.. http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/

Tanakh
Saunders Hollow
[Camera Obscura; 2007]
Rating: 7.5
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DEEP WATER ACRES just posted a great 10 member interview with us, which they intitled, "Bringing the Sexy"

check it out: http://www.dwacres.com/node/629

Bringing the Sexy and Listening to Space - Tanakh's Outernational Music

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Hey, here is a recent interview with an Italian fashion mag called label, It is the bed issue, so it is sort of "in bed with Tanakh" dreams, bedrooms, waking, etc. the English is abit jumbled, because it was done in English then translated into Italian, put into story form and then re-translated to English, the Italian reads great but if you are an English reader you might prefer the original, so I have included it below, plus a link to a great blog on music art and good drinking! Which did an interview yesterday, for those of you interested here is the link: www.iworkatinitech.blogspot.com

Also, we just finished mastering Saunders Hollow the newest Tanakh record, I..ll be sending a link to some tracks from it in the next few days...as soon as I get the master in the mail.

ALSO, darius jones our fantastic sax player and friend has finished producing and playing on a new record which is really hot! You can hear the whole thing on line for free, it isn..t mastered yet and it is still looking for a home! Check it out here: http://www.mythofmitch.com/album/

Happy Holloween!
jesse













Original Label interview in English:

1) You actually live in FIrenze and the record has been put together there in the studio. Is the mixture of arts, history and tradition of the city influenced at some level the grace and touch of classicism of your songs?


I am currently working with a group of musicians from Tuscany, Cosimo Santi (electric guitar), Fabio Mannelli (bass), Viola Mattioli (cello), Jacopo Salvatori (piano) and Nick Liceti (drums) from the US, L.A. in fact, and we are hoping to go into studio late fall. As for Ardent Fevers I wrote it mainly in Firenze, in Santa Spirito where I still live, and recorded the demos here but returned to the US to record the final record, the whole record was recorded and mixed in ten days. I didn..t intend to mirror the beauty or classicalness of Firenze, but I feel that its presence can be felt in the songs of Ardent Fevers, like the city itself, Ardent Fevers is a mix of cultures and experience, full of sun-bleached pastels and damp alleys that haven..t seen the sun since palaces crowed their way into every corner, full of detergent stores, flower shops, enotecas, magazine stands, high-end fashion, cheap knock offs, street musicians, gypsy beggars, and double-parked suburbs. I recently learned that Damien Rice apparently wrote ..O.. here in Firenze and that he lived in the suburbs when he did, which makes sense when you listen to his beautiful lyrics which have always struck me as written for a love who was a second language speaker. And although I truly adore that record and wish he would make another soon, I can feel the difference of location from the periphery and the city center, there is a delicate sadness to ..O.. that is lovely and bleak, where as Ardent Fevers in contrast chases some of the same emotions and ideas but spins its wheels on cobbled streets which maintain the passage of years and a million cultures between its stones, their crevices albeit at times beer drenched and caked in guano, and cluttered with cut-outs of Mickey and Minnie dancing next to cheap Chinese remote control cars that bump and beep infinitely. One is not better than the other, but it is interesting how the geographical difference of a ten minute bus jump can make on a record, ..O.. comes from a world more like ours in America concrete streets, convenience stores and stop-lights, but as seen through a frosted window of a stranger, the misted doors of perception, frustration and longing. I wonder what Damien..s thoughts are on this simple twist of location...



2) I found your songs perfect for sound tracking early wakes or very late hours of the day, when most people are in bed. "Deeper" and "Like I used to" seem to have that touch of intimacy. Is something deliberate or comes natural?

That is funny because at concerts most people tell me they listen to my record in bed or in the bath. Natural or deliberate..I guess sort of both, my first objective in writing music, stories, poems, arranging my room, or whatever is to do it beautifully, to make something that is beautiful, which of course is always in the eyes of the beholder, so in essence my own idea of beauty, but I hope that if I show what I think is beautiful that maybe there are others out there who will find it the same, there is so many things that are beautiful everyday that go largely unnoticed, a grandfather..s proud approving nod as his grandson explains the workings of his toys, the person who holds a door for another, a seat surrendered to another on a train or bus, a refection of light on a building. For me the clock never touches a time more beautiful than the early morning and the late evening, so I strive for that sort of feeling in what I do. Plus, I work during the late morning and early evening so I only have the early mornings and nights to practice and write songs, so in part this mood is forced on me by time constraints, I find it hard to contrast my surroundings, for example when I am in a bleak place I find attraction and inclination towards the more monochromaticness of life and when the sun is setting over the Arno it is another story entirely. For me writing music is like listening to music, each type of music, each artist, each record and song has a place and a time. It is hard to find something more fitting for a Sunday morning than Nick Drake..s records or Miles Davis.. Seven Steps to Heaven, however sticking with Miles as a motif, Sketches of Spain is better at 5pm that same Sunday and On the Corner your just gonna have to wait till the following Saturday night, a last glass and smoke before bed. So in the same way, when and where you write and practice sort of informs what you produce, perhaps if I wrote in the afternoon, the music would be brighter and more rambunctious, who knows, maybe someday I..ll have a contract with Sony and be able to test these theories, but for now got to make ends meet, right?

3) Your music sounds somehow oneiric and evaporated and you have the impression of being suspended in air (it happened to me with "Deeper"). Label dedicates every single issue to a specific topic. This turn it..s the BED. What are your feelings about this piece of furniture and everything related to it?

Bed, well that is a totem that is hard to wrap myself around. I have a very strange and sometimes unhealthy relationship with THE BED. It is one of the most wonderful places in the world, where not only do you recharge and express your love in a very concrete way but also a spring board of fantasy, where all of your fears and aspirations, all of your past experiences and just the simple mundane day to day shit that transpires comes wrapped all together in a fog of delight, delicatecy, and dementia. Where else do you walk freely from your kitchen to your high school gym to your grandmother..s living room to the office of the doctor you saw that day as if it were one seamless edifice? It is warm in the winter, a womb you never want to leave, and a sanctuary at the end of the day for each aching muscle, it is truly yours and no one else..s.. and there is no place better. Yet nothing tortures me more than my bed. So many nights it will just never open it..s arms to me, but it tosses me back and forth like an angry and inconsistent sea. It..s pretty keen that you keyed in on the onericness of my songs, because a lot of them are written in the bardo between bedtime and morning..s light. For example, 5am the second track was written at 5 am, thus the title, and it maintains the hushed humility in which it was written, I couldn..t play or sing anything loud at that predawn time and so the song came as does the blue hue of morning and the first birds.

I have always had an unhealthy relationship with THE BED. In fact, my whole family is quite the same, my father will stay up for two days straight, even now at this stage in his life, working on this or that, listening to music, smoking weed, making what not for his cabin in the mountains, and if you want to have a good meaningful relationship with my mother, you will have to wait till the witching hours to get started, and then when they and others in my family do sleep, they do it with a violence. My sister spends more time asleep than awake. One time my father slept two weeks straight until one of his friends broke down his door for fear that he was dead. Be it nurture or nature, I am quite the same cotton count. One of the most treasured results of a love when it is kind enough to stay with me is a more consistent sleep schedule, like eating, it is much better to do with someone you care deeply for.

The act of falling asleep has become a martial art for me, I have to focus and concentrate and clear my mind (which is always the hardest part). For a while I mastered the art with a trick and it worked for six months or so..I imagined a simple country home with a backyard that lead into a woods and there in that yard were the linens hanging on the line almost dry from their washing. And in my mind I zoomed in like a cameraman on those billowing sheets gently flapping in the summer breeze until their white filled my peripheral vision and I saw nothing but the rippling of loose weaved cotton. This blank yet beautiful image lead me to the other side many nights, then after some time those beautiful white sheets which carried me to dream land took a part time job as the screens for backyard films where my mind projected a more cinematic rendition of all the refuse that was rushing around in its recesses.

I think you can tell a lot about a person based on their bed and their bedroom in general, and I am always so curious to make my way into those rooms (some more than others) to know something from how the bed and its container, the bedroom looks; is it made, is it messy, is it clean, dirty, dark, light, monochromatic, or filled with designs, low to the ground or high, in the corner or in the middle of the room, books on the night stand or just wads of paper and dirty socks at the foot, it..s relation to the door and window(s), small, big, filled with pillows or Spartan. My mother..s bed is always filled with clothes and books, where as my father..s is always in the living room with blocks under the foot of it to tilt it in an decline, and it has been so in every house he has ever inhabited, I..m sure there is a psychological study in the waiting just based on that alone.

One of the most beautiful things in the world is the things you say as you are falling asleep, in that bardo between waking and sleeping. I wish I could write music that sounded as pure and conscious free as those utterances.

4) You have a side project called POULOS, which is more folk oriented. Are your folk roots influencing some how your TANAKH side?

I have always been a fan of folk music from all over the world, but especially 70..s Britt-folk-rock, like Pentangle and Fairport Convention, if I could write a song as beautiful as Pentangle..s ..So Clear.. from their 1971 record Reflection, I think I would then, surrender my guitar and rest assured I had made something truly beautiful. Dieu Deuil and Villa Claustrophobia, which I released in 2004 and 2002 respectively, are much more folky than Ardent Fevers but I still have a deep love for folk music.

5) You had some Italian musicians and Isobel Campbell involved in Ardent Fevers. Could you give us some details about this experience?

Well, working with Isobel Campbell and Alex Neilson came about the same way as working with David Lowery, Jim White, Mic Turner, Ned Oldham, and so on..it just sort of happened naturally. With Isobel and Alex it was just sort of meant to be, I was in Scotland to visit my friend Ali Roberts who was preparing to record his new record with Will Oldham as the producer and Ali wanted me to help him with the studio stuff, check it out and make sure it was going to be a good place to record and so on. He also had me come to his practices to give production and arrangement ideas before they went into studio. That was when I met Isobel and Alex, right off the bat they were just lovely people and so easy to be around, and when it came time to play they were very open to my suggestions. Especially coming from a person like Isobel who is not only a wonderful person but also a personality, it was refreshing to have the freedom to say, ..how about if you played this melody or attacked the line in this way... And instead of blowing me off for not being a bigger personality than her, she simply tried my suggestions and played them beautifully, with a lack of ego that is hard to find amongst famous musicians. I ended up moving the choice of studios to the studio of some dear friends of mine (and fabulous musicians, Jim and Caroline of Delicate AWOL). We ended up spending a few days in the highlands of Scotland at their villa/yoga studio/recording studio drinking and just having a great time in general, and as I was leaving for the US to record Ardent Fevers, I simply invited them to follow me in a week to join us in the recording and the next week there they were in Virginia sweating away in our practice loft and as any good Scotsman/woman staying up in to the wee hours nipping away at the whiskey we had brought over from the Highlands.

