Early James

Early James – Medium Raw

Easy Eye Sound – EES-039 [2025]
Steely Knives – Nothing Surprises Me Anymore – Tinfoil Hat – Go Down Swinging – Rag Doll – Gravy Train – I Could Just Die Right Now – Unspeakable Thing – Beauty Queen – Dig To China – Upside Down Umbrella – I Got This Problem

Frederik James Mullins aka Early James returns with a third album, by far his best, still on Easy Eye Sound, Dan Auerbach’s label (who also produces).
Medium Raw, the album’s title is already a program and gives an idea of what’s to come. To best capture Early James’s organic sound, the producer, the singer-guitarist, and his band (Adrian Marmolejo on double bass, Jeff Clemens, ex-G-Love & Special Sauce, on drums, and, on two tracks, Sam Bacco on percussion) set up their studio in an old building, the Honky Chateau, in Nashville. To be sure to capture the energy of the band, the album was recorded live in the studio. The resulting sound is raw and basic, close to the bone, and perfectly suited to the band’s music and the singer’s voice. For Early James is a possessed, one might even say haunted, singer, combining the intensity of Jeffrey Lee Pierce with the incandescence and fervor of David Eugene Edwards. His voice grabs the listener from the very first notes, only to release it about forty minutes later (but it still resonates long after the end of the album).
James isn’t a traditionalist, but that doesn’t stop him from treating the genres he tackles with the utmost respect. Just as The Cramps took rockabilly and extracted its essence, James takes genres like old-time and country blues and revisits them, putting his own stamp on them.
The album opens with Steely Knive, an Appalachian ballad, which, if not purely authentic in its form, becomes so through the singer’s feverish and unfiltered interpretation.
The next track, Nothing Surprises Me Anymore, could be described as neo-hillbilly, but abrupt changes in tone and rhythm take the song into something completely different, more bluesy.
Tinfoil Hat doesn’t fear to let the atmospheres collide, mixing rickety and unhealthy rockabilly with an oriental touch, in the style of Dylan’s One More Cup Of Coffee. Then comes Go Down Swingin’, a wobbly and limping tango. The electrified Rag Doll brings a touch of industrial rockin’ blues but doesn’t hesitate to integrate a more melodic break in rhythm. Back to acoustic for Gravy Train, a bluegrass tune led by James’s preacher voice. It’s also an opportunity to say how versatile and talented guitar player Early James is, equally at ease with rowdy electric blues than acoustic-led picking tunes. I Could Just Die Right Now is a melancholic ballad, which would have been perfect for Jimmie Rodgers.
Then comes the album’s highlight, the hypnotic and frightening Unspeakable Thing. With this song, in a little more than three minutes, he manages to create a climate of dread worthy of a cruise on the Demeter. Beauty Queen is just as mysterious, sounding like a ballad from an unknown musical culture unearthed by a musical archaeologist. Magnificent!
Unfolding over seven minutes, Dig To China is a slow, dark, and captivating blues. Supported by a distorted slide, the song seems to grow on you with each listen.
The album has a good idea of including a booklet with the lyrics, which allows you to enjoy the author’s sometimes absurd poetry, as is the case on Upside Down Umbrella, a hillbilly with a slightly unhealthy edge. The album ends on a high note with I Got This Problem, some sort of stripped-down, limping New Orleans march.
Despite its changes in atmosphere and sound (alternating between electric and acoustic pieces), Medium Raw forms a coherent whole, driven by its internal logic, an inspired album that we seem to rediscover with each listen.