Big Blood

Big Blood are Colleen Kinsella and Caleb Mulkerin, a married couple in Portland, Maine, who since 2007 have been recording prolifically at home with no attempt to make money. They're my favorite band by such a wide margin that when I listen to other music I'm always imagining how it would sound if Big Blood covered it. Their music sounds so much better to me than to anyone I know that I almost doubt my sanity. Do I understand the music or does the music understand me?

They each write and sing lead on their own songs, but Colleen usually sings backup for Caleb, and her voice is the heart of their sound. It's been described to me as "discordant screeching", "the worst singer in the world", and "is there something wrong with the recording or is she doing that on purpose?" During rehearsals for Stravinski's The Rite of Spring, musicians kept thinking there were mistakes in the score. What Colleen is doing on purpose is using timbre and vibrato so creatively that it doesn't sound like a human voice could even go there. She can spend an entire song playing with a level of laser-focused shrillness that other singers can barely touch.

Even if she were an average singer, I would still love her cryptic metaphysical lyrics, like "Remember the chills before being" or "Does a man seek his own face for the flaws in shadows beneath?" And they would still be my favorite musical stylists for their rhythms that hammer the one beat, their fuzz-folk instrumentation, their in-your-face dissonance, their spacy background aura, and the way their songs get increasingly noisy and complex.

Most of their music is available on this Free Music Archive page, but some of their best stuff is not, and they have a few good songs on side projects under other names. Here's their discography on Discogs, their web site, dontrustheruin, their bandcamp page, and a Facebook fan page.

When I first started going through their songs I only liked about one in ten -- but I liked those so much that I kept going through the duds looking for more gems, and finding them. To give you more options for where to start, here are some three song samplers:

Light Colleen: Go See Boats, She Sells Sanctuary, Oh Country.
Heavy Colleen: Creepin Crazy Time, Dead Song, Away Pt III.
Weird Colleen: Destin Rain, Everything Is Improving, Lectric Lashes 2.
Extreme Colleen: Glory Daze, Song For Baltimore, I Will Love You.
Rock Caleb: It's Alright, Old Time Primitives, Sovereignty You Bitch.
Folk Caleb: Hangman, Sick With Information, The Rise of Quinnisa Rose.
Weird Caleb: South Of Portland, Sirens Knell, Don't Trust The Ruin.

And here it is album by album. Disclaimer: I only discovered them in August of 2014, and every time I spend an evening listening, the next day I edit this page to fix mistakes and add stuff I missed. This process has not slowed down, which means what I don't know is still much bigger than what I know. If anyone wants to discuss the music, you can email me at ranprieur at gmail.

Asian Mae - Collsing (1999 - 2004)

Officially Big Blood are not a duo but a "phantom four piece of Asian Mae, Caleb Mulkerin, Rose Philistine and Colleen Kinsella." I'm guessing that when they do overdubs in their home studio, they're more creative if they take on imaginary alternate identities. Anyway, this is a collection of Colleen's recordings before Big Blood. The only thing I really like is a pretty song called Window In Time. They were also in a band called Cerberus Shoal, whose music mostly bores me. Caleb mentioned in an interview that his previous band was unsatisfying because there were so many members that politics got in the way of creativity.

Strange Maine 11.04.06

Their first three albums were recorded at live venues in a space of less than three months, and in these early songs you can hear that Colleen and Caleb come from opposite ends of the weird folk spectrum: Colleen plays ethereal avant-garde chamber folk, while Caleb plays filthy backwoods garage folk. In a reversal of primal gender roles, she's the sky and he's the earth. Their greatness as a band comes from the integration of these two forces.

The first track, All Operations, is a huge musical leap from Window In Time, with beautiful complexity including an overdubbed vocal track. Big Blood is often called lo-fi, but it takes some technical wizardry to start with a live show and end up with two voices balanced between the left and right channels. Colleen's second song, A Quiet Lousy Roar, explodes into more voices than I can count. For a while I thought it was boring and pretentious but it blew my mind when I finally got it. Her third song, Past Time, is the only one without vocal overdubs and my big favorite. It's like an extended solo by a dreamy lounge singer in an alternate 1930's, with almost no repetition, and words that slip into incoherence among soul-splitting notes. "Guide us astray of golden threads so loose that binding me are they still." Colleen's final song, Slumber Me, rewards patient listening, with slow accordion and flute notes that are hard to distinguish from her voice. I don't want to say too much about lyrics when I could be imagining meaning in nonsense, but at least three of these four are love songs.

