Free Country

Davenport have been releasing one CD-R after another since 2001. With this set having been recorded between mid-2002 and late 2005, it is a bit difficult to slip into the group's discography, as it doesn't document a point in time but captures the group journeying — and that's the keyword here. Free Country was first released on Forglove as a very limited CD-R. The Last Visible Dog CD adds six tracks to the five that made up the original release. Is Davenport a group, a collective, a family, or Clay Ruby's brainchild? Hard to tell, since the music on Free Country hints at all these forms of organization. Loose free-form chants like "Thou Shall Be Waking" and "The Light Ahead, the Dead Fields Behind" have a strong Amon Düül flavor: friends gathering by the campfire, high on dope and ideals, playing music without necessarily knowing how to. An amateur charm emanates from the act of playing, but the poor vocals can be really aggravating. On the other hand, you have very strong jams like the title track and "Psychedelic Underground," in which the musicianship and improvisational flair of Ruby, Nic Stage, Nico Kain, and Karen Eliot truly shine. The latter piece is genuine Krautrock and one of the album's highlights. Alongside the collective chants and the tighter jams there are a few pieces clearly spearheaded by Ruby from beginning to end, namely "Sensations in Sound" and "Taking on the Rails," which explore specific textures and tunes with great results. References to Jackie-O M**********r and the No-Neck Blues Band are inevitable with Davenport, but the best Free Country has to offer paradoxically resides in its tighter moments. ~ François Couture, Rovi