Portland, Oregon, band Bingo has its feet planted firmly in traditional American folk music, a heart that leans toward the traditional music of India, and enough soul to twist it all into something new, personal and original.
For all intents & purposes, Bingo is banjoist/guitarist/singer-songwriter Kevin “Bingo” Richey, who also co-produced the album. Richey gets solid and imaginative playing on several songs from Clayton Jones (drums and percussion) and Tim Acott (upright and electric bass), and exquisite fiddle playing from Marilee Hord. Saffs, from England band Cornershop, also lends a hand with sitar on four songs.
The first three songs on H om provide a cross-section of the different styles employed by Bingo. Beautiful in its simplicity, the old-timey sounding “Baby Where You Been So Long?” begins with Richey’s lone guitar and is augmented between its three verses by Hord’s wonderful fiddle and Acott’s tastefully bowed upright bass. The song blends elements of blues, ragtime, folk and bluegrass together into a seamless whole; Richey’s voice is natural, distinctive, and most importantly, believable.
The song is so pretty it makes the minor chord and threatening slide guitar that open the next song, “Tornadoes”, all the more ominous. The opening couplet certainly lends no comfort: “When the wind stops blowing/And the air turns green…” If you’ve spent much time in the Midwest, you know this is a bad combination. This is one of the most “modern” sounding songs on the disc, with a distorted guitar scrawl filling its loud, crashing, rock-styled choruses.
The style of the third song is really what sets Richey and his band apart from the crowd: He is a master at writing and arranging Indian music. The instrumental “Keening” is the first of three songs in this vein, all of them excellent. At its foundation is a layer of droning amplifier hum leftover from “Tornadoes” and Eastern percussion. Spread over that base is a gorgeous, instantly hummable melody fleshed out by guitar and fiddle. That Richey is as talented at writing and playing any one of these styles is an achievement; that he can successfully pull off all three is truly exceptional.
The rest of the disc boasts several other treats as well. Richey employs only his voice and a banjo in the verses of the uncluttered “Yonder Hill”. The song rolls along effortlessly and reminds that there is joy to be found not only in the little things, but in simply being, if your eyes are open: “Every time I see the sun rise up on yonder hill I feel my spirit fly/’Cause I know I’m alive”. When Hord washes her soothing fiddle over the choruses, along with a harmony vocal from Little Sue Weaver, the results are radiant. Pete Krebs (Richey’s partner in the late, great Golden Delicious and now of Gossamer Wings) pitches in a harmony vocal on “Walking Boss”, which gets a full-band workout and demonstrates there’s always room for a new take on an old classic.