Tractor Present: Shinyribs "Members of The Gourds" with The Ganges River Band

Hey, we all know Kevin "Shinyribs" Russell is a loose cannon. How else to explain covers of R. Kelly's Ï¿½FeelinÏ¿½ on Yo Booty,Ï¿½ and Elvis Costello's Indoor Fireworks" in the same night. Most folks who follow such things consider his outfit, The Gourds, one of the best live bands in the land, in large part because of Russell's brazen eccentricites and creative syntax.

However, the most overlooked thing about Russell is that when he plays it straight - as he does for most of his two Shinyribs records - the man can produce some of the funkiest and most beautiful roots music on the planet. It's not to say the "psycholiteranaut w/8 AA batteries-tweed facade-equal parts Waylon Jennings,Robert Rauschenberg and Harvey Korman" (to quote his Twitter feed) doesn't dig into his bag of twistedness (witness "Poor People's Store"). But a listen to the straight-up duet "Sweeter Than The Scars" (with Sally Allen) on Gulf Coast Museum, the sweet quasi-fable "Who Built The Moon on Well After Awhile," or the intimate ukulele cover of Sam Cooke's "Change Gonna Come," shows that even when Russell puts aside some of the tricks, he delivers grade-A Country Soul.