Caleb has three songs. A Friendly Noose will be done better as the Fire On Fire song Hangman, but this version is worth a listen for Colleen's unearthly backing vocals. She does the same kind of thing on Full Of Smoke, and I wonder if that's why both mp3's carry the Pillars of Creation space photo. Also on Full Of Smoke and on Caleb's catchy third song, Under The Concourse, Colleen sings along with him, and given the refinement of her own songs, it's surprising how much she can sound like a hillbilly.

Strange Maine 1.20.07

Sovereignty You Bitch has Colleen's hardest hitting sing-along vocals and it's Caleb's best noise rock. And if you like his voice, The Fall of Quinnisa Rose is the song where it's the most raw and beautiful.

My favorite Colleen song on this album is a cover of the Sumatran pop song Indang Pariaman. At first I dismissed it as some kind of awful Hindu temple chant, but on my third or fourth listen I suddenly got it and now it's one of the most trippy things I've ever heard. Suffer Creation is a good experiment where she layers a bunch of eerie vocal tracks, but I don't like the bass. There's also a cover of composer Erik Satie, and Handsome Son of No One is Colleen's classiest song. I imagine it being played at an elite music school in another century, but I can't tell if it's the past or the future.

Space Gallery Jan. 27, 2007 Sahara Club Jan. 28, 2007

The opener, Glory Daze, is like a demonic circus song where Colleen lets it rip in a way she has not done before. A Hole In One is also intense and interesting, and I can't get into Shrining Light but it has the most YouTube views. Sequins is one of their weirdest songs, a cover of an even more obscure song by Alex Lukashevsky.

But Caleb owns this album. By my reckoning it has his three best songs under the Big Blood name. Number three is the epic noise dirge Don't Trust The Ruin. It's like Caleb was competing with Colleen's Sequins to see who could sound more like Tom Waits, and the result is such a striking sound that they named their record company after it. It's like the soundtrack to a postapocalyptic journey through the underworld. I can't make out the whole chorus but I like to think the line is "Ever its silence is sound."

Number two is is She Said Nothing, a brilliant folk song with impressive string plucking. Caleb's lyrics, vocal melody, and singing style are all leaning toward Colleen, so I wonder if they wrote it together. And The Rise of Quinnisa Rose is almost my favorite song by anyone. Even without Colleen's contribution it's jaw-dropping songwriting, and her vocal soloing blasts through the sky to a place that no other music has touched except Song For Baltimore. Quinnisa Rose is their daughter, who was born in 2007 and would start contributing to their albums immediately if you count crying, in 2010 as a speaker, and in 2015 as a singer-songwriter.

Sew Your Wild Days Tour Vol. 1 (2007)

This is the album where Colleen goes off the rails. Next to this her earlier stuff (except The Rise Of Quinnisa Rose) sounds limited, and her later stuff is more polished but never again this free. Adversaries & Enemies is the first time she sings to strummed chords more than finger-picked notes, and the first time she holds that edge in her voice for an entire song. Vitamin C is a cover of the krautrock classic, and the primal beat seems to lead her voice to a new kind of edge, all fluttery and punchy. Don't Trust The Ruin II sounds like Joanna Newsom's ghost covering "Bela Lugosi's Dead". Other than being spooky it's nothing like Don't Trust The Ruin.

Sometimes a mediocre band will strike a vein of such creative power that they suddenly make a song on a level far above their other stuff. But what if this happens to the best band in the world? Song For Baltimore is my god. Sometimes in a dream I'll hear music that's better than any real music could possibly be, but Song For Baltimore is that good -- I'm afraid if I hear it too many times I'll wake up. Colleen's voice holds a wild beauty that I've only ever heard in intentionally bad music and the howls of coyotes. It's like a bolt of lightning that doesn't stop, and it rises to impossible heights and then higher as the low end fills with electric guitar and monk-like chanting. This is what Christmas songs are trying to be. I believe if you listen closely enough you can hear Song For Baltimore in waterfalls and the rings of Saturn. This world is shadows on a wall and Song For Baltimore is turning to see the light. I make hard decisions by asking what would Song For Baltimore do. I doubt that it references the city of Baltimore, because how could anyone dedicate this song to a real place and not move there? I think the song is about the humble glory of a well-lived life and its metaphysical context, and my crazy theory is that Baltimore is a joke name for death.

