuff is still here if you want to read it, up top there under the "Blog Archive" link. One new feature we now have (or rather one that works now as it didn't before) is you can comment on these posts in the Blog rather than reading them and then having to go back to social media to comment. Give it a go down at the bottom there.

I did say I really hadn't covered everything I have (compilations etc.) and a record collection is always growing so let's see what else we have and what else has arrived...

Occasional Albums Thing 001 - Brendan Benson “One Mississippi”

I don’t recall who it was that told me about Brendan Benson but I do remember why and the why is Jason Falkner. If you go back to October of 2023 you would find me gushing about the debut album by Jellyfish (here I’ll save you the bother of looking https://www.whiterabbitrecords.co.uk/blog/read_204795/2023-albums-thing-199-jellyfish-bellybutton.html). The guitarist in this incarnation of Jellyfish was the previously noted Jason Falkner. Jason left Jellyfish sometime betwixt “Bellybutton” and the release of their second (and criminally, last) album “Spilt Milk”. After making the album “Ro Sham Bo” with The Grays in 1994 he left them too and, vowing never to be part of a band again, he released the first of his so far six solo albums, “…presents Author Unknown”, in August of 1996. Falkner has gone on to work with Air, Beck and Noel Gallagher.

While Falkner was recording “…presents Author Unknown” in the winter of 1995 he was obviously involved closely with this record as 7 of it’s 13 songs credit Jason Falkner as the co-writer and that’s the reason I was recommended it. During one or another online exchange I was told about this album and Mr Falkner’s involvement and I went out in search of and found it. For those of you wracking your brains thinking “why do I know this Benson fellas name” ? I’ll put you out of your misery, some years later he teamed up with another friend of his, one Jack White, and formed a band called The Raconteurs. I’ve followed Brendan Benson ever since I discovered “One Mississippi” and all I have to say about the two Raconteurs albums I’ve heard is, there is a great Brendan Benson solo album struggling to fight its way out of their murky innards.

Anyways back to the matter in hand…”One Mississippi” sounds nothing like Jellyfish or The Raconteurs and only superficially like anything Jason Falkner has created. It’s a psychedelic-“power pop” masterpiece sitting somewhere between American alt.rock and 60’s psychedelia and is most certainly haunted by the ghost of Syd Barrett. There are dreamy, floating ditties like “Tea”, “House In Virginia” and “Cherries” sitting beside revved up Indie rock weirdness like “Insects Rule” and “Maginery Girl”. And then there is the genuinely kinda strange “Bird’s Eye View” and “Crosseyed”.  When I first listened to it I couldn’t quite get my head around it. One song bleeds into another at times and you’re not sure where one song ends and another begins. I really like anything I hear of Brendan Benson’s music but I can never decide whether “One Mississippi” is either my favourite of his records or if it’s his best, I’ve never quite decided which but I still think it’s a fantastically original sounding record, one of my very favourite albums of the 1990’s. Sadly it sold bugger all the time of release and Virgin Records promptly dropped him. Fortunately he was picked up by the similarly named V2 Records and released the very wonderful “Lapalco” in 2002. 

One final Jack White note, as much as I dislike almost everything I’ve ever heard of his, I have to thank him for this 2019 vinyl release of “One Mississippi”, which was originally only available on CD, on Coke Bottle Green vinyl…you all know how much  like a bit o’ coloured vinyl.

House In Virginia - https://youtu.be/T1Pn-uQ_Qyg?si=hHNvKFkY9XPu9jYf