6) I know that you had probably answered 100 times to this, but is the choice of the Hebrew word that stands for "Old Testament" at some level related to certain aspects of your music or is pure coincidence?

(Laughing) yeah, I get asked that a lot, it is a strange name I guess, but then again so is the Beatles when you think about it, I can imagine their folks saying, ..why bugs? And furthermore why that bug?.. However it isn..t a random choice as I am sure is true of the Beatles, or the Turtles, or Madonna, it was very purposefully based on the meaning and the way in which the band was formed. There is an interview with a Radio station in Siena which details this, you can hear it on our myspace website http://

7) This is the 4th record of Tanakh. Do you consider Tanakh as a regular band or more as an open project where contributors can change from time to time?

I consider it a regular band with a revolving door of contributors, depending on the place and time and the sounds I am trying capture.

8) Teacher, Story Writer and musician. What can we expect form Jesse Poe in the near future?

What..s next...well I just came back from Pulgia where I recorded a solo record, just voice and acoustic guitar, with no effects not even reverb, but it is as full and as lush as my previous records which was accomplished by different distances from microphones, different acoustic spaces, and the layering of sounds from my guitar and voice. Sort of like extended technique in jazz where you explore your instrument for every possible sound it can make even just the sound of it bumping into the microphone. I am hoping to mix that this month and find a label that would like to put it out with a collection of photos that I took there and a travelogue/story of my search for the ever-elusive Tarantella that I tried to find the month that I spent in Pulgia. I am writing it both in English and in Italian and hoping to find a home for it in the next few months. Then this January, the sister record to Ardent Fevers will be coming out on Camera Obscura. It was recorded the week before Ardent Fevers, in the same studio with the same engineer (Bryan Hoffa) and with all the same musicians, including Isobel and a few others. The only difference is that these songs are sung by Michele Poulos who usually sings back up while I sing lead and on these songs I sing back up and she sings lead. As you know, Michele and I had a project together called Poulos and it sort of evolved into Tanakh (laughing) because it was the same thing, the same players the same beauty, but based on her songs, which I would take and twist and reform and rearrange and well in the end it was just plain Tanakh with her singing lead. It is a beautiful record and sounds very much like a feminine Ardent Fevers, it is the perfect mate to Ardent Fevers, a sort of ying to the yang. There are a few songs from that record on myspace if you would like to hear http:// Meanwhile I have been writing new songs that are much more groovy and pop-driven and hope to record those here in Italy with my band this fall.

A FEW PRESS BLURBS:

Ardent Fevers (April 14th 2006):
Enhanced, groove-centered propulsion punctuated by the frequent Muscle Shoals-style horns, dustbowl lap steel, and a surprising abundance of hypercharged, Crazy Horse guitar soloing. With thoughtful construction and heavy emphasis on Poe's dusky vocals, directed by Poe's sweet melodies and unerring sense for the understated narrative, Poe and Trivella unveil a blistering, wholly unforeseen dual guitar jams. As with Tanakh's previous releases, there is a sense of loss or dislocation that hovers mirage-like around the edges here, as though the whole mysterious enterprise might vanish in a cloud of smoke if addressed too directly. Intoxicating..7.8 PitchFork Matthew Murphy, April 7, 2006

Ardent Fevers is one of the most magical albumsChris Leo 2006

It has to be said first and foremost -- Ardent Fevers is a great album title, seemingly straightforward but expressive of a state of mind better than most. Perhaps appropriately, the same could be said of Tanakh's work, with Jesse Poe's collective again finding a way to understatedly hotwire the more epic and symphonic impulses of 21st century indie rock (for lack of a better term) into an elegant new form, aiming not to bludgeon but to calmly suggest and entrance. Building off of Dieu Deuil's controlled power -- and much unlike the self-titled album, with a number of short songs instead of two long ones -- At the album's most flat-out beautiful, Tanakh is almost jaw-droppingly perfect -- "5 am" is a great example, Poe's ruminative speak-singing and wistful acoustic guitar backed just so by the gentlest of strings and other instruments. Hints of the Tindersticks' and the Walkabouts' burned but never beaten dignity inform many moments, while nearly every member gets a moment of striking glory Ned Raggett All Music Guide 2006

Tanakh's fourth full-length recording finds Jess Poe and fellow travellers besotted with the psychedelic diaspora, recalling everything from 'Forever Changes' to Neil Young and Crazy Horse, with some nods in the direction of contemporary freak-out guitarists like J. Mascis and Nick Saloman.
'Drink to Sher' is as fine a pop song as I've heard this year, referencing the work of Beck and Jeff Buckley and so much more besides. Instruments are democratised into a genuine ensemble serving the song, and different little details pop out at you with each listening. Likewise on the narcoleptic splendour of '5am', instruments flow and melt into an orchestrated dreamscape, drawing the listener in and not letting go. The dreaming continues with 'Deeper', an exquisite sadness that is tracked by Poe's wry, existential vocals. The build-up to a fine West Coast studio horn conclusion spirals back down the years from Jeff to Tim Buckley. The endorphin flow is like a waterfall by this point. The extraordinary 'Grey Breathes' puts bass to the fore, along with a vortex of addled horns and a genuinely killer chorus. 'Hit the Ground' revisits the roots exploration of 'Dieu Dieul' and functions as a nice pause from the serial epiphanies of the first four tracks. It's like heading outside to the porch for a cool breath of night air. 'Like I Used To' is a near peerless invocation of 70s rock, Poe's vocals achieve new heights on this track, which is all about exquisitely refined suspense, an aural orgasm held perpetually on the cusp of release. Centrepiece 'Still Trying to Find You Home' conjures with Townes Van Zandt melancholy before exploding into ragged Crazy Horse glory. Gratuitous soloing has never sounded so central to the heart of the matter. Elsewhere, 'Winter Song' is elegant UK-style folk rock co-written with Terrascope touchstone and Kitchen Cynic Alan Davidson, and 'Take and Read' pulls out all the stops for and epic piece that takes a folk motif and builds layer on layer of instrumentation on it before again erupting into the twin guitar beard-rock stratosphere.
I must admit to a degree of surprise at the accessibility to be found on 'Ardent Fevers', since their last self-titled work headed off from the folk-psych pastures of their first two releases into mystical temple drone along the lines of Pelt and Double Leopards, but I'm glad Poe is back following the song-lines. 'Ardent Fevers' is arguably Tanakh's finest work to date, and its very real mainstream cross-over appeal is something all the more potent for seeming to grow organically out of the song writing and performances, rather than being engineered into them for cynical reasons Tony Dale Ptolemaic Terrascope July 2006

Given Tanakhs previous outings, Ardent Fevers is a surprisingly structured and poppy listen. But at the same time as it is considerably lighter its also draped in brain melting, seriously damaged psychedelic guitar excess and curtains of mesmerizing organ sounds slow-moving folk numbers where we get to see the true melodic beauty of Jesse Poe and Umberto Trivellas incredible song writing talents. What unites this release with the past is that the beautiful, richly orchestrated melodies once again paints secret mental images of well-hidden vistas, of the natural as well as the urban variety Mats Gustafsson 2006

Sometimes it takes one particular album to open up the catalogue of a band that, up until then, remained a mystery. The bands latest, Ardent Fevers, inhibits a darkness of another nature: its the dark of late at night or early in the morning, full of longing, memories of the day thats gone, and most of all, promise.Tanakh mastermind Jesse Poe still takes center stage, his smoky vocals weave through the songs like ghosts, dreaming up stories. Opening duo Drink to Sher and 5 am perfectly capture the Burgundy red wistfulness of an evening on a roof terrace in Florence, Italy (Jesse Poes new home). Deeper glides along on an organ melody, reminiscent of one of Tindersticks finer moments.Still Trying to Find You a Home, which squeaks and squeals like Youngs Cowgirl in the Sand. The albums closer, Take and Read, ends in a similar blissful fury of guitar noise. Elsewhere on the album, Tanakh employ cellos and violins and trumpets to evoke a spooky romanticismplay these songs late at night, and youll find yourself immersed in the sounds and vibes of a Mediterranean evening Tanakh bring to mind so skillfully. Deniz Kuypers Loose 2006

At first hearing, Ardent Fevers feels a continent away from Tanakh's previous releases and their layered, experimental solo aesthetic. But listening closer it becomes clear that the emotive folk, haunted songcraft, spacy drones, and psychedelic arrangements are all still there, subsumed now into a richly appointed full-group approach that seems to owe little to prevalent recent models; the one comparison I can think of might be Japanese band Ghost, though Tanakh are more firmly rooted in songwriterly territory. The astute arrangements throughout work perfectly to frame and enhance a fine set of songs, with the band occasionally stretching out and taking full flight in some wonderfully focused instrumental explorations. While many of the current wave of "psychedelic folk" groups seem content to swim in a sea of chaos (some doing so quite gloriously, admittedly) or precocious self-indulgence, Tanakh have grown into a wide-ranging, graceful, and extremely together experience, and in a just world Ardent Fevers will end up bringing their sounds to a much wider audience than the devoted connoisseurs who already hold them in high regard... Kevin Moist Deep Water Acres 2006

How I fell in love with Tanakh. Most bands would just mail you a copy of their album to review. Tanakh, on the other hand, were generous enough to meet with me personally for the exchange. It's almost symbolic of dropping your baby off at the sitter's for them to watch. And I will tell you honestly... 'Ardent Fevers' is the most beautiful baby I've ever sat. I feel intoxicated by this album, even still after the margaritas are well worn off. It's like laying in a hammock, mid-spring day on the countryside, straw hat and hound dog included. There are flowers abloom all around and a perfectly cool breeze flowing over your face.

