Ex-Members Club

The lush elegance beaming from the eponymous standalone album by Dusty Trails from 2000 is a calm afteroon in the summer spent sipping gin and biting your toe nails: 'mellow sounds and minor chords' was written on the back of the CD case, yet Vivian Trimble's first forray after her departure from Luscious Jackson eloquently gives her decision at least some justification. Indeed, teaming up with a full-blown lesbian and ex-member of The Breeders (I have finally got the joke), Josephine Wiggs, must have paid at least a weeks electricity bill - the album was never designed to be a hit, yet it's appeal surely is to let itself drift out to be caught by those open to enjoying soft and elegant soundtrack music. It is obviously pretentious and Trimble took far too much pleasure telling journo's about instructing her neighbours to stop hoovering so that Emmylou Harris could record a song for them in her livingroom (I'll bet there were a lot of candles). Featuring Harris, Order Coffee is stoic and brittle and often cited as the highlight: elsewhere, the poignant phrasing and ultra-sickly bossa nova synthesis of You Freed Yourself, Est-Ce Que Tu, They May Call Me A Dreamer and Fool For A Country Tune could wet the eyes of Saint Etienne - Country Tune in particular rolls the credits in, dissolving the day in style. Roll The Dice, however, reunites the original Luscious Jackson line-up, but is the sound of a coffee shop gig getting 'lively' and disappoints. An album you are hardly going to wet yourself over, but that is going to rinse through you like a routine colonic and linger warmly into late lonely nights.

Est-Ce Que Tu
Fool For A Country Tune