Sew Your Wild Days Tour Vol. II (2007)

The one great song, Haystack, is the ultimate realization of Colleen's birdlike multitrack vocals. Between that and following Song For Baltimore, this feels like a bookend to Big Blood's early albums. I almost said early years but we're still in 2007!

Fire On Fire: Self-titled and The Orchard (2007-2008)

Fire On Fire is a side project with both members of Big Blood and some other folks. I'm lumping their two albums together, and I don't know where they fit chronologically with the other 2007-2008 albums. Caleb's great song is Hangman. The verses alternate with an incredible blend of Colleen's voice and a luminous string tremolo, joined by high fuzz guitar like happy insects.

Colleen sings lead on a catchy song about reincarnation, Amnesia, and a bluegrassy song with great lyrics, Assanine Race. It's about social pressures and holding out for success on your own terms: "I gotta keep up with Mr. Jones, and the Devil who eats my brother's bones. When I find him I'll make him wait, as long as my very first date."

My favorite Fire On Fire song is Squeeze Box. Colleen's voice has a clarity and sweetness that is only matched by Oh Country and Go See Boats, and the choruses have a completely original sound, like doom chamber rock. She has always given her voice a good edge on the high notes, but this is a new level of edge on the lower notes, and it will be a big part of their sound to come.

The Grove (2008)

This was probably recorded before The Orchard, so Squeeze Box was a refinement of something already fully realized in The Grove Is Hotter Than An Ocean's Oven, Colleen's first great full-spectrum vocal performance, with lyrics about ecological destruction caused by human progress. It's also a good blend of Colleen's and Caleb's styles, with his clear influence in the noisy chords of the backing music.

And it's not even my favorite on the album. That's No Gravity Blues, which has just one electric guitar track, one vocal track, and no structure except that the whole thing is a buildup and resolution around the shocking note at 1:44. At first I thought it might be a stripped down version of its companion, Low Gravity Blues, but now it's obvious that Low Gravity Blues is a rocked up version of something divinely inspired. Something Brighter Than The News has a similar style and almost the same level of inspiration, plus more layers of spookiness. And In The Light Of The Moon is a pretty Caleb song on one of my favorite themes, the conflict between the world of dreams and the depressing material world, with great lyrics. "I used to be a lover from a well-oiled plan, but now I'm just loving the things I don't understand."

'Lectric 'Lashes (2008)

Another side project, a collaboration with the band Visitations. Everything is untitled, most of it is improvised, and the only thing I like is side A track 2, a super-dreamy soft-psych song.

Big Blood and The Bleedin' Hearts (2008)

The Bleedin' Hearts are three other Portland musicians who each play on four songs. One of them, Oh Country (Skin & Bones), is my third favorite of all Colleen songs, and sounds like a prettied-up Song For Baltimore: three verses, wordless wailing choruses, and music that gradually builds. Here's a video of Oh Country live. The other great song is Graceless Lady, a nine minute drone folk epic with inspired complexity in the backing music. It might be their best song for everyday listening: deep enough to keep sounding better, but not so powerful that I don't want to hear it that often. Caleb's best on this album is The Birds & The Herds, a catchy song about animals looking forward to the fall of humanity, and a great example of their two voices working together.

Already Gone I and II (2009)

On the whole double album the only thing I really like is a cover of the 80's hit She Sells Sanctuary. I love how Colleen experiments with so many vocal styles, but that means inevitably she'll try something I don't like, and The Winds House is an example. I suspect that Comin' Home Pt I was completely improvised. Breath In A Seed is one of Caleb's better songs. Beatle Bones & Smokin Stones is impressively weird. And on the psych rock instrumental Polly + The Sheep, is that an electric guitar tuned like bagpipes?

Night Terrors On The Isle Of Louis Hardin (2010)

All I hear is amateur dark ambient, and they do it better on Radio Valkyrie.