The influences and talents behind this band are extraordinary, and I only see it getting better from here. Already described as magic and art, it's rare to find music like this that really touches you. And it's even more rare that the music touches all those it should. But I'm not doing them any justice here, so just give it a listen yourselflady byrd Who Needs Radio? April 2006

Tanakh's not an instrumental band, per se. Jesse Poe''s voice is steady and tender, but what elevates him to savvy frontman is that he knows when not to use his instrument. Long wordless stretches of organic interplay ignite "Ardent Fevers," Tanakh''s fourth album, and Poe''s smart enough to say what he needs to and then get out of the way. Even if he never opened his mouth, the bandleader and his compatriots would carry on a beautiful conversationWith one hand in folk and the other in squall, it''s richly evocative, warm and wistfulall of the elements come together in beautiful and haunting ways M.J. Fine The Jewish Exponent 2006

Ardent Fevers is Jesse Poe's fourth release under the Tanakh moniker. Recently transplanted away from Virginia, this is the fruit of his time spent living the past couple of years in Florence, Italy. Fans of Leonard Cohen, Badly Drawn Boy, Calexico, David Sylvian, Elliott Smith, Tindersticks, Lambchop, the Church, Lee Hazelwood, Talk Talk... you get the idea. Spacious arrangements, rural roots, beautiful accents. Closing track "Take and Read" builds over 9+ minutes into a Crazy Horse jam. Understated, personal, serene. Heath Just For a Day 2006

Ardent Fevers finds the band leaving behind some of the more worldy influences that characterized their first three albums for more direct neo-psychadelic folk-pop in the same vein as Becks Sea Change and some earlier Neil Young efforts goodhodgkins 2006

For a young man to really get into the spirit of his hometurf, it can be a good move to go really far away, to be able to see and judge from the distance. For Jesse Poe, songwriter and leader of the collective named Tanakh, the place of choice was Italy; a good place when thinking of the sun and the hills, the people and the food, and finally of bands like Morose or Franklin Delano. ardent fevers, the fourth album of Tanakh on Alien8, nevertheless shows no clear european uniquenesses, unless you insist on counting an elaborate air of refinedness and savoir vivre akin to The Tindersticks into the mixture. But then you would have to stand up for the discussion if it is not more like a Sixties psychedelic folk song feeling. Tanakh is a big ensemble, but Poe makes use of it in a very downbeat and minimal way,stripping the cast to the bare essentials, amongst them some well-known names like Isobel Campbell on cello. Instrumentalists add what they should in time and volume, there are solo-drives and everything is added up according to the song, which results in varied and lush arrangements that support the songs favorably. The basic guitar lines imagined on an acoustic guitar somewhere, on the beach, a lonely hotel room, a flat overlooking a piazza in Florence, wherever, are still to be heard amongst the recordings that way. It is a cinematic piece of songwriters epicness, incorporating vast areas of american songwriting as a background to rely on and refer to. Well, late at night, when everything gets a little blurred and people, bars and streets usually look softer and finer than they are in the brutal midday sun, the way to listen to music also changes. The tranquil state between deciding if to go to bed or to stay awake for another couple of quarter hours, befits ardent fevers very well. The drawn out solo of still trying to find you home is a hole of timelessness in itself. Some choruses and melody lines will make time go by faster and slower, but leave you unrelated to any lapse late at night, like winter song. By the time take and read, the final song on ardent fevers has gone by you will lean back, breathe slowly and wonder where the time went to. There is never an instant of the fragile boredom of some of the currently fashionable Scandinavian songwriters, because every moment is filled with pristine beauty and emotional depth. Instead of laptop tinkering Poe prefers the truthful and real sounds of lonely violins screeching or the hollow depth of a warm electric guitar humming or the old-fashioned sound of a B3-organ. And this, after all, is what adds the bonus to the superb songwriting. Monochrome 2006
You can take the boy out of the south, but you cant take the south out of the boy. But if you put that boy in Italy and the south comes with him youll end up with Ardent Fevers.

Poe has been the cornerstone of Tanakh since it began and Ardent Fevers is definitely the strongest Tanakh release of his career. Poe has taken his southern roots and placed them over a mass of instruments all working in unison to reach the same place. Drink to Sher opens the album and gives a rhythm understated with a muted cornet that is perfect for walking up hill on a busy street. The song has pace and strength, but it never over exerts itself. To follow it up Poe unleashes the near-perfect 5 a.m. Poe rests his vocals against a background of subtle strings and synthy hums. While his acoustic guitar picks steadily along Poe half sings half speaks the lyrics as if it is 5 a.m. and all he wants is to find a pillow.

If he cant find a pillow a wooden stool in a dive bar will work also. Hit the Ground sounds like Poe just walked into a bar out of a dust storm, guitar in hand, sat down and played the first thing he thought of. The gentleness of Poes music is apparent in every song, even when the tempo starts to pick up. Restless Hands is like an old friend coming home, Winter Song is made for a hot fire beside an ice crust window. Poe and his 12 musicians have created an album that will wrap you up, keep you warm and make you wish you were trapped in an Italian cottage with snow piling on the ground.Amp Camp 2006



Villa Claustropobia (released fall of 2002):

Opulent and low key, gilded and grimy, humid and gorgeous [ Nick Drake backed by Archie Shepp and Alice Coltrane in a deep south dawn ?] and it feels like the sort of quietly unassuming cd you find usurps more important works. Lovely like honey on your beloveds eyelidsIan Penman The Wire July 2002

Creeping drones, scraping acoustic sounds, spaghetti-western twangs and mumbled incantations. Villa Claustrophobia sounds like a piece of folk art, assembled in a woodshed by musicians wearing hats made of human skin... 2 out of 3 stars SL London Sunday Times 2002.

An epic musical suitecatch them on their way up. Mark Rifkin New York Resident 2002

Many musicians attempt such grand ideas but cant manage to pull it together. Poe proves that not only is he a skilled musician, but also an impressive band leader who understands the concepts behind making an exceptional album Daniel Piotrowski Signal to Noise 2002

A record this dark, frightening and sexy doesn't come along very often, and it needs to be savored in the proper (black) light. Hang out in this dim space long enough and your eyes will adjust. Mark Richard-San Pitchfork 2002

This is a brilliant record. Track it down and give your money to the nice record shop worker, go home, smoke lots of weed, listen and die! Chris Bress Collective-Zine 2002

Tanakh has crafted an impressive debut album, one with all of the intangibility of a fever-induced delirium, the expanse of an Arabic desert, the mystery of old Appalachian forests, and the beauty of a religious experience, an album well worth checking outJason Morehead Opus Zine 2002

I find it to be good music to shut the brain off to, and it's all good. -- go out and track down a copy of this. It's really damned cool. Evil Sponge 2002

This CD is nothing but gorgeous washes of spooky and melancholy ambience, punctuated by quiet guitar strumming, loops, drones, and lead singer Jesse Poe's soft voice that reminds me a lot of Peter Murphy.Holly Day COSMIK.COM 2002


Dieu Deuil (released spring of 2004):


Jesse Poe has sketched another quiet heaven with Dieu Deuil, a record that sounds like a parchment ink of folk's roots but also basks in sun-dappled 21st Century modernism-- and just a little bit genius Johnny Loftus Pitchfork 2004

The records eight tracks, each of them engaging and breathtaking, feel like they were burned straight to disc directly from that wonderful and indefinable space between a musicians head and their heart. Yeah, the goddamned thing is just that goodthe band sticks its hooks in you even deeper, and there are bridges that build upon themselves with a kind of intensity you wouldnt expect and you cant ignore. While electric guitars and violins skitter around Poes plaintive voice, its difficult to imagine Tanakh sounding anything but passionately involved with the music theyre crafting. Lock the door when we leave? Why would we ever want to leave? Justin Vellucci Delusions of Adequacy 2004

Thick and humid ethnic fusion offers a specific and unique flavour of warm worldliness Ilana Kronick Hour.ca 2004

Dieu Deuil is indeed full of calming, warm bath-like tones and textures, but like Tanakh's last album, it's too eclectic and inconspicuously dark to invite Body Shop store music comparisonsTanakh's sound is as hard to classify as it is easy to love.Justin Stewart Splendid Zine 2004

You start to get sucked into the magic of the whole thing. Imagine the Jayhawks meeting up with Jason Pierce. That's not doing Tanakh justice but you kind of get the picture. Tanakh's music is ever so gentle with ebbs and flows similar to that of the Rachels.Dennis Scanland Music Emissions 2004

Musically, Tanakh will exceed most anyones wildest imagination concerning the intimacy of this brand of indie-folk. It boasts a warmth and an immediacy akin to Leonard Cohens debut but stands apart as a result of the scope of its instrumentation. Instrumental is a wedding song just waiting for the love of a young couple, while Til San Francisco seems to have found the bride and groom several years on, romance still sparking and the life-long length of the journey only just becoming clear. Belle & Sebastian on downers with a songbook more than two-pages thickMB roscomagazine.com 2004

With Dieu Deuil, Tanakh has released an atmospheric, autumnal record with some considerably haunting, emotional resonance Olskooly Tiny Mix Tapes 2004

The album does indeed smell sweetly-sourly of wet woolen sweaters coming inside after a day of slogging around in the autumnal mush, offering solace against the encroaching darkness with intimate strummings, pluckings and longings, the kind that we all share.
And there is nothing to do but capitulate in the face of a song like "November Tree" with its sweet, sad vocal harmonies and Dan Calhoune´s weepy violin. Stephen Fruitman Sonomu 2004

Tanakh-Self-titled (released fall of 2004):

A surprisingly avant-garde inspired listen that presents new aspects with every listen and has an emotional depth that many albums along these lines are lackingMats Gustafsson Foxy Digitals 2004

Comparisons can be drawn to Pelt, Molasses, etc etc. But Jesse Poe has that special something we can only know as MAGIC Aching Cellar 2004

The most noticible thing missing from the mix is the velvet voice of singer Jesse Poe. In this nearly 100 minutes of music on the two discs, he doesn't sing once, and while the music is expressive enough to conjure up all kinds of imagery, his vocal stylings are nonetheless unfortunately absent. is a massive, sprawling piece that moves from haunting to harsh many different times over long spaces of time, and although it has some things in common with the past music of the group, it has just as many (if not more) things that are completely different.Almost Cool 2004

