One Mississippi

One Mississippi album cover
  

Release Notes:

Honest Don's Hardly-Used Recordings, Double LP, CD, 2000
  

Band members:

Lance (guitar/vocals/piano), Jeff (bass), Adam (drums), Kelly Green (backing vocals)
  

Songs:

No Jazz
New York Times Book Review
The Track
Where The Trains Go
Sunshine
Quickstep
Your Mother
She Says
Never Happy
She's So Mean
Diet Coke
Imaginary Friends
Anybody
I Reach For Her Hand
The Doctor
Cut The Shit
Leni Riefenstahl's Tinder Box
Sadie Mae Glutz
Jane, Vanessa, And I
Gulf Breeze, Florida
The Devil And I
Rich And Young And Dumb
J Church Sucks
Reaching For Thoreau
Christmas Lights
Stars Are Exploding
  

More info:

You might not believe it, looking at that huge discography, but this was only the fifth 'proper' J Church album. Here's Lance's comments from Newsletter 8.4:

"If you bought One Mississippi on CD, I feel a little obligated to give you some sort of instructions or at least some kind of disclaimer. You see, we really meant for this album to be a double album. The way this record works is particular to that format. Sitting through 26 straight songs of the same band just isn't natural. One Mississippi is meant to be listened to in little 20 minute blocks. I don't mean to get too pretentious, but each side has it's own… uh… "personality" and flows as such. From No Jazz to Your Mother is one side. Try to listen to it like it's one thing. Next time, listen to She Says through I Reach For Her Hand. Part 3 is The Doctor through The Devil And I. Finally, the last section is Rich And Young And Dumb through Stars Are Exploding.

"Now, I could say something really stupid, like "each side is a different season" or "each compartment represents an age in the author's life" or some other bullshit to justify this. No, it's four separate "sets", if you will, and the songs were selected in the same way we put together a set to perform live. Each side is it's own entity. That was the intention, I guess."

The samples in Stars Are Exploding are from the Conet Project, a multi-CD set of intercepted recordings of 'number stations' - shortwave radio transmissions from around the world that are reputedly run by various intelligence agencies. For more information visit the Conet Project home page and/or this informative review of the CDs.

Although the album had the working title The Horror Of Life, it ended up being named after the place it was recorded.