Operators & Things (2010)

A short album with some great short doom folk, South of Portland, and I love the opening solo in Lay Your Head On The Rails, but what is that instrument? Destin Rain is my number four Colleen song, and it's the only other time she uses the shock-squeak vocal style from Song For Baltimore, but here it feels less intense and more whimsical.

Dead Songs (2010)

This is their first good album not on the free music archive. The title track is their first full-on rock song, and it kicks ass. I like to close the visor and sing it when I'm riding my scooter. A Spiral Down is another tight song with great vocals. New Eyes is a quiet lazy song that continues to grow on me, with a gravelly vocal style that will not appear again until Half Light Blues. The Archivist & The Archeologist is a personal song that I can't get into, but when Colleen sings like an ordinary person about ordinary stuff, it's a reminder that when she sings like a witch about the beauty of death, that's just an artistic persona (and the best one ever).

Dark Country Magic (2010)

Big Blood's most popular album is not even in my top ten, maybe because it sounds so clean. The one great song is Creepin Crazy Time, a polished psych rock upgrade of Talking Head Pt I from Already Gone II. Colleen's other major songs, She Wander(er) and Coming Home Pt III, lean more toward Stevie Nicks than Cthulhu. And her backing vocals on the Caleb songs are barely audible -- compare Reverse Hymnal to South of Portland. They'll do the clean sound better on Double Days II.

Big Blood & The Wicked Hex (2011)

If I'd been following Big Blood from the beginning I would have gone apeshit over this album because there was no way to see it coming in terms of style or quality. The style is more rock than folk, with a strong slow beat and clear single notes in hypnotic repeating patterns. All five songs are by Colleen: Run is impeccably crafted from one guitar riff, one fuzz bass riff, and one great vocal hook, and it was their first to pass 10,000 on YouTube. I Will Love You is their heaviest song, with banshee howls over chanting and feedback. Never Let Me Go is similar to Run, not as tight but darker and weirder. Keening seems to be a lengthy vocal solo that doesn't work for me. And Water, in its own way, is her greatest performance, 14 minutes of such beauty that I forget it was made by humans and not spun by angels out of starbeams. I can't tell if it's happy or extremely sad.

Micah Blue Smaldone Split (2012)

Micah is a friend who performed on at least one of their albums. He does two songs here and they do three, and they must really like him because this is great stuff. Sister is a dirge by Caleb, and his best full-length song since 2007. Kentucky Babe is a cover of a song from 1896, with Colleen sounding more unearthly than ever. And The Queen and Her Court is her most ambitious work between Wicked Hex and Unlikely Mothers, and maybe her least weird great song. Sometimes her lyrics sound like they were improvised at the moment of recording, but these seem to have been crafted in a notebook.

Old Time Primitives (2012)

Caleb wins this album. The title track is my favorite Big Blood song without Colleen's voice, although there is a "mystery singer". His other great song, Sirens Knell, sounds like an orc anthem. Colleen has some early drafts of songs that will be perfected later. But how do they know, when they pick the title Leviathan Song Pt I, that it will be that particular song that spawns an improved part two, when it won't be recorded for another two years? I like to classify Colleen's songs by what season they sound like, and her best song on this album, Out Of Turn, has a vibe that puts it in late fall. Scroll down or click here for a month by month playlist.

Radio Valkyrie 1905-1917 (2013)

The most normal song on this album, Everything Is Improving, is still one of their weirdest songs, with heavy fuzz and Colleen singing like the queen of the underworld. I bet she was trying to match the feel of Sirens Knell. The rest of the album is spooky and ambient. Cast Iron Hand is a good example, and The Mirror Like Sea is so hypnotic that I sometimes put it on repeat when I'm falling asleep.

Fight For Your Dinner vol. I (2014)

No sign of a volume two, and this seems to be one of those albums where they throw the dregs and flotsam of their creativity against the wall and see what sticks. The title track is a dark piano ballad, and Caleb has a beautiful song about human extinction, Sick With Information. The hidden gem and most musically interesting song is You Need Then It Comes, with a distinctive high-pitched instrument complementing tight fuzz guitar and accordion. Is it just a guitar through a really good filter? Whatever it is, it sounds even better taking the lead on Twin Skin II, but Colleen's voice is too throat-expanded for my taste.