A timeless quality to the recording. There is a sense that Poe wanted the recording to be a document of what happened when a group of people gathered in a particular place at a particular time. This is a bold statement to make for someone who possesses talent as a traditional songwriterJim Siegel Brainwashed 2004

ITALIAN PRESS BLURBS:

Tra le migliori novità dei primi sei mesi di questo 2006, con una certa tranquillità, mi sento di inserire i tanakh. Che poi, a ben vedere, una vera e propria novità non sonoquesto collettivo americano arriva, con lodierna, alla quarta produzione lunga. Se le tre precedenti possiedono almeno la metà della bellezza, dellintensità e dellaccattivante resa sonora di Ardent Fevers sarà il caso di ricercarle con una certa frenesia. Jesse Poe è uno che per la cronaca negli ultimi tempi ha collaborato con Six Organ of Admittance, Jim White, Anomoanon, oltre con unaltra mezza dozzina di formazioni, e oggi, trasferitosi tra le colline toscane, realizza un piccolo gioiello di pop di altissima scuola. Senza soluzione di continuità, si alternano strumenti elettrici e acustici, dove i fiati interrompono il sogno generato da un dolce incrocio di chitarre e percussioni e in cui la voce di Poe culla con nenie con tanto di archi prima che lelettricità prenda il sopravventoscegliere la composizione migliore è impresa impossibile. Un eccellente album, nullaltro da dire. Recensione di Gabriele Pescatore Il Mucchio luglio/agosto 2006

Credetimi, questo disco e un gioiello. Rareamente un album sa racchiudere al suo interno con tanta eleganza le forme classiche del rockVicono le ballete, come lintensa Like I Used to e la successive Still Trying to Find You Home (molto Leonard Cohen), superate pero dalla caldissima Deeper, nobilita da organo e violino e dal vertice assoluto dell album, Grey Breathes, soulful pop con fiati e accordi lucidi. Nota di merito anche per la conclusiva Take and Read, spezzacuori da dieci minuti con assolo alla Neil Young in acida dissolvenza. All[ album partecipa anche Isobel Campbell e le note sono di Chris Leo. Come on people.. Recensione di Maurizio Blatto 4 su 5 Rumore ..173 Giugno 2006

Tanakh e un progetto del cantante/autore Americano Jesse Poerappresenta bene la cifra del suo sentire musicale. Owero un pop-folk molto melodico e raffinato sia nelle costruzioni armoniche chee negli arrangiamenti, con atmosfere che a noi hanno, a tratti, riportato alla mentre il John Parish di How Animals Move. Da sgnalare Like I Used to. Recensione di Roberto Peciola suonabile Il Manifesto Alias 10 Guigno 2006

"Ardent Fevers" è un disco capace di stupire e lasciare quasi interdetti ma funziona comunque, se solo si sa cosa aspettarsi: a tratti la magniloquenza (Greybreathes) e a tratti dell'autentico guitar power con assolo interminabili (Still Trying To Find You Home, Take And Read) ma per lo più una dignitosa elegansa formale (Over Your Consistency) Recensione di Bianchi 7 su 8 Blow up. 94 2006

Il lungo soggiorno fiorentino sembra aver rivitalizzato la vena romantica di Jesse Poe, e questo quarto Ardent Fevers risulta lalbum piu melodico nella carriera del gruppo Americano. Groovey e ritmi infestanti, sempre incanalati in un linguaggio pop, convivono piacevolmente con pagine cantautorali, che evocano Tim Buckley e Donovan, Kevin Ayers e in misura ancor maggiore Leonard Cohen. Recensione di Enrico Ramunni 8 su 10 Rock e Rilla Marzo 2006




Quarto album e fase metamorfica dei Tanakh, obliquo collettivo italo-americano capeggiato da Jesse Poe, imprevedibile virginiano trapiantato a Firenze. Tecnicamente esemplare Ardent Fevers poggia su impianto folk dissonante e su una serie di contrappunti elettronici e classici, ai quali si deve lefficacia degli scenari sonori, come in Drink to Share o in Winter Song con Isobel Campbell.. Recensione di Ilaria Amato Rockstar luglio 2006

L'uscita per la Alien8 di "Dieu Deuil", secondo album per il collettivo Tanakh, ora stabilitosi a Firenzeripresenta con un disco più accessibile la propria personale soluzione stilistica alle intricate trame "postimperdibile "November tree" (brano che da solo varrebbe l'acquisto dell'album)"Dieu Deuil" album certamente meritevole di ascolto e conoscenza Recensione di Raffaello Russo Ondarock.it 2004

È un disco elegante e delicatoben curato per quanto riguarda la parte strumentale; perfetta l'armonia creata da tutti i musicisti.. Recensione di Alessandro Fiore Paesituoi 2006

Dietro il nome Tanakh si nasconde un collettivo italo-americano capeggiato da Jess Poe, ora stabile a Firenze ma con un anima cosmopolita che contraddistingue tutti i suoi lavori... Il folk incontra il pop senza dimenticare atmosfere psichedeliche ricreate dall'organo e tipichi giri di chitarra post-rock per donare al disco un'aura di ricercatezza non indifferente. Le undici tracce si susseguono senza intoppi, scorrendo con naturalezza, quella semplicità di scrittura che solo un artista completo come Jess Poe può tirare fuoriOgni singolo brano invita ad un viaggio fatto di colori e di sfumature che aiutano ad entrare nell'animo di questi musicisti Recensione di Claudio Fabretti KDCOBAIN 2006

Certo che Jess Poe, eclettico mentore del collettivo Tanakh, è davvero un artista che non smette di stupireL'album scorre lieve e incostante, alternando bucoliche ballate, nelle quali una cristallina chitarra folk guida semplici canzoni d'amore appena sussurrate ("5 a.m." e la romantica "Restelss Hands"), nostalgiche incursioni nel suono della West Coast degli anni 70 ("Grey Breathes", "Like I Used To") e addirittura inedite e fumose sensazioni blues ("Hit The Ground"). Non è un caso che le capacità compositive della band finiscano per manifestarsi conevidenza nei brani brevi e lineari, ove emerge sia l'attitudine lirica di Poe, sia un'interpretazione delicata e personale di semplici ballate folk: così, oltre che in "5 a.m." e "Restelss Hands", nel dolce dialogo con Isobele Campbell di "Winter Song" e nella romantica "Deeper", nella quale, su un copioso tappeto d'archi, Poe gioca con successo a travestirsi da crooner , mentre il suono dell'organo, prima accennato, poi più deciso, conferisce al brano una polverosa ma piacevole patina psichedelica, guidandolo verso un insolito finale jazzy.. Recensione di
Raffaello Russo Onda Rock 2006


La musica di Tanakh è diventata col tempo sempre più pop da sperimentale quale era ad inizio carriera: l'improvvisazione orientata al noise ha lasciato il posto alla forma canzone. _Nel suo ultimo album Poe sembra voler omaggiare Tim Buckley ("Drink to Shear"), Leonard Cohen ("5 AM"), Neil Young ("Still Trying to Find You Home") ed altri grandi personaggi della storia del Rock.. Recensione di _
Roberto Mandolini Extramusic 2006

Nati come collettivo aperto più o meno estemporaneo, con questo secondo disco il gruppo si definisce bene attorno alle personalità di Jesse Poe (che produce, scrive, canta e suona la chitarra). Ardent Fevers alterna composizioni corali, in cui i numerosi ospiti una decina, tra cui una valida sezione fiati, e poi violino, organo ed un prestigioso contributo di Isobel Campbell al violoncellopossono mettere in mostra le proprie doti(), a nude ballate notturne stile Giant Sand, in cui la voce di Poe e lacustica mirano a suggestionarci e si fanno apprezzare di più: Over your Consistency, Take and Read e Winter Song hanno il giusto spleen spiritato.
Interessante anche i 7 minuti e più di Still Trying to Find you Home: inizio come inizierebbero i Giant Sand, fine come finirebbero i Grateful Dead... bella idea!...... Recensione di Fausto Turi Freakout Online 2006

L'uscita per la Alien8 di "Dieu Deuil", secondo album per il collettivo Tanakh, ora stabilitosi a Firenzeripresenta con un disco più accessibile la propria personale soluzione stilistica alle intricate trame "postimperdibile "November tree" (brano che da solo varrebbe l'acquisto dell'album)"Dieu Deuil" album certamente meritevole di ascolto e conoscenza Recensione di Raffaello Russo Ondarock.it 2004

Villa Claustrophobia, il precedente album, mi aveva colpito per via di certe melodie arcane, certe suggestioni piene di mistero. Dieu Deuil, pur mantenendo intatte quelle stesse suggestioni, sembra un disco piu solare, quasi luminoso. Jesse Poe intesse una sequenza di canzoni he scivolano luna nellaltra con mano feliceCanzoni soffici e malinconiche, nondimeno psichedeliche e ricolme di nuove promesseRecensione di Gino Dal Soler 7 di 8 blow up.71 Aprile 2004

Un doppio cd che rimette completamente in discussione quello che aveva lasciato intendere finora. Il risultato è una musica mantrica, ipnotica e ossesiva, un gorgo variopintodi echi e riflessi metallici lisergici che nascono quasi per intero da strumenti autocostruitiRecensione di Stefano I. Bianchi 7 di 8 blow up.78 2004

Il primo cd abbozza qualche struttura minimale, con cellule ritmiche che si ripresentano ciclicamente, come un moto impacciato scandito con atteggiamento ritrosoil secondo volume drappeggia un affresco piu spettrale e incombente in una sorta di noise da camera dallarchitettura pericolantela speranza e che adesso Jesse cominci ad organizzare imprese simili anche con musicisti italiani, perche ne vedremo delle belleRecensione di Enrico Ramunni 293 di Rockerilla 2005


FRENCH PRESS BLURBS:

Une sorte de folk indien dépouillé, emmené par une voix splendideUne orchestration impressionnante et écletique, qui surprend à tout istant Quentin Dève 9/10 Soit dit en Passant 2002

Tanakh livre un des folk les plus orchestral entendu jusquà présent, une ouvre lyrique, poétique, fascinantelecoute se transforme en voyage virtuelbercé par la voix de Poe Dieu Deuil est déjà un des essentiels 2004, un classique inestimableArnaud C webzinenameless.net 2004

Un album qui sécoute, se réécoute à lenvi et qui toujours étonne par sa richesse, sa profondeur, sa chaleur...Rien nest de trop, rien ne manque, rien nest surfait Hervé Benzine 2004

Ils ont lart de faire passer leur univers à travers leur musique, de nous faire sentir le mondeLâme des morceaux est proche de lauditeurDecidemment un disque à écouterPar Olf bm indiepoprock.net 2004

La beauté des textes rejoint une instrumentation trés subtile ...Une oeuvre intemporelle à lhorizonDavid Cantin Le Devoir 2004


Laventurier Jesse Poe se cache sous la bannière mystérieuse de Tanakh ; auteur, compositeur, interprète, mais surtout leader capable de visions et de changements de caps surprenants, à linstar dun Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance) ou de ses voisins de label Molasses. On la rencontré défricheur despaces vierges en 2002 sur Villa Claustrophobia, mélangeant folk païen et drones de «field recordings». De même avec Dieu Deuil deux ans plus tard, magnifique recueil de folk mystique aux teintes crépusculaires.

