DONKEY NO NO - Bloom

"Deep new Quarantine Vibes from this hard lovin' Western Mass trio. Two of the tracks were recorded during Donkey No No's superb appearance on the QuaranTunes Zoom concert series (Friday May 14, 2021), the third was done three months later at an undisclosed location. The building blocks, as usual, are Omeed's alternately chipper and fragmentary guitar lines, Jen Gelineau's fluid viola/violin runs, and the weep and sizzle dynamism of Ted Lee's bowed cymbals. If their namesake metal donkey was harmed at any point during these sessions, you won't prove it by me. There is a bit less of rural heft on this tape than on some of the band's other releases. I'm not absolutely certain why this is, but I think it may be there are too many abstract elements in Omeed's playing to reconcile it with the straight line management required of true farmers. Call it creeping city slickerism if you must, but I don't think that captures its raison d'etre. The basis of Donkey No No's sound has always been ba