Much like John Vanderslice’s 2-track recordings of Pixel Revolt and Kind of Like Spitting’s Phil Ochs tribute, Swearing at Motorists’ Exile On Gipsstrasse is an album of familiar songs, recorded in a unique setting.  The cuts are raw, stripped down, and delivered to you with all their blemishes in tact.  There is no second take.  Only the record button and a guitar.

The purpose of these ‘live’ albums isn’t to change your mind about the songs- the songwriters can do that by entering the studio and recording new versions- it is to capture a time and place like only a session’s worth of self-recorded, stripped down songs can.  Vanderslice recorded Suddenly It Went Dark in a chicken coop in California, Kind of Like Spitting recorded his Ochs cover songs on Gene Autry’s two track machine, and, in the case of Exile On Gipsstrasse, songwriter Dave Doughman chose an underground train station in Berlin as his studio.

For the full story, you can read Doughman’s self-penned description.  It is a necessary listening guide to an album full of warm, lonely songs. 

Get them while they’re free.

[link]  Exile On Gipsstrasse full album download