Ardent Fevers est une nouvelle conquête : les eaux troubles des seventies que choisit Jesse Poe pour amarrer son équipage mettent à jour de fort belles trouvailles. Dès les premières notes, «Drink to Sher» et ses cordes (merci à Isobel Campbell) donnent une furieuse envie de voguer sans attaches, en un condensé dhistoire où folk, rock et blues scintillent et se mélangent. Nostalgie, chaleur et électricité se déclinent de 11 manières, à la façon touche-à-tout dun Neil Young. A témoin ce «Deeper», pure merveille de groove, où ressuscitent un vieil orgue hammond et une sarabande de cuivres jazzy enthousiastes.

Malgré ces belles promesses, la suite nous convainc moins, manquant souvent de consistance, ce qui est dailleurs représentatif des albums de Monsieur Poe. Les longs solos à la Crazy Horse agacent (malgré le plaisir évident quen retirent leurs auteurs), plusieurs titres perdent peu à peu le Nord et naviguent à vue (« Take and Read »). Dommage, car ces ébauches didées pourraient, avec un peu de rigueur, faire de cet Ardent Fevers un butin inestimable. Nest donc pas le loner qui veut : parfois on a beau frotter et astiquer, le plomb ne se change pas en orruneii musique-chroniques2006


GERMAN PRESS BLURBS:

Ein Werk das sich vom gewöhnlichen Songwriting absetzt und in Kunstrock-, Ambient- und Weltmusiksphären vorstößt. Ein experimentierfreudiges, medidatives Album, welches für den zügigen Verzehr eher ungeeignet ist und dessen volle Pracht und
nachhaltiger Glanz erst dann offenbart werden können, wenn man bereit ist, sich zu den feinen Nuancen hervorzugehören Ullrich Maure gaesteliste.de

Dunkle melancholischen Klanglandschaften, abseits des Filmmusikklischées. Diese Scheibe verbindet Songwriting mit viel Platz für Improvisationen und Stimmen, den unterschiedlichsten Instrumenten sowie einem Hauch elektronischer Musik asb de-bug.de

Das Ablum wirkt wie in einer gigantischen hallenartigen Höhle aufgenommen, in der 1000e von buddhistischen Mönchen murmelnd eine verunsichernde Basis für eine orchestral fein durchwirktes Gesamtbild liefern, zu dessen Farbnuancen u.a. einsame Glockenschläge, trockene Westerngitarren, gezupfter Kontrabass, orientalische Instrumente, Cello-betontes Streichwerk, Trompete, sich einschrägende Geigen-Soli und das Heulen des Windes zählen glitterhouse.com

Das erinnert an Neofolk, die wir aus nördlichen Gefilden kennen. Immer wieder werden die Songs durch minimalistische Drones
abgelöst, und hier schleichen sich wieder langsam die mittel- bis fernöstlichen Soundfragmente vom Anfang in die Klangteppiche ein intro.de

Tanakh sind kein unbeschriebenes Blatt, keine leere Seite. Ardent Fevers ist bereits das vierte Werk aus der Feder Jesse Poes. Behäbig und ohne Eile bahnt man sich seinen Weg, schlägt eine Schneise zwischen Folk, Pop und psychadelischen Ansätzen. In Letzterem liegt dann vielleicht auch die Problematik dieses Albums. Angehängt Soli verzerren die sonstige Kompaktheit so manchen Songkleinodes bis hin zum Ärgerlichen. Von schlichter Wundersamkeit hingegen ist der sehnsuchtsvolle Winter Song, der spärlich orchestriert ganz von dem sensiblen Zusammenspiel zwischen weiblichem und männlichem Gesang getragen wird.

Die ersten Sonnenstrahlen kriechen über den Asphalt, erreichen die Zehenspitzen, die Hosenbeine, stocken vor dem Brustkorb. Traurigkeit ist finster, verzweifelt, Like I Used To. Man wird sich bewusst, dass man immer nur umhergeirrt ist. Immer unterwegs, immer auf der Suche. Die Stimme ist rau vom Alkohol, die Gitarre liegt wie Blei im Arm. Still Trying To Find You Home, erinnert man sich müde an den großen Johnny Cash. Ein Streicher begehrt auf. Wozu das alles?

Wenn da nichts mehr ist, dann ist da immer noch die Stadt. Look on New Orleans.

Autor: Nina Heitele alternativenation

Thought I would post this for anyone who might be interested......

A blog called goodhodgkins posted a piece on us and asked why Tanakh? Fair question ......Tanakh is a term that has little significance outside of Jewish circles. In reality, though, we all know eactly what it means: Tanakh refers to whats more commonly known in the Western world as the Hebrew Bible or The Old Testament. This, of course, begs the question, why would anyone possibly want to name their band this?.......

.....so I wrote them back which can be viewed on their site, but I thought I might post it here in case anyone was interested.....

Thank you so much for you entry on our record Ardent Fevers, without people/sites like you good music would just slip through the cracks of the industry. You are right Tanakh is a strange name in a way kind of like The Beatles, or The Turtles, or any other band that is not a persons name or a composite of ideas from placing words together is a strange name, but then again even peoples names can be a bit weird, like Lynyrd Skynyrd, who would have thought a band named after a high school gym teacher would become so popular, and then there are others like POE, which would have been a great name for my music since it is my last name, but she had already taken it.

Anyway, I wanted to answer your question as to why we took the name TANAKH for our music. The reason can be found on the Internet, because it is often asked in interviews etc. but in this information age there is so much information it is actually a bit difficult to weed through it all to be informed. Some of this is taken from an interview I did with Mats Gustafsson for Terrascope and can be found at:

http://www.terrascope.co.uk/Features/Tanakh%20interview.htm

Also I have posted a live interview on myspace to listen to if you prefer, I had to make it a video clip, so as to not erase any of our tracks, the imaging is a bit stagnant but there is some unreleased Tanakh music I have put in the background. It can be found at:

http://www.myspace.com/jessepoetanakh


Phil Murphy and I interned together at a recording studio (Sound of Music). We were learning to engineer under John Morand one of the best engineers ever, with a brain the size of Minnesota. So we were allowed to work after hours at the studio trying out what we had learned that day, so a couple times a week we would grab a bunch of instruments stick them in the room and he would play something and I would record him so that I could practice recording, and then we would switch and I would play something while he practiced recording me, and visa-versa. Joan Osborn had just recorded at S.o.M. and had left all these ethnic instruments there since she had recently done a study with the late great Nasrat Ali Khan and had a major label budget; she had all this cool stuff. We didn't know how to play any of them but we would just have a go till we got sounds we liked and then go from there. Our rule was to make music on things we couldn't play and then add our own instruments later, guitar and banjo and stuff like that. We did this for a couple of weeks and were ending up with these really cool songs/sound pieces. After we had amassed a few recordings we realized that not only had we created a sort of continuing esthetic but that it was pretty cool and we were excited about it. I remember we were eating falafel one night at like 2 am on the floor of the control room, listening to the stuff we had done the last few weeks, and we were talking about the Tanakh, we were crazy about anything that wasn't familiar to us, and we both just sort of realized that the songs were really good and we should do something about it. That night we decided to start playing live and that maybe we should include some other people to accomplish the same sort of sound that we were stacking up on our own in the studio. That night we decided to call the project Tanakh, because it seemed so mysterious and foreign and cool to us at the time, plus we just really liked the way it sounded and how it looked on paper, so angular, but above all because of the meaning. Tanakh is an acronym based on the initial Hebrew letters of each of the text's three parts:
1 Torah meaning "Instruction" or the law. Also called the Chumash or the "Pentateuch".
2 Nevi'im meaning: "Prophets"
3 Ketuvim meaning "Writings" or "Hagiographa".

With music there is a law, things you can and cant do, you can break that law some, just as long as you know how you are breaking it, thus the Torah. We love vocal based music, especially me, and the lyrics are like the Ketuvim, which is the Psalms of David etc. and then the part that sealed the deal was the Neviim. The music we were making was full of international influences Phil was ethnomusicologist, and I am a freak about other cultures and especially their music, having grown up in a multi-cultural home and traveling, etc. But although we were playing instruments from around the world and from our own culture, it both sounded foreign and not foreign, because we were just expressing ourselves not trying to recreate a particular type of music, and the music that arose from those midnight sessions was not fusion it was in fact unlike any we had heard yet like all of it somehow, it was OUTER-national. And we realized that in a way it was like the future of the world, which seems to be globalizim. Where you have a MacDonalds in Africa, but it is not like the one in Hoboken, it is African, but it is not African because it is from America, so in actuality it is a whole new thing altogether. We thought that this was the future, and our music was in some way like that, so the Neviim or the prophets seemed to be a perfect expression of what was happening with our music simply by being the people we were in the day and age we live. And so we took the name Tanakh.

