Essentially Louisville, Kentucky's Will Oldham and a revolving cast of musicians, Palace (Music, Brothers, Songs--the name forever changes) play a bizarre mix of overheard mountain music and self-conscious indie-rock. Oldham warbles lyrics that are one-part traditional ballad and two parts stream-of consciousness, and the band doesn't always seem to have rehearsed the material. This is a collection of singles with five previously unreleased tracks and is an excellent retrospective of what Oldham does. "O How I Enjoy the Light, " "West Palm Beach" and "Gulf Shores" are as meditative and haunting as Palace gets. --Rob O'Connor
Review by Jason Ankeny
Despite the overall excellence of albums like There Is No-One What Will Take Care of You and Viva Last Blues, Will Oldham tended to save his best Palace offerings for the group's singles; Lost Blues & Other Songs is a career-capping collection of those 7" releases which serves as a superb overview of the Palace project's mercurial history. Although a few stray tracks (like the German-only "Gezundheit," a cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Every Mother's Son," and the live Lounge Ax single) are MIA, the set includes all of the truly crucial Palace singles from the first (1993's "Ohio River Boat Song") to the last (1997's "Little Blue Eyes"), along with unreleased material like "Valentine's Day," "Lost Blues," and a more ragged rendition of the debut album's classic, "Riding." The highlights are many, but the true standouts are the anthemic cover of the Mekons' "Horses" and both sides of the "West Palm Beach"/"Gulf Shores" single, a luminously pastoral effort reminiscent of Red House Painters. A stunning recapitulation of a truly unique musical vision, Lost Blues & Other Songs is an essential record from an essential band.
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