Blowin' Indie Wind 'Reckless Burning' Sizzles and Smolders

Author: Erika Mercer

Imagine a summer day so sultry that the heat is actually visible as a blurry miasma between you and the rest of the world-a humid, wavering layer of warmth that bathes you and oppresses you at the same time.
The ice in your water glass melts so rapidly you barely notice, and the outside of the glass seems to sweat almost as much as your skin.
You take huge gulps of the water, momentarily cooling, and attempt without much success to fan yourself, noticing how the heat seems to wrap itself around you, lulling you into a hot, hypnotic haze.
True to its evocative title, "Reckless Burning," the debut album by Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter proves to be as dense and smoldering as an August day in the far south.
Released Jan. 21, 2003, on Barsuk Records, the album marks the band's noteworthy entrance into the independent alt-country music scene-an entrance guaranteed to make other musicians sweat with jealousy at the band's instant critical success.
The inspiration for "Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter" came in 1998 when Jesse Sykes (previously of the alt-country group, "Hominy") and Phil Wandscher (former "Whiskeytown" guitarist) met in Hattie's Hat Bar in Seattle and became quick friends (and later more than friends).
Not long thereafter, Sykes and Wandscher joined forces to begin collaborating and performing as a duo in venues around Seattle.
Sykes commented on the evolving partnership, "I had just come out of a divorce and the breakup of my band, Hominy, and Phil had come out of "Whiskeytown. I think when we met, we both just needed to have fun, and we did that."
Eventually adding Annie Marie Ruljancich of the Walkabouts on violin, Bill Herzog on upright bass and Kevin Warner of Evangeline on drums, the band created sounds that formed the basis for their album's lush, romantic country-noir music.
"Reckless Burning," a collection of folk tales ripe with mystery and wisdom, lures the listener into a trancelike state with its lonesome, haunting sounds and its dark, wryly humorous lyrics.
It is both the soft breeze on a summer day and the stifling, oppressive heat.
Bleak and bewitching, charming and smooth, the album draws from both American country music and English folk, combining the two sounds to create songs that are rootsy yet contemporary, languid yet dynamic.
Throughout, the album remains grounded in the natural world-it consistently evokes outdoor scenes: lush fields with long, swaying blades of grass, vast, cloudless skies and heavy, dense air.
This consistent quality is perhaps due to the location of the album's creation - most songs were written outdoors: "that natural darkness suffuses 'Reckless Burning' with a slow, consuming heat that takes the listener to a private emotional geography."
"Reckless Burning" truly distinguishes itself from other albums of its genre through Sykes' rich voice - a voice capable of sounding simultaneously vulnerable and strong, gentle and dangerous, innocent and sexy.
It soothes and forebodes at the same time, longs for genuine comfort and yet seduces falsely and cunningly.
As one critic described, Sykes' voice is that "of a fallen angel"-an angel hurt yet hardened.
This unique quality of her voice embodies itself most passionately on the album's opening song, "Reckless Burning," - a song described by Sykes to be about "the way in which you fall in love and you feel willing to be vulnerable."
Yet despite this professed sense of vulnerability, Sykes sings with a confidence and potency that creates the juxtaposition of emotion which characterizes the entire album.
She masks any weakness with a muscular huskiness, a reluctance to admit to the loneliness that underlies her songs.
The songs on "Reckless Burning" sculpt both a physical and emotional landscape and invite the listener to venture into unexplored territories.
Sykes describes this effect: "Our record isn't something that confronts you. It takes you by the hand and leads you somewhere."