Well I hope that clears up any confusion as to why we took the name, and thank you again for your mention of us on your site. We have a new record entitled Poulos, which is the last name of our bassist who takes the forefront with the vocals for this record, for this reason it is the feminine side of Ardent Fevers, being that it was recorded the week before in the same studio, with the same engineer and the same group of players. We hope it will be out soon, possibly on Camera Obscura, when it does come out well send you a copy. For now you can hear a few songs at:

http://www.myspace.com/poulostanakh

Warmly-

Jesse Poe

Tanakh
Ardent Fevers
[Alien8; 2006]
Rating: 7.8

Ardent Fevers is the fourth album from the stubbornly indefinable collective Tanakh, and it was recorded after the group's leader Jesse Poe relocated from Virginia to Florence, Italy. This was a move that seems entirely in keeping with the outfit's history-- Tanakh has always exhibited a reluctance to stay affixed in one place. Over the course of their three prior albums, Tanakh's music has drifted serenely across foggy intersections of pan-ethnic folk, improvised drones, and psychedelic pop. Now, perhaps guided in part by homesickness, the group has built upon 2004's Dieu Deuil to craft their most purely song-oriented collection to date (and arguably the most accessible Alien8 release ever) by subtly guiding their sound towards the organic, refracted Americana of acts like Calexico or Pinetop Seven.

In its past incarnations, Tanakh often seemed to be simply comprised of Poe and whatever collaborators happened to be handy, but on Ardent Fevers the musicians have taken on the unmistakable appearance of an actual band. Recorded by Brian Hoffa, who has worked with groups ranging from Labradford to Camper Van Beethoven, and featuring contributions from Isobel Campbell and Alex Neilson, the album is veritably bursting with amplified color and detail. The songs were co-written by Poe and guitarist Umberto Trivella, a partnership that grants the material an enhanced, groove-centered propulsion that is further punctuated by the frequent addition of Muscle Shoals-style horns, dustbowl lap steel, and surprising abundance of hypercharged, Crazy Horse guitar soloing.

With its thoughtful construction and heavy emphasis on Poe's dusky vocals, Ardent Fevers might seem unrecognizable to listeners only familiar with the grainy, abstract textures of 2004's self-titled double album. The differences should be apparent right from the opening notes of "Drink to Sher", which masterfully combines front-porch guitars and jazzy horns, or on the soulful, brassy "Deeper", which rides an elegant swell of Blonde on Blonde organ. In the past, Tanakh's use of violin and strings could often lend the music a certain Eastern European gypsy flourish, but here, on such tracks as "Like I Used To", they also help provide a distinctly C&W atmosphere, issuing a quiet floorboard creak beneath Poe's dusty boots.

Elsewhere, on tracks like the delicate "Restless Hands" or the brooding "Winter Song", Tanakh return to the more familiar waters of Fairport-style UK folk-rock, directed by Poe's sweet melodies and unerring sense for the understated narrative. And so it also appears on the rainswept, Leonard Cohen climes of "Still Trying To Find You Home", before Poe and Trivella unveil a blistering, wholly unforeseen dual guitar jam. This process is later repeated on the set-closing "Take and Read", and though these are the exact sort of solos that Neil Young should just have gone ahead and patented 25 years ago, there's no denying that their sudden appearance provides the album with a crucial, throat-scorching jolt of undiluted cactus juice.

As with Tanakh's previous releases, there is a sense of loss or dislocation that hovers mirage-like around the edges here, as though the whole mysterious enterprise might vanish in a cloud of smoke if addressed too directly. Intoxicating though it is, Ardent Fevers leaves the listener with little concise idea about what exactly constitutes Tanakh's true sound or which direction they might travel next, but this vague disorientation shouldn't be enough to discourage repeat investigations into the matter.

-Matthew Murphy, April 7, 2006


Pitchforkmedia, Inc.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/t/tanakh/ardent-fevers.shtml

TANAKH e' il nome di un collettivo di musicisti internazionali pop-rock che allo stesso tempo si lascia influenzare da diverse atmosfere e colori appartenenti ad altri generi musicali. Negli ultimi sei anni il collettivo ha raccolto un numero di musicisti dalla grande formazione ed esperienza in ambito musicale che vede come principale promotore il musicista e compositore Jesse Poe, cantante del gruppo. Jesse, anche se vive attualmente a Firenze, proviene da un background musicale americano. I suoi parenti hanno scritto canzoni per JOHNNY CASH e altri. Oltre al suo lavoro con il gruppo, Poe ha prodotto/arrangiato e suonato con Jim White (LUKA BOP di David Byrne di TALKING HEADS) e molti altri. Jesse ha inoltre suonato/cantato con ANOMOANON (Palace/Will Oldham), SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE (DRAG CITY), MICK TURNER's BONNEVILL (NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS, THE DIRTY THREE) e molti altri e studiato per tre anni con NIRMAL BAJEKAL (RAVI SHANKAR band). Poe ha anche composto la musica per Cortometraggi e per un documentario "From Both Ends of the Earth" proiettato al Sundance Film Festival e lavorato anche come produttore e ingegnere del suono sia negli Stati Uniti che in Europa. Poe ha inoltre pubblicato racconti, poesie e ha collaborato anche con delle riviste. Per ogni tipo di informazione sui concerti del gruppo o di Jesse Poe e per contattare Tanakh per altre iniziative: tanakh8@gmail.com tel: 3482872933 ATTUALI E PASSATE COLLABORAZIONI DI TANAKH: Jesse Poe, Matteo Bennici (MARCO PARENTE E CAMILLOCROMO, CLAUDIA BOMBARDELLA), Umberto Trivella, Viola Mattioli ( Trio Di Parma, Orchestra Giovanile Italiana, allieva di Francesco Dillon di Quarteto Prometeo & Alter Ego), Oretta Giunti, Isobel Campbell (Belle & Sebastian), NIRMAL BAJEKAL (RAVI SHANKAR band), Mic Turner (Dirty 3 & NICK CAVE), David Lowery & Johnny Hickman (Cracker, Camper Van Beethoven, F.S.K.), Ned Oldham (Anomoanon, Palace, Will Oldham/Bonni Prince Billy), Coby Batty (Bongwater, John Zorn, F.U.G.S.), Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance, Comets on Fire), Jessica Billey (Smog, Boxhead Ensemble), Jim Thompson (GWAR), Paul Watson (Sparklehorse & Bee & Flower), Miguel Urbiztondo (Crooked Fingers), Alex Neilson (Jandek, Richard Youngs, Telstar Ponies), Pat Best (Pelt, Hotel X), Via Nuon (Bevel, Spence, Manishevitz), Miguel Urbiztondo (Crooked Fingers), Ayman Fanous(Burn Nix, Elliot Sharp, Tomas Ulrich, etc.), Brian Jones(Agents of Good Roots) & MANY OTHERS. BREVE RASSEGNA STAMPA DI TANAKH: Per ricevere informazioni piu' complete sulle recensioni e gli articoli che le riviste hanno dedicato al gruppo contattare: tanakh8@gmail.com L'uscita per la Alien8 di "Dieu Deuil", secondo album per il collettivo Tanakh, ora stabilitosi a Firenze…ripresenta con un disco più accessibile la propria personale soluzione stilistica alle intricate trame "post"…imperdibile "November tree" (brano che da solo varrebbe l'acquisto dell'album)…"Dieu Deuil" album certamente meritevole di ascolto e conoscenza… Recensione di Raffaello Russo Ondarock.it 2004 "Villa Claustrophobia", il precedente album, mi aveva colpito per via di certe melodie arcane, certe suggestioni piene di mistero. "Dieu Deuil", pur mantenendo intatte quelle stesse suggestioni, sembra un disco piu solare, quasi luminoso. Jesse Poe intesse una sequenza di canzoni he scivolano l'una nell'altra con mano felice…Canzoni soffici e malinconiche, nondimeno psichedeliche e ricolme di nuove promesse…Recensione di Gino Dal Soler 7 di 8 blow up.71 Aprile 2004 Un doppio cd che rimette completamente in discussione quello che aveva lasciato intendere finora. Il risultato è una musica mantrica, ipnotica e ossesiva, un gorgo variopinto…di echi e riflessi metallici lisergici che nascono quasi per intero da strumenti autocostruiti…Recensione di Stefano I. Bianchi 7 di 8 blow up.78 2004 Il primo cd abbozza qualche struttura minimale, con cellule ritmiche che si ripresentano ciclicamente, come un moto impacciato scandito con atteggiamento ritroso…il secondo volume drappeggia un affresco piu spettrale e incombente in una sorta di noise da camera dall'architettura pericolante…la speranza e' che adesso Jesse cominci ad organizzare imprese simili anche con musicisti italiani, perche' ne vedremo delle belle…Recensione di Enrico Ramunni 293 di Rockerilla 2005 Opulent and low key, gilded and grimy, humid and gorgeous [ Nick Drake backed by Archie Shepp and Alice Coltrane in a deep south dawn ?] and it feels like the sort of quietly unassuming cd you find usurps more 'important' works. Lovely like honey on your beloved's eyelids…Ian Penman The Wire July 2002 Creeping drones, scraping acoustic sounds, spaghetti-western twangs and mumbled incantations. Villa Claustrophobia sounds like a piece of folk art, assembled in a woodshed by musicians wearing hats made of human skin... 2 out of 3 stars SL London Sunday Times 2002. An epic musical suite…catch them on their way up. Mark Rifkin New York Resident 2002 Many musicians attempt such grand ideas but can't manage to pull it together. Poe proves that not only is he a skilled musician, but also an impressive band leader who understands the concepts behind making an exceptional album… Daniel Piotrowski Signal to Noise 2002 A record this dark, frightening and sexy doesn't come along very often, and it needs to be savored in the proper (black) light. Hang out in this dim space long enough and your eyes will adjust…. Mark Richard-San Pitchfork 2002 This is a brilliant record. Track it down and give your money to the nice record shop worker, go home, smoke lots of weed, listen and die!… Chris Bress Collective-Zine 2002 Jesse Poe has sketched another quiet heaven with Dieu Deuil, a record that sounds like a parchment ink of folk's roots but also basks in sun-dappled 21st Century modernism-- and just a little bit genius… Johnny Loftus Pitchfork 2004 This CD is nothing but gorgeous washes of spooky and melancholy ambience, punctuated by quiet guitar strumming, loops, drones, and lead singer Jesse Poe's soft voice that reminds me a lot of Peter Murphy….Holly Day COSMIK.COM 2002 Une sorte de folk indien dépouillé, emmené par une voix splendide…Une orchestration impressionnante et écletique, qui surprend à tout istant… Quentin Dève 9/10 Soit dit en Passant 2002 Tanakh livre un des folk les plus orchestral entendu jusqu'à présent, une ouvre lyrique, poétique, fascinante…l'ecoute se transforme en voyage virtuel…bercé par la voix de Poe… Dieu Deuil est déjà un des essentiels 2004, un classique inestimable…Arnaud C webzinenameless.net 2004 Un album qui s'écoute, se réécoute à l'envi et qui toujours étonne par sa richesse, sa profondeur, sa chaleur...Rien n'est de trop, rien ne manque, rien n'est surfait… Hervé Benzine 2004 Ils ont l'art de faire passer leur univers à travers leur musique, de nous faire sentir le monde…L'âme des morceaux est proche de l'auditeur…Decidemment un disque à écouter…Par Olf bm indiepoprock.net 2004 La beauté des textes rejoint une instrumentation trés subtile ...Une oeuvre intemporelle à l'horizon…David Cantin Le Devoir 2004 Ein Werk das sich vom gewöhnlichen Songwriting absetzt und in Kunstrock-, Ambient- und Weltmusiksphären vorstößt. Ein experimentierfreudiges, medidatives Album, welches für den zügigen Verzehr eher ungeeignet ist und dessen volle Pracht und nachhaltiger Glanz erst dann offenbart werden können, wenn man bereit ist, sich zu den feinen Nuancen hervorzugehören… Ullrich Maure gaesteliste.de Dunkle melancholischen Klanglandschaften, abseits des Filmmusikklischées. Diese Scheibe verbindet Songwriting mit viel Platz für Improvisationen und Stimmen, den unterschiedlichsten Instrumenten sowie einem Hauch elektronischer Musik… asb de-bug.de Das Ablum wirkt wie in einer gigantischen hallenartigen Höhle aufgenommen, in der 1000e von buddhistischen Mönchen murmelnd eine verunsichernde Basis für eine orchestral fein durchwirktes Gesamtbild liefern, zu dessen Farbnuancen u.a. einsame Glockenschläge, trockene Westerngitarren, gezupfter Kontrabass, orientalische Instrumente, Cello-betontes Streichwerk, Trompete, sich einschrägende Geigen-Soli und das Heulen des Windes zählen… glitterhouse.com Das erinnert an Neofolk, die wir aus nördlichen Gefilden kennen. Immer wieder werden die Songs durch minimalistische Drones abgelöst, und hier schleichen sich wieder langsam die mittel- bis fernöstlichen Soundfragmente vom Anfang in die Klangteppiche ein… intro.de

