Excerpts from reviews for the Weirdlore album:
“As an introduction to English folk music, ‘Weirdlore’ barely puts a foot wrong. Bands like Foxpockets have used the basics of the genre and fashioned a contemporary take on it, which will surely pull in more fans, while the decidedly strange Boxcar Aldous Huxley, who seem to have wandered in by mistake while on their way to a freeform jazz session on the other side of town with their take on the traditional ‘Hora’, show that folk music is forever evolving.”
“When it takes a turn for the mysterious things get more interesting, with the maudlin and fantastical ‘Rosebuds In June’ by Sproatly Smith, the jazz-folk circus music of Boxcar Aldous Huxley and the psychedelic hum of The Straw Bear Band.”
“Boxcar Aldous Huxley’s ‘Hora’ alternates from sounding like something from a mid-eighties Tom Waits album to a gypsy jazz take on ‘Trout Mask Replica’.”
“And then there’s the really good stuff … Hora by the wonderfully-named Boxcar Aldous Huxley is a rackety rendition of a traditional Eastern European dance tune, featuring klezmer-ish clarinet and musical saw. It sounds great – reminiscent of Barry Black, one of the great lost albums of the 90s – although the folkie old fart in me can’t help thinking they’d sound even better if they put some hours in, found some dancers to play for and did it properly. (My daughter, who dances to this kind of thing, heard it and said “yes, if you sped it up it would sound like a hora”. Out of interest, I’ve tried speeding it up using Audacity; about 60% faster, it sounds terrific.) “
– The Gaping Silence
(Boxcar Aldous Huxley wish to respectfully point out that we are playing at the correct speed, but that we thoroughly support anyone wishing to accelerate our music for their listening enjoyment)
What the papers say:
“… Boxcar Aldous Huxley are a Bristol supergroup of sorts, chock full of “members of” with dazzlingly impressive musical chops. “This song is about the plight of militant itinerant workers – hobos, if you will,” and off they go: a saw and bow like a feline’s tears and the chorus “born close to the rails/one day we will prevail”. The next has a sexy, burlesquey clarinet start then waltzes off, glistening with the intricacy of harmonium and banjo drizzle. Another “tuned to B flat minor, our favourite key”, features oompah squatting brass, angry-mob group vocals, a horn-section breakdown and song structure of epic complexity. The combined elements of the Boxcar seven are what rattle the bones: saw and clarinet are the cries, drums are the stomp and crushing under heels, the brass (euphonium, french horn and trombone) the ominousness, the harmonium buzz the caged rage behind sustained traffic horns, and the lead banjo and vocals pluck the beauty out from the trash. There are fists in these dirty waltzes of raw loveliness, and a sense that making noise en masse may just about cure all.”
–Kristen Grayewski, Venue Magazine
For sale, several careless owners
