Jack Ingram, Miranda Lambert & Jon Randall The Marfa Tapes (2-LP)

(RCA Records) 15 Tracks - Gatefold Cover
If less is more, then the new record "The Marfa Tapes" by Miranda Lambert, Jack Ingram and Jon Randall is quite, quite a lot. A huge amount! Because: The three artists have left out for the album everything that today's studio technology can make possible. That and even less: no drums, no bass, no fiddle, no pedal steel. Just three voices and one or two acoustic guitars and 15 songs. That's it. So? Is there anything missing? Absolutely not!

At least not if you have a streak for super-reduced folk, country and Americana. If you love songs that tell stories so honestly from the heart that no lie detector would stand a chance.

Miranda Lambert and her two companions Jack Ingram and Jon Randall have decided for the album to the most rudimentary recording concept ever: pure recording. Everything live. No overdubs, no cosmetics. Almost exactly as their historic predecessors did in Bristol, Tennessee, in 1927, ushering in the birth of country music.

It is said that recordings of "The Marfa Tapes" were even made outside in the wild, around a crackling campfire. Hee-Haw! Jimmie Rodgers would have taken off his hat.