HOW TERRASTOCK & the PTOLEMAIC TERRASCOPE CHANGED OUR LIVES AND COULD YOURS!

 

Ptolemaic Terrascope the magazine and Terrastock the festival has truly changed my life. It is a magazine which supports artists new and old, big and small with only one criteria, that the music be integral, full of heart, and really really good, I mean quit your job lay on the floor and moan good. About ten years ago I read my first issue cover to cover and I have been addicted ever since and my personal record collection is a reflection of this, I would say a huge percentage say 40f the records I own I learned about through Terrascope by way of review or reference within their bustling pages. The CD that always accompanies the magazine is always a pleasure and invariably I find  a hand full of bands that I can't understand how I ever lived without! AND THE FESTIVALS!!!! Oh my god, 3 whole days non-stop of the most beautifully intense stuff hand picked from around the world for your satori mind! Everyone from GHOST  to SONIC YOUTH to SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE   to members of the VELVET UNDERGROUND to TOM RAPP, and the list goes on for years! But it is not enough to list luminaries of this fantastic festival because that is not what it is about, it all about THE MUSIC no matter how big a band or how small and unknown, just good good good fucking music, you know the quit your job lay on the floor and moan kind of music, and not all rock or all folk or all psyche, everything is there and within most groups there is the same spirit you hear a bit of everything all mixed together. And here is where the festival really supercedes all others. 3 days of bands and each band stays all three days, because the music is too good to leave. I remember being front and center for the MAJOR STARS and when Wayne Rogers finished a skull splitting sweet sweat dripped guitar solo I was screaming "FUCK YEAH!!" and I turned to my left and screamed "FUCK YEAH" because I had to share my excitement with someone! And standing next to me was Thurston Moore who equally enraptured screamed back, "FUCK YEAH".a couple minutes later it registered, hey that's THURSTON MOORE!! But by then it didn't matter cause the music had cranked on and I took a minute to look around and there too many musicians who I adore to count and everyone in the audience seemed to be riding the same wave as me and my "concert partner" Mr. Moore. That is what the festival is about, that is what the magazine is about: loving music! If you love music I couldn't more highly recommend a music festival experience. You see your favorite bands, you learn about new bands that instantly become your new favorite bands and then THE KICKER!!! You get to see these bands playing not only their gigs and their songs but playing together, improvising doing covers, acting crazy, and adding their life to each others sets, it is amazing and the festival supports this by even leaving spots open for bands to collaborate together there on the spot at the festival, it is NIRVANA, if you love music. And then there is the warm atmosphere all over and the amazing light shows and multi-media presentations which are always new and done by local artists who are every bit as amazing as the bands themselves. In all it is a true sensual experience and something you will never forget. AND it COST NOTHING!!!! Only 3 bucks a band, that is cheaper than dog meat! You can't buy and sandwich for less, hell coca cola costs that here in Italy!

 

IT COSTS NOTHING BECAUSE all the bands volunteer to play for free out of love for this great organization/family and cause what a great weekend of amazing music! The cost of the tickets goes to flying the bands in from around the world which is VERY expensive (thanks Mr. BUSH!!) and of course to rent the space to play in. This year the space is very special and very intimate a beautiful old bank building constructed in 1929, just look at it what an amazing place to see your favorite acts and to go fetal postion for 3 days of musical bliss!

 

 

go to this link and buy your ticket before it is too late! Come see us performing as a whole ensemble for the first and only time! And see all of our favorite bands as well!

 

http://terrascope.co.uk/TerrastockPages/terrastock6.html

 

money back garunteed!

 

Below is an excerpt from an interview where we talk about Terrastock/Ptolemaic Terrascope and also a complete updated list of all the bands who will be playing:

 

Avarus (Finland)  Bardo Pond  Black Forest / Black Sea Bridget St John Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood (Australia) Charalambides Cul de Sac Damon and Naomi Fursaxa Ghost (Japan) [farewell performance] Glenn Jones The Green Pajamas Kemialliset Ystvt (Finland) Kinski The Kitchen Cynics (Scotland) Sharron Kraus (England) Landing Larkin Grimm Lightning Bolt The Magic Carpathians Project (Poland) Major Stars Marissa Nadler MV/EE Paik P.G. Six Tom Rapp and band Jack Rose Salamander St Joan (England) Spacious Mind (Sweden) Spires that in the Sunset Rise Tanakh (Italy) Thought Forms (England) Urdog Windy & Carl

 

There is also a Terrastock Launch Party taking place on April 20th at the venue (AS220) featuring Acid Mothers Temple (Japan)  Abunai (reunion) Bright Joe Turner The Seven Levels Area C. Note however that Terrastock tickets will not be valid for entry, and that tickets for this gig are not available in advance - entry will cost you an additional $10. Doors open 8pm. Both the launch party and the Terrastock festival itself are all ages shows.

 

FURTHER INFORMATION:

 

Jeffrey Alexander, Program Director

AS220, 115 Empire Street, Providence, RI 02903 USA

401-831-9327

401-454-7445 fax

terrastock6@secreteye.org

 

Travel and accommodation information: http://www.terrascope.co.uk/TerrastockPages/terrastock6_travel.html

 

Excerpt from an recent interview which talks about Terrastock/Ptolemaic Terrascope:

 

.. I quit the bakery and got a job at the corner record shop. I guess through connection with Pelt and the shows that they played in town, this record shop, The Record Exchange, was a haven of Terrascope fans and it was through that shop, that I began to find out about a whole new world of music. We could open any record we wanted to just as long as we could sell it afterwards and we did, we listened to every record we could, and would sell things like the harmony of the spheres box sets to girls who were looking for Dave Mathews. It was fantastic! I became even more obsessed with music than ever before, and now I had found a music that was equal in quality to that which I had listened to as a kid, but it was my own, I think that it was really the most important part of my musical development, it wasn't until then that I wanted to make my own music. Sure I had played guitar as a kid learning Led Zeppelin riffs and stuff, and most people in my family could play something or other, in fact my great aunts and uncles had a weekly live radio program where they played bluegrass and country music, but once I started reading the Terrascope and listening to all the records they recommended I wanted to make my own music, and somehow Terrascope made me feel like I actually could do just that.

 

A FEW PRESS BLURBS:

Forthcoming Ardent Fevers (to be released March 6th 2006):


Ardent Fevers is one of the most magical albums…Chris Leo 2006

Given Tanakh's previous outings, Ardent Fevers is a surprisingly structured and poppy listen. But at the same time as it is considerably lighter it's also draped in brain melting, seriously damaged psychedelic guitar excess and curtains of mesmerizing organ sounds… slow-moving folk numbers where we get to see the true melodic beauty of Jesse Poe and Umberto Trivella's incredible song writing talents. What unites this release with the past is that the beautiful, richly orchestrated melodies once again paints secret mental images of well-hidden vistas, of the natural as well as the urban variety… Mats Gustafsson 2006

At first hearing, Ardent Fevers feels a continent away from Tanakh's previous releases and their layered, experimental solo aesthetic. But listening closer it becomes clear that the emotive folk, haunted songcraft, spacy drones, and psychedelic arrangements are all still there, subsumed now into a richly appointed full-group approach that seems to owe little to prevalent recent models; the one comparison I can think of might be Japanese band Ghost, though Tanakh are more firmly rooted in songwriterly territory. The astute arrangements throughout work perfectly to frame and enhance a fine set of songs, with the band occasionally stretching out and taking full flight in some wonderfully focused instrumental explorations. While many of the current wave of "psychedelic folk" groups seem content to swim in a sea of chaos (some doing so quite gloriously, admittedly) or precocious self-indulgence, Tanakh have grown into a wide-ranging, graceful, and extremely together experience, and in a just world Ardent Fevers will end up bringing their sounds to a much wider audience than the devoted connoisseurs who already hold them in high regard. Kevin Moist Deep Water Acres 2006

Villa Claustropobia (released fall of 2002):

Opulent and low key, gilded and grimy, humid and gorgeous [ Nick Drake backed by Archie Shepp and Alice Coltrane in a deep south dawn ?] and it feels like the sort of quietly unassuming cd you find usurps more 'important' works. Lovely like honey on your beloved's eyelids…Ian Penman The Wire July 2002

Creeping drones, scraping acoustic sounds, spaghetti-western twangs and mumbled incantations. Villa Claustrophobia sounds like a piece of folk art, assembled in a woodshed by musicians wearing hats made of human skin... 2 out of 3 stars SL London Sunday Times 2002.

