The Skiffle Players Skiff

Their second album, Skiff, is a new direction for The Skiffle Players. Now, they all sing and write. There is no leader. Recorded at Infinitespin Recorders in Van Nuys CA, with engineer Matt “Linny” Linesch, the album begins with a bold opening; the Farmer Dave Scher-penned “Cara,” heavy information for the soul. Then, into classic Cass McCombs insanity on “Local Boy,” a wild ride on the run from the cops. Third is a touching tribute to a bygone companion, “Miss It When It’s Gone,” written and led by Neal Casal.

The album’s revolving perspective continues to bounce around, leaving no apparent land to stand upon. In that, it is deeply subversive. For there is nothing to defend, but the ability to transform and imagine.

The album continues to unfold back to McCombs with a satire on justice, “The Law Offices Of Dewey, Cheatum And Howe.” It goes from the saloon “Long Horns, Long Necks, Long Legs,” to the rainforest “Herbamera.” Casal blasts in again with the sun-bleached rambler, “Los Angeles Alleyway.” Scher’s “Skiffleman” sings a song for everyone. McCombs plays with memory in a song about coming of age in the Bay Area on “Oakland Scottish Rite Temple Waltz.” Penultimately, “Santa Fe” is an elliptical broadside about materialism and waste. The album concludes by pushing off again, out into the familiar waters of a traditional skiffle number, “Sweet Georgia Brown,” each member taking a perhaps all-too casual solo.

This is acoustic dance music at its finest. It is also refreshingly contradictory, irreverent and mystical, deeply personal and communal, and traditional and profane—the ever revolving and disintegrating ship known as Skiff.