Album Review – The Brother Brothers’ “Tugboats”
At some point it became cool again to be in a folk duo. Whether folk duos are cool again is another story. One thing that’s for sure, there’s certainly an abundance of them. The husband and wife combo has become especially common out there in the musical environs. Apparently the stigma of being too close to Sunny and Cher wore off some years ago, and now it’s open season for mating pairs to head out in their Sprinter vans to play corner stages in coffee houses on Wednesday nights.
Problem is, there’s only so many derelict intellectuals and former college friends to guilt out on Wednesday nights, and despite being an especially gratifying thing to share on Instagram for Millennials, the economic viability of the husband/wife folk duo is circumspect at best.
Brother and sister folk duos though, you can almost never go wrong with. There is something so pure about blood siblings singing harmony that can never be replaced or bested in nature. Of course The Everley Brothers proved it years ago, but in the modern era The Secret Sisters, Cactus Blossoms, Church Sisters, The Quebe Sisters, The Malpass Brothers, and a slew of others take unfair advantage of sibling telepathy to make harmonies so close and so eloquent, it can make the spine shimmer even if they’re singing a Denny’s menu.
You’re not going to hear about The Brother Brothers unless someone tells you about them. They’re not out there playing 200 shows a year or being touted by a big label. Brothers Adam Moss and David Moss both play in numerous other projects in various capacities. Adam Moss plays the fiddle, and David plays the cello. Sometimes they play guitar. But I’m here to tell you, their calling is to play with each other, and each other only.
Based out of Brooklyn, The Brother Brothers is the closest thing you can find to Simon & Garfunkel in this century, yet with a primitive country sound. Incredible singing, some of the sweetest fiddle playing and cello accompaniment I’ve heard, and songs that are amazing in both their simplicity, and their ability to put rhyme and reason to complex human emotions.
Both Adam and David Moss were renown and accomplished musicians before they started singing together under this funny name, including David Moss winning the acclaimed New Folk competition in 2011. If you go poking around, you’ll find their names associated with acts like Ana Egge, The Blue Hit, Session Americana, and fellow Brooklyn-based band The Defibulators. But you’ve never heard them together and alone until now, and it’s brilliant.
Sometimes musical savants like these two are challenged in the songwriting and relatability departments. Music is not a skills competition, despite institutions of higher learning and folk/bluegrass gatherings trying to turn it into one. But The Brother Brothers bring that necessary, real life component to the compositional acumen evidenced in their music. This music is brilliantly accessible, while still being something enhanced by skill and intelligence. They also inexplicably give us our second amazing song about the tiny town of Cairo, IL in 2017 (Natalie Hemby also turned one in).
All we have at the moment is an EP released earlier in 2017 called Tugboats, but in six songs and 18 minutes, The Brother Brothers accomplish what entire folk labels and festival lineups struggle to not accomplish, which is honing in on something so timeless and carnal to the musical intellect, the music resonates in the soul like echoing within the walls of a great cavern.
The notes, and the words are not enough. You must have chemistry. And that’s what The Brother Brothers have in bushel baskets. Enough can’t be said positively about The Brother Brothers and Tugboats.
Two Guns Up!
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May 27, 2017 @ 9:46 am
Sa-weet~!
May 27, 2017 @ 10:04 am
Thanks for this! I love folk & Simon & Garfunkel, so if you’ll excuse me while I go run to check this out.
May 27, 2017 @ 12:18 pm
I like it. Thank you.
May 27, 2017 @ 4:29 pm
ingratiating
May 27, 2017 @ 5:09 pm
Great recommendation. Thank you! Pokey LeFarge also has a song called “Cairo, Illinois” on his Something In The Water album. I guess there is something about Cairo, Illinois…
May 27, 2017 @ 5:30 pm
One of my favorite things about this site is all the new music I learn about from it. Thanks for this one!
May 28, 2017 @ 12:13 am
Great music, but for the millionth time (and as a native Illinoisan) I have to stress the town’s name is pronounced “CARE-oh,” not “KI-ro.” The name is NOT pronounced like the city in Egypt.
I think an important part of conveying a story with authenticity is using proper regional vernacular and pronunciations.
May 29, 2017 @ 12:04 pm
I grew about 50 miles west in Missouri (not far from Puxico) and it sounded more like Kay-ro but definitely no one called it Ki-ro and I wondered about Natalie Hemby’s pronunciation when her album came out earlier in the year. Don’t think she would have ever heard Ki-ro growing up in Puxico and not sure why she went with that on the song. It bothers me a little too. Jay Farrar gets it right (or at least not wrong) on “Cairo and Southern” (another Cairo song!) off the latest Son Volt album. Anyway, great find here. Thanks Trigger!
May 28, 2017 @ 11:02 am
This is good music. Any idea where these guys are originally from?
May 28, 2017 @ 2:22 pm
According to their online bio, they are from Peoria, IL (not sure of the correct pronunciation from the original Native American). But they now live in Brooklyn, NY.
May 29, 2017 @ 11:34 am
“he Brother Brothers is the closest thing you can find to Simon & Garfunkel in this century”
The Milk Carton Kids say “hi”.
May 29, 2017 @ 2:07 pm
The Milk Carton Kids are great, but what makes The Brother Brothers and this EP specifically evoke memories of Simon and Garfunkel is the heavy New York theme here. The title track and how they soliloquize something as mundane as tugboats is what Simon and Garfunkel perfected so many years ago in NYC, really drawing from both the magic of the city, and the inherent loneliness it can have despite its crowded streets.
May 29, 2017 @ 6:49 pm
If you would have wrote that from the beginning I would have refrained from what I wrote as that makes sense in context.
May 29, 2017 @ 7:41 pm
Yeah, I actually did write a little bit more about why they reminded me of Simon & Garfunkel but it felt like a tangent and I edited it out. Fundamentally you’re right though, The Milk Carton Kids do deserve to be in the conversation when you talk about who the new Simon & Garfunkel might be.