Unlikely Mothers (2014)

Their most serious album. Every song is over seven minutes and aiming high. Caleb has always sung like Neil Young, and now they're playing like Crazy Horse on It's Alright and Endless Echo. Colleen also has a heavier sound than usual. Away Pt III is thundering psych rock and my favorite thing to crank the volume and sing along. Imagine hearing it on a Jefferson Airplane album and how much better it would be. Here's a live video of Steppin' Time, which also totally rocks. Leviathan Song Pt II sounds similar to Run but with more complexity, and Colleen has never sung with this much power and clarity on the low notes. And A Watery Down II is their longest song at 15 minutes, and not long enough. It's like a sequel to their second longest song, Water, but where Water reaches through your ears and pulls your heart out, A Watery Down II is undemanding and chill, like space lounge music. If Song For Baltimore is the sound of ascending to heaven, this is the sound of hanging out there. I think the chorus is "We owe the night a dream / The tomb I lay upon."

Double Days I and II (2015)

The peak of Double Days I is a stunning cover of Black Sabbath's Planet Caravan, and there's also a good cover of Disintegration by the Cure. Double Days II has a celestial love song by Caleb, Magnetic Green, and three solid originals by Colleen. New Plan features a great spacy solo by a guest guitarist. Time Stands Still is a luminous folk song that instead of building up slowly like usual, builds up all at once. And Go See Boats is my front-runner for song of the decade. It's not half as beautiful as Water, but its beauty is more accessible, and it's perfectly catchy and hypnotic -- play it on a loud stereo and listen to the bass.

Human Adult Band split single (2015)

One dark and super-catchy song: Half Light Blues. Compare this to Past Time from 2006, where Colleen was so overflowing with creativity that she could come up with a 200 note vocal melody and use it only once. Now she and Caleb are so skilled as performers that they can stretch 13 notes into a great song and make it sound easy. If Kurt Cobain were alive he would cover this.

Appendix 1: Calendar Playlist

February - No Gravity Blues
March - All Operations
April - Adversaries & Enemies
May - Destin Rain
June - Song For Baltimore
July - Oh Country
August - Time Stands Still
September - Graceless Lady
October - The Grove Is Hotter Than An Ocean's Oven
November - Leviathan Song Pt II
December - Water
January - The Mirror Like Sea

Appendix 2: top 30 Colleen songs

Song For Baltimore
Water
Oh Country
Destin Rain
Adversaries & Enemies
No Gravity Blues
Graceless Lady
Go See Boats
Past Time
Dead Song
Away Pt III
The Grove...
A Watery Down II
Run
Leviathan Song Pt II
The Queen And Her Court
Indang Pariman
Vitamin C
All Operations
Don't Trust The Ruin II
A Quiet Lousy Roar
Half Light Blues
Squeeze Box
Everything Is Improving
Creepin Crazy Time
You Need Then It Comes
Never Let Me Go
A Spiral Down
New Eyes
Something Brighter Than The News

Appendix 3: top ten Caleb songs

The Rise of Quinnisa Rose
Hangman
She Said Nothing
Don't Trust The Ruin
Sovereignty You Bitch
Sick With Information
Old Time Primitives
Sirens Knell
South Of Portland
Magnetic Green

Appendix 4: top ten albums

Sew Your Wild Days Tour vol. 1
Big Blood and the Wicked Hex
Unlikely Mothers
Space Gallery Jan. 27, 2007 Sahara Club Jan. 28, 2007
The Grove
Strange Maine 11.04.06
Big Blood and The Bleedin' Hearts
Double Days II
Fight For Your Dinner vol. I
Dead Songs

Appendix 5: covers wishlist

R.E.M. - Belong
Gravenhurst - Black Holes In The Sand
Get Well Soon - If This Hat Is Missing I Have Gone Hunting
Neil Young - Love And Only Love
Norman Greenbaum - Spirit In The Sky
Yazoo - Winter Kills
Gordon Lightfoot - Cobwebs and Dust
R.E.M. - Underneath The Bunker
Trabant - Itt van, pedig senki se hívta
Camper Van Beethoven - Lulu Land
Chris Stamey - Something Came Over Me