A bit more than a decade ago, Josephine McRobbie and Joseph O’Connell met in Bloomington, Indiana. McRobbie played in a host of local bands and O’Connell had released many albums of exploratory folk as Elephant Micah. When the mood struck them, they recorded music together. Spacious, patient, and strange music, to be sure–drawing a line, as the crow flies, between the high lonesome cowboy-folk of the American west and the whisper-soft Welsh post-punk of Young Marble Giants…or, perhaps, a bit of Nancy and Lee and a dash of Ira and Georgia. Gibson & Toutant isn’t just a musical project, but an attempt to document the interstices of Josephine and Joe’s life together–starting as a home recording and voice memo project for their own amusement. Their songs emerge quickly, from a collaborative process in which one of them literally finishes the other’s thoughts. As they traveled and established a new home base in Durham, North Carolina, their music rooted them. Gibson & Toutant was derived from McRobbie and O’Connell’s mothers’ maiden names, and they titled the songs on their debut EP after the rockabilly lyrics of McRobbie’s late uncle. Gibson & Toutant is DIY roots music, if, along with the more tangled and earthen variety, we acknowledge that fiber optic cables pulse with life deep under the soil, and they get twisted into one another if kept in close proximity for too long. At times, a dusky Lynchian surrealism surfaces in Gibson & Toutant’s music, as if those omnipresent electric hums surrounding modern humans are transmissions from another dimension, waiting to be harnessed. At others, G&T simply evoke dozing off with the calm drone of broadcast snow emanating from a Motel 6 TV. Perhaps what we’re hearing in this music is the sound of the roots that have grown between two humans who live and work in the same physical space, grasping at the ubiquitous electronic pulses surrounding them, waiting to be heard.

What They Say: “Oftentimes, I’ll have a dream for what things can be and part of my dream for On the Green was to produce it like radio theater—a narrative production in terms of how the sound was overlaid. We gestured in that direction in a few spots but probably only made it 10 percent of the way toward that dream.We ran out of steam. We did the relay race and then passed the baton to … no one” (Joseph O’Connell).

Their Mixtape:

 JOSEPHINE

Ex Iguana – After Life

Murky muddy punk dirges from right here in the North Carolina Piedmont region, featuring Michelle Dove of electropoetry collective Streak of Tigers.

Tropical Fuck Storm – Rubber Bullies

Just line after line of cranky genius over a scary-as-hell bassline, courtesy Naarm’s finest rock and roll band.

Madvillain – All Caps

“Just remember ALL CAPS when you spell the man name!” Recently I’ve been listening to this track by Madlib and the late, great MF DOOM while I go running and feel the need to escape into a rich fantasy life (where I am not running). Built on samples from the 70s TV show Ironside, it’s aggressively cinematic with a goose-pimple-inducing descending piano riff.

Pierce Freelon and Nnenna Freelon – Little Mushroom

We were lucky enough to see a live performance of “Little Mushroom” this summer as part of Where Our Spirits Reside, the Freelon family’s collaboration with Paperhand Puppet Intervention. A super beautiful little song about life & grief, told through mycology.

 

JOE

Rod Rogers with the Swinging Strings – Little Rug Bug

This is my favorite “song poem”–a kind of musical creation that happened when hopeful lyricists mailed their work, with a check, to a remote studio where session players tossed off a recorded version, set to stock music.

 

Laurie Anderson – Excellent Birds

What are the most excellent birds?* (See below for answer.)

 

Kamara Thomas – Tularosa

Not many people write ballads these days. This is a stunning one, a story of lost land that opens onto a wider western concept album.

the KLF – Go to Sleep

Am I to understand that the KLF un-deleted part of their catalogue? This is a great track that they must have written for parents of young children. But the ironic part is that it’s club music, which is just fundamentally for doing the opposite of going to sleep.

*The correct answer is Kookaburras.

On The Green is out now on Sleepy Cat Records. Look HERE for more information on Gibson & Toutant.