An epic musical suite…catch them on their way up. Mark Rifkin New York Resident 2002

Many musicians attempt such grand ideas but can't manage to pull it together. Poe proves that not only is he a skilled musician, but also an impressive band leader who understands the concepts behind making an exceptional album… Daniel Piotrowski Signal to Noise 2002

A record this dark, frightening and sexy doesn't come along very often, and it needs to be savored in the proper (black) light. Hang out in this dim space long enough and your eyes will adjust…. Mark Richard-San Pitchfork 2002

This is a brilliant record. Track it down and give your money to the nice record shop worker, go home, smoke lots of weed, listen and die!… Chris Bress Collective-Zine 2002

Tanakh has crafted an impressive debut album, one with all of the intangibility of a fever-induced delirium, the expanse of an Arabic desert, the mystery of old Appalachian forests, and the beauty of a religious experience, an album well worth checking out…Jason Morehead Opus Zine 2002

I find it to be good music to shut the brain off to, and it's all good. -- go out and track down a copy of this. It's really damned cool. Evil Sponge 2002

This CD is nothing but gorgeous washes of spooky and melancholy ambience, punctuated by quiet guitar strumming, loops, drones, and lead singer Jesse Poe's soft voice that reminds me a lot of Peter Murphy….Holly Day COSMIK.COM 2002


Dieu Deuil (released spring of 2004):



Jesse Poe has sketched another quiet heaven with Dieu Deuil, a record that sounds like a parchment ink of folk's roots but also basks in sun-dappled 21st Century modernism-- and just a little bit genius… Johnny Loftus Pitchfork 2004

The record's eight tracks, each of them engaging and breathtaking, feel like they were burned straight to disc directly from that wonderful and indefinable space between a musician's head and their heart. Yeah, the goddamned thing is just that good…the band sticks its hooks in you even deeper, and there are bridges that build upon themselves with a kind of intensity you wouldn't expect and you can't ignore. While electric guitars and violins skitter around Poe's plaintive voice, it's difficult to imagine Tanakh sounding anything but passionately involved with the music they're crafting. Lock the door when we leave? Why would we ever want to leave? Justin Vellucci Delusions of Adequacy 2004

Thick and humid ethnic fusion offers a specific and unique flavour of warm worldliness… Ilana Kronick Hour.ca 2004

Dieu Deuil is indeed full of calming, warm bath-like tones and textures, but like Tanakh's last album, it's too eclectic and inconspicuously dark to invite Body Shop store music comparisons…Tanakh's sound is as hard to classify as it is easy to love….Justin Stewart Splendid Zine 2004

You start to get sucked into the magic of the whole thing. Imagine the Jayhawks meeting up with Jason Pierce. That's not doing Tanakh justice but you kind of get the picture. Tanakh's music is ever so gentle with ebbs and flows similar to that of the Rachels….Dennis Scanland Music Emissions 2004

Musically, Tanakh will exceed most anyone's wildest imagination concerning the intimacy of this brand of indie-folk. It boasts a warmth and an immediacy akin to Leonard Cohen's debut but stands apart as a result of the scope of its instrumentation. "Instrumental" is a wedding song just waiting for the love of a young couple, while "'Til San Francisco" seems to have found the bride and groom several years on, romance still sparking and the life-long length of the journey only just becoming clear. Belle & Sebastian on downers with a songbook more than two-pages thick…MB roscomagazine.com 2004

With Dieu Deuil, Tanakh has released an atmospheric, autumnal record with some considerably haunting, emotional resonance… Olskooly Tiny Mix Tapes 2004

The album does indeed smell sweetly-sourly of wet woolen sweaters coming inside after a day of slogging around in the autumnal mush, offering solace against the encroaching darkness with intimate strummings, pluckings and longings, the kind that we all share.
And there is nothing to do but capitulate in the face of a song like "November Tree" with its sweet, sad vocal harmonies and Dan Calhoune´s weepy violin. Stephen Fruitman Sonomu 2004

Tanakh-Self-titled (released fall of 2004):

A surprisingly avant-garde inspired listen that presents new aspects with every listen and has an emotional depth that many albums along these lines are lacking…Mats Gustafsson Foxy Digitals 2004

Comparisons can be drawn to Pelt, Molasses, etc etc. But Jesse Poe has that special something we can only know as MAGIC… Aching Cellar 2004

The most noticible thing missing from the mix is the velvet voice of singer Jesse Poe. In this nearly 100 minutes of music on the two discs, he doesn't sing once, and while the music is expressive enough to conjure up all kinds of imagery, his vocal stylings are nonetheless unfortunately absent. is a massive, sprawling piece that moves from haunting to harsh many different times over long spaces of time, and although it has some things in common with the past music of the group, it has just as many (if not more) things that are completely different….Almost Cool 2004

A timeless quality to the recording. There is a sense that Poe wanted the recording to be a document of what happened when a group of people gathered in a particular place at a particular time. This is a bold statement to make for someone who possesses talent as a traditional songwriter…Jim Siegel Brainwashed 2004

ITALIAN PRESS BLURBS:

L'uscita per la Alien8 di "Dieu Deuil", secondo album per il collettivo Tanakh, ora stabilitosi a Firenze…ripresenta con un disco più accessibile la propria personale soluzione stilistica alle intricate trame "post"…imperdibile "November tree" (brano che da solo varrebbe l'acquisto dell'album)…"Dieu Deuil" album certamente meritevole di ascolto e conoscenza… Recensione di Raffaello Russo Ondarock.it 2004

"Villa Claustrophobia", il precedente album, mi aveva colpito per via di certe melodie arcane, certe suggestioni piene di mistero. "Dieu Deuil", pur mantenendo intatte quelle stesse suggestioni, sembra un disco piu solare, quasi luminoso. Jesse Poe intesse una sequenza di canzoni che scivolano l'una nell'altra con mano felice…Canzoni soffici e malinconiche, nondimeno psichedeliche e ricolme di nuove promesse…Recensione di Gino Dal Soler 7 di 8 blow up.71 Aprile 2004

Un doppio cd che rimette completamente in discussione quello che aveva lasciato intendere finora. Il risultato è una musica mantrica, ipnotica e ossesiva, un gorgo variopinto…di echi e riflessi metallici lisergici che nascono quasi per intero da strumenti autocostruiti…Recensione di Stefano I. Bianchi 7 di 8 blow up.78 2004

Il primo cd abbozza qualche struttura minimale, con cellule ritmiche che si ripresentano ciclicamente, come un moto impacciato scandito con atteggiamento ritrosoil secondo volume drappeggia un affresco piu spettrale e incombente in una sorta di noise da camera dallarchitettura pericolantela speranza e che adesso Jesse cominci ad organizzare imprese simili anche con musicisti italiani, perche ne vedremo delle belle…Recensione di Enrico Ramunni Rock e Rilla 2005

FRENCH PRESS BLURBS:

Une sorte de folk indien dépouillé, emmené par une voix splendide…Une orchestration impressionnante et écletique, qui surprend à tout istant… Quentin Dève 9/10 Soit dit en Passant 2002

Tanakh livre un des folk les plus orchestral entendu jusqu'à présent, une ouvre lyrique, poétique, fascinante…l'ecoute se transforme en voyage virtuel…bercé par la voix de Poe… Dieu Deuil est déjà un des essentiels 2004, un classique inestimable…Arnaud C webzinenameless.net 2004

Un album qui s'écoute, se réécoute à l'envi et qui toujours étonne par sa richesse, sa profondeur, sa chaleur...Rien n'est de trop, rien ne manque, rien n'est surfait… Hervé Benzine 2004

Ils ont l'art de faire passer leur univers à travers leur musique, de nous faire sentir le monde…L'âme des morceaux est proche de l'auditeur…Decidemment un disque à écouter…Par Olf bm indiepoprock.net 2004

La beauté des textes rejoint une instrumentation trés subtile ...Une oeuvre intemporelle à l'horizon…David Cantin Le Devoir 2004


GERMAN PRESS BLURBS:

Ein Werk das sich vom gewöhnlichen Songwriting absetzt und in Kunstrock-, Ambient- und Weltmusiksphären vorstößt. Ein experimentierfreudiges, medidatives Album, welches für den zügigen Verzehr eher ungeeignet ist und dessen volle Pracht und
nachhaltiger Glanz erst dann offenbart werden können, wenn man bereit ist, sich zu den feinen Nuancen hervorzugehören… Ullrich Maure gaesteliste.de

Dunkle melancholischen Klanglandschaften, abseits des Filmmusikklischées. Diese Scheibe verbindet Songwriting mit viel Platz für Improvisationen und Stimmen, den unterschiedlichsten Instrumenten sowie einem Hauch elektronischer Musik… asb de-bug.de

Das Ablum wirkt wie in einer gigantischen hallenartigen Höhle aufgenommen, in der 1000e von buddhistischen Mönchen murmelnd eine verunsichernde Basis für eine orchestral fein durchwirktes Gesamtbild liefern, zu dessen Farbnuancen u.a. einsame Glockenschläge, trockene Westerngitarren, gezupfter Kontrabass, orientalische Instrumente, Cello-betontes Streichwerk, Trompete, sich einschrägende Geigen-Soli und das Heulen des Windes zählen… glitterhouse.com

Das erinnert an Neofolk, die wir aus nördlichen Gefilden kennen. Immer wieder werden die Songs durch minimalistische Drones
abgelöst, und hier schleichen sich wieder langsam die mittel- bis fernöstlichen Soundfragmente vom Anfang in die Klangteppiche ein… intro.de

in which Mats Gustafsson talks to Jesse Poe exclusively for Terrascope Online:

http://www.terrascope.co.uk/Features/Tanakh interview.htm