Jeff Marsh @ Delusions of Adequacy
Tony Moreno, multi-instrumentalist for the Portland, Oregon band Norfolk & Western, has a number of other musical projects, including his solo efforts, which combine found recordings and soundscape-style instrumentation. On his latest collection, "Leftovers From A Wake", Moreno brings to mind the rural American south on an album that flows as much like a work of historical literature as a novel.

There is something intangible but obvious that draws all 13 tracks here together, letting them flow as one cohesive work rather than a collection of songs. Moreno uses recordings of conversations and interviews as an intrinsic component of many of these tracks, weaving around these old-fashioned discussions soft guitar, keys, and other sounds. And even when there are no conversations, there are soft samples, hushed and atmospheric vocals, the sound of a guitar or a saw or synths, perhaps, all blending together into hushed and melancholic sounds.

The overall effect is like traveling back in time. Moreno includes enough of these conversations - about a church fiddle player or making moonshine or just the pleasures of laying in the sun in a pile of freshly raked leaves - to involve you with the character talking, but never draws them out to be boring. The tracks feel drawn together, but there's enough change between them to keep the album fresh and interesting. It's as if Moreno is telling a story without words, letting the interviewees do the speaking, letting his instruments paint the picture.

While each of these tracks has soft and melancholy music, most are instrumentals with samples and guitar. There are a few that feature Moreno's vocals, however, and these tend to feel more like individual songs. "Blood Meridian," for example, features Moreno's plaintive vocals over acoustic guitar in what sounds like a small room, a shack perhaps, with the surrounding sounds drifting into the mix. There's a country feel, soft and rather sweet, to "Far and Wide," which gives it a very traditional feel. And Moreno almost whispers the vocals on the title track, making you strain for every word and every barely strummed guitar note or background sound.

"Leftovers From A Wake" is the first album from a small label with a unique approach. The idea behind KEEP Recordings is to make every release a keepsake. To that end, the albums are restricted to a run of 50, hand-numbered, hand-signed by the artist, and with unique, homemade packaging. this one comes in a hand-sewn fabric pouch. The pouch and old photos on the packaging add to the backwards-looking theme to this album, help give an old and sepia-toned tinge to the music inside. It's an album that looks as pretty as it sounds. Highly recommended for lovers of carefully crafted music, melancholy soundscapes, and the Southern heritage.



Jon Rooney @ Blue Mag
Tony Moreno, a member of Portland's Norfolk & Western, has released a curious recording called "Leftovers From A Wake" on KEEP Recordings, a label that specializes in releasing CD-R projects with handmade artwork in limited runs of 50 or 100. The CD opens with the voice of a seemingly older Southern man answering unknown questions. The voice and what it says immediately creates an association for the album: field recordings. Throughout the cd various voices, most with noticable drawls, tell stories about some nebulous small towns and times past. While the dialogue suggests some mythical, gothic South now somehow lost, the tone clearly takes precedence over the content. I never really tried to follow what was being said but rather zoned out and settled into a swampy daze. Soon sparse, meandering acoustic intrumentation begins to bubble underneath the dialogue. The music is vaguely rustic in a Dirty Three, Jim O'Rourke kind of way - acoustic guitar, organ, mild feedback and tape loops. On track 6, "Blood Meridian", actual sung vocals appear for the first time. They're vaguely Tweedian and sound as if they were recorded through a toy microphone into a cheap boombox. Far away and desperate, the lyrics are pretty much indecipherable. Afterwards, soothing parachoial mumbling returns for most of the remaining tracks (I hesitate to call them songs, in any traditional sense).

"Leftovers From A Wake" is a rich, perplexing recording. It's both self-indulgent and painfully sparse, textured and layered yet largely inaccessible. Nevertheless, there's a lot to like about this record if you accept the challenge and the richness laid out by Moreno's ambition. It's plodding, contemplative nature creates a soothing, droney trance of Harry Smith-esque Americana. It's searching and organic, if not chock full of pop hooks.



Brad @ Foxy Digitalis
"This story, I think like many stories, is partially true and partially fantasy" begins the interview sample on "Phantom Houses" from Tony Moreno's "Leftovers From a Wake." This is an excellent summation of what this album is to me. It's a little bit of reality, and it's a little bit of a dream. Moreno is a member of Portland-based Norfolk & Western, and this is his first solo album. It's full of sound bites from different interviews of everyday people and rich, warm textures. Acoustic guitars are the main weapon in creating this portrait of a Northern small town and the different samples are like ghosts; they haunt this album and bring it to life at the same time. It's a beautiful, if sad, dichotomy of simple places in simple times.

"To me, I like living just where I am" relays the voice that opens the album. This is a voice that could be your grandfather telling you he loves where he lives. I can't help but picture a small log cabin in Vermont, with this old man sitting in his rocking chair, peering out the window as snow blankets his property. This vision carries into "Waiting Simplified" seamlessly as more spirits clutter the landscape. Delicate piano plucking highlights a woman talking about learning to drive after the war.

