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"in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-journey on the highway across America in tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night"
- "Howl", Allen Ginsberg

Western Pennsylvania, Born Again Blues 2012

Western Pennsylvania’s Born Again Blues is the passion project of pop veteran Jeff Betten and novelist Joseph Ripple. Stripped down to the regional sounds of day and night, the album is country music: homespun and handmade with unobstrusive hints of pedal steel guitar, banjo, reed organ, cello, fiddle, and piano. Betten is a voice without words, a ghost with a narrative that grows heavy. Written to envelop, each song is a shade darker than it’s former, recorded on one lingering track that manages to retain it’s emotional potency without overstaying it’s welcome. The band’s first album draws inspiration from the authenticity of Tom Waits and the lo-fi charm of Iron and Wine. Like Ginsberg’s "Howl", Born Again Blues is the strange, rambling man in the room: entertain him for a while and he’ll reward you with a sophisticated understanding of the human experience. Western Pennsylvania offers a calculated, classically-assembled album that demands attention to its subtleties.

- Shannon Sankey