Cowboy Junkies – Such Ferocious Beauty (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 39:06 minutes | 417 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Cooking Vinyl Limited
The album is vintage Cowboy Junkies and another dimension from the lo-fi Canadian band comprised of, well, family. A tangle of sonic textures, Beauty is a rumination on aging, losing parents, facing mortality and creating space for one’s life in the midst of the ruin that comes from merely living. ‘Mike has never shied away from the darker, harder and sometimes uglier realities of our human condition’, Margo Timmins explains of the band’s singular focus, ‘nor has he shied from its beauty. Thankfully, with one comes the other’.
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Cowboy Junkies – Sharon (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 43:59 minutes | 480 MB | Genre: Folk Rock, Alt. Country, Female Vocal
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © RCA Records Label
Sharon the alternate recording of what would become Cowboy Junkies 1990 The Caution Horses album and follow up to the band’s iconic album The Trinity Session, is available for pre-order for the first time on 180-gram vinyl. The one-microphone recording, captured over 3-days at Sharon Temple in the Spring of 1989, is a ‘lost’ album featuring many songs that became The Caution Horses.
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Cowboy Junkies – Whites Off Earth Now (1986) [MFSL 2006]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 42:48 minutes | Scans included | 3,78 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 871 MB
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab # UDSACD 4010 – Surround Series
Although it didn’t originally have anything to do with their sound, the Cowboy Junkies’ name wound up seeming pretty accurate: their music was grounded in traditional country, blues, and folk, yet drifted along in a sleepy, narcotic haze that clearly bore the stamp of the Velvet Underground.
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Cowboy Junkies – The Trinity Session (1988) [Analogue Productions 2016]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 >1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Full Scans 300dpi | 2.14 GB
FLAC tracks 2.0 24bit/88.2 kHz | Full Scans 300dpi | 980 MB
Who says you can’t make a great record in one day — or night, as the case may be? The Trinity Session was recorded in one night using one microphone, a DAT recorder, and the wonderful acoustics of the Holy Trinity in Toronto. Interestingly, it’s the album that broke the Cowboy Junkies in the United States for their version of “Sweet Jane,” which included the lost verse. It’s far from the best cut here, though. There are other covers, such as Margo Timmins’ a cappella read of the traditional “Mining for Gold,” a heroin-slow version of Hank Williams’ classic “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” “Dreaming My Dreams With You” (canonized by Waylon Jennings), and a radical take of the Patsy Cline classic “Walkin’ After Midnight” that closes the disc. Those few who had heard the band’s previous album, Whites Off Earth Now!!, were aware that, along with Low, the Cowboy Junkies were the only band at the time capable of playing slower than Neil Young and Crazy Horse — and without the ear-threatening volume. The Timmins family — Margo, guitarist and songwriter Michael, drummer Peter, and backing vocalist and guitarist John — along with bassist Alan Anton and a few pals playing pedal steel, accordion, and harmonica, paced everything to crawl.
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Cowboy Junkies – Open (2001) [Reissue 2002]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 49:33 minutes | Scans included | 1,99 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Full Scans included | 995 MB
Cowboy Junkies have a sound, a vibe. There’s no denying it. You can tell it’s them within a few notes and each successive record seems to pick up right where the last one left off. Some, like The Trinity Sessions, are dark, moody, and mellow, like being coated in honey and draped in velvet. Others, take Pale Sun, Crescent Moon for example, seem downright energetic in comparison. Open is more in line with the first batch, though it has moments of near-enthusiastic revelry. With Alan Anton’s plump (rather than phat) basslines, Peter Timmins’ laid-back drumming, and Michael Timmins’ dirty guitars to ride on, Margo Timmins contributes her trademark sensual, yet understated vocal performances. The whole gang sounds as good as ever. And, although he may be called a songwriter, Michael Timmins is more a true poet with musical inclinations. Full of wonder and romance, fear and passion, Open is simply the next chapter in his sublime book of heartfelt verse. The compassionate tenderness of “Thousand Year Prayer” contrasts nicely with the harmonica and feedback duel of “Dragging Hooks.” And darn if “I’m So Open” doesn’t bounce right along on a little groove. They’ve got it all here. If nothing else, this band is one of the most consistent around. Though album sales may not always reflect it, they continually deliver strong records that refuse to be faulted for anything other than being non-mainstream.
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Cowboy Junkies – All That Reckoning (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 46:07 minutes | 499 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Proper Records
The Canadian quartet led by Margo Timmins, her two brothers Michael and Peter and Alan Anton have emerged from six years of hibernation. Active since the mid-1980s on the folk stage, offering up an alternative kind of country with a fair bit of rock, the Cowboy Junkies have always been able to set themselves apart, be it with the quality of their recordings, using an ambisonic microphone; or for their mix of influences from jazz, blues and country. Everything is carefully calculated, like the release of i>All That Reckoning in Proper Records, which also marks the birthday of their famous album The Trinity Session. It took the Toronto group six years to finish off this project: and that’s because there were a few other factors at play, which inspired the lyrics. The members have reached an age that brings with it certain responsibilities. All That Reckoning underlines this evolution, in fatherhood in particular, and in personal and social relations, the fragile state of the world, and various challenges. On rock ballads with something of a psychedelic feel, Margo Timmins’s soft and smooth voice can bring her audience in and make them pay close attention. As for Michael, we can only salute his talent as a composer, in particular with the first track, All That Reckoningwith its gradual accumulation of instruments and The Possessed which paints a picture of a society in anguish… It’s a personal, human album, charged with emotions, and which catches the spirit of the times. – Anna Coluthe
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