Turnstyles & Junkpiles
Originally released in 1998, Turnstyles & Junkpiles was the debut album from Pullman. The vinyl edition has been out of print for well over a decade. This 2015 re-issue for Record Store Day is pressed on virgin vinyl and presented in a jacket that fully replicates the original art. Included for the first time is a free download card. For this album Pullman was Doug McCombs (Tortoise, Eleventh Dream Day, Brokeback), Bundy K. Brown (Tortoise, Directions In Music), Chris Brokaw (Come, Codeine), and Curtis Harvey (Rex). Dave Pajo (Slint, Tortoise) also makes a guest appearance.
Limited to 1,000 copies worldwide
Pullman is an acoustic quartet featuring Bundy K. Brown of Directions in Music, Curtis Harvey of Rex, Chris Brokaw of Come, and Douglas McCombs of Tortoise and Eleventh Dream Day. Although the members of Pullman are based in three different cities, (McCombs & Brown in Chicago, Harvey in New York, and Brokaw in Boston) the union came out of years of collaboration. Brown played on Rex's album, C, and Come's, Near Life Experience, both Harvey and