The voices scattered amongst the disjointed compositions are the real treasures here. Each voice tells a different story; it captures an era that seems long forgotten. Moreno provides the perfect backdrop for the characters to be reborn. As the child in "Drive the Nail" shows off his different animal calls and whistles (a frog, a freight train, a chicken, a turkey, and a dog), the music moves along sleepily underneath. Quiet, melodic notes on an acoustic guitar are backed by a simple drum beat, and together they feel like a lazy walk around a secluded pond. Crisp air coats your lungs as you skip rocks with the girl next door. It makes me want to visit Mississippi. Moreno makes the South feel so inviting.

The interview samples aren't the only vocals on the album. Moreno lends his voice to a few choice songs like the languid "Blood Meridian." His use of ambient sounds likes doors opening and floors creaking doesn't distract from the music, they enhance it. It gives the feeling that he's playing it in the room. One of my favorite effects he uses on this track is the doubled, whispered vocals, with a higher pitched, more painful vocal track laid on top. It's chilling.

On "I Had a Time," he paints the portrait of an old Victorian home, long abandoned and run down. Imagine taking a tour of the grounds and hearing the remnants of strained pianos and soft guitars of an outdoor get-together a hundred years ago. There's so much history here, and you swear you can hear the sun setting on everyone as they clutch each other to keep warm. Two men discuss the illegality and merits of sharecropping on "Saturdays" while Moreno lays an electronic beat underneath. It's a dramatic contrast, but works out well. "Far and Wide" is the most straightforward song on the album. It has a typical acoustic guitar, bass, and light percussion rhythm section, with Moreno's voice quietly highlighting the end. This is a song of hope, and a song that promises you that these ghosts aren't here to hurt you, they just want to tell you their story.

It's not easy to incorporate both sound bites from interviews and different sound effects into an album and still keep it cohesive. Moreno does a brilliant job of keeping this album together. His grasp of warmth and texture to paint pictures through music is impressive, and he knows when to use his voice and when to shut up. There are so many nuances here that it can almost be overwhelming. You feel like you're peering into the souls of these people and they are completely unaware of it. It's almost uncomfortable, but at the same time you feel like they're your family; you feel like you've know these people your entire life.



Brett @ Splendid
Tony Moreno, of Norfolk & Western fame has assembled a terrific collection of atmospheric pieces carefully assembled around fascinating found sound recordings, which run the gamut from the elderly reminiscing about their youthful experiences with music, to the retelling of rural ghost stories, to weirdly exotic bird calls. While many albums have employed found sound recordings as an added flavor in their musical offerings, Moreno seems to be constructing fragile acoustic homes where these unknown people's stories can spread out and find their footing. Several of Leftovers' tracks make little or no use of found sound (and a few are fairly straight-ahead slo-core vocal offerings), but Moreno's willingness to share the stage with these surprisingly revelatory snatches of other people's lives makes the album a rare treasure.

On an album filled with amazing musical and human moments, what is the most arresting? "Saturday" makes as strong a case as any. It opens with a description of the tuning of a mandolin, taken from a 1939 archival recording of American folk songs. Abruptly, a more modern-sounding recording interjects. An African-American man, apparently describing family history to his own relatives, details the real-life struggles of his ancestors (who were apparently brought north to work in coal mines), whose story was fictionalized in the John Sayles film Matewan. These two recordings, each of which says something profound about twentieth-century rural American history, are underpinned by barely-there bass and electric guitar figures, a simple rhythm track and hints of feedback. The music serves to anchor the pieces, adding to their already-considerable resonance without grandstanding.

Each track on Leftovers From A Wake, whether standard vocal/instrumental ballad, gentle instrumental meditation or musical/found sound hybrid, is a fully realized exploration of meaningfully American themes. As if the disc needed another layer of uniqueness and resonance, the pressing of this remarkable album is limited to 50 hand-signed, numbered copies, available from Keep Recordings. Oh, and all of this goodness can be yours for six dollars. If you have any interest in the transportive effect of gentle, well-made music, you should buy one while you can.



Matt @ Indieville
Tony Moreno's Leftovers from a Wake is by no means a "pop" record, although it is no stranger to accessibility. The first disc on the newly formed Keep Recordings imprint [dedicated to limited editions of around 50 copies each,] it is a folk-influenced experiment in instrumental soundscapery and spoken word storytelling. Throughout the album's thirteen tracks, Moreno combines historical interviews with guitar and electronic accompaniment. The results are very moody and often heartwarming, blending modern textures with archaic themes.
While Leftovers from a Wake may face a limited fanbase due to a lack of "single"-calibre compositions, it isn't the type of album that can be considered flat-out boring. Moreno's guitar playing is inspired and dramatic; this is especially evident on folkscapes like "Hole the Size of My Heart" and "Saturdays," as well as straightforward acoustic folk numbers "Blood Meridian" and "Leftovers from a Wake."

Overall, Tony Moreno's album is a great accomplishment - while it's largely a full-length soundscape, the inclusion of many accessible guitar melodies and a few delightfully sorrowful folk ballads will warrant repeated listens. As a whole, this is a tremendously pleasant homemade release - its artwork is beautiful, and the music itself is no different.