Is Marc Ribot the ultimate auditory architect of Americana? His CV would certainly suggest so, for his receptive, often ground-shaking, guitar work has lifted many a recording from Tom Waits to Elvis Costello, then on through Robert Plant & Alison Krauss and beyond. He is certainly a lot less known as a vocalist, writer and solo performer, but Map of a Blue City, his latest release on New West Records is about to change all that.
Map of a Blue City is an album thirty years in the making, beginning with home recordings in the 1990s that a record label dismissed as “too dark”, but Ribot held on to these songs, or more to the point, the songs would not let go of him. Album opener Elizabeth sets the template for a record that has a topcoat of lo-fi aesthetic and yet unpacks layers of audio depth and texture; it is intuitively obvious this craftsman has put years into getting the production values spot on. Here, the gentle strumming provides a rhythmic heartbeat and a backbone from which mournful strings and a reflective lyric can flourish.
For Celia has an abundance of air and grace. It reminds me a little of the drama and tension in an M Ward ballad, the bedrock being acoustic but the overall tone still having a decidedly trebly feel with guitar lines that are expressively picked and stabbed rather than strummed. Meanwhile, the lyrics are a cornucopia of confusion, desires and trauma, with lines like “the cruellest of gods cruel inventions to make us love these bad intentions” and “it’s just romantic German bullshit, you can’t redeem yourself by weeping.” Ribot sings like a narrator excavating the deepest depths of the matter. He is similarly immersed in Say My Name wherein a mid-paced strut is accompanied by a swirling organ, piercing little wah-wah guitar interludes and a mysterious falsetto vocal that hangs around a floating melody.
Daddy’s Trip To Brazil is a slow Tropicalia that highlights Ribot’s genius in mood and motion. His sound simultaneously conjures a moment in time and a location; this is audio creation as wide-ranging aural cinema while the lyrics read like snatches from a road diary entry. The title track is maybe where the artist’s close association with Tom Waits can be more easily spotted, those suspended electric guitar chords hanging in the room with a shuddering dissonance as do, whilst the song evolves, the disorientating vocals. Death Of A Narcissist includes a higher register vocal counterpart and some colourful slide guitar sounds weaved in as audio decoration. Taken as a whole, the effect of this album is that of beauty as resistance and expression as a life force, rising out of the ashes of a bruised and beaten world.
That could not be more apparent than in the opening lines of the next tune, “where will you run when the world’s on fire?” This time, Ribot opts for an acoustic backing, complete with a fizzing guitar string sounding ever so loosely tuned, in a piece that may sound to many as referencing Woody Guthrie’s ‘This Land Is Your Land’ but it is actually a cover of the Carter Family’s 1930 original song from which Guthrie took inspiration for the melody line. Ribot rightly acknowledges that the Carter’s were ahead of the curve on climate, stating, “I added a few lyrics to make it safe for agnostics.”
The penultimate number continues the intimacy with a late-night song to the sky entitled Sometime Jailhouse Blues, a treatment of a 1949 Allen Ginsberg poem. Ribot plays the guitar like a master; few get rising runs, rides, and pronounced counterpoints out of their instrument like Ribot does here. It is nothing short of a lesson on how an acoustic ballad should be done. We end on an extended instrumental soundscape called Optimism Of The Spirit, a piece that is strong on atmosphere as noises and beats fade high then low, a deliberately challenging finish from a man whose signature is sonic profundity; every track has more going on in those grooves than can be absorbed in one listen, this is a repeater alright. Map Of A Blue City will definitely stand as Marc Ribot’s must-hear solo showcase.
Map Of A Blue City (May 23rd, 2025) New West Records
Order Map of a Blue City via Bandcamp
Tour Dates: https://www.marcribot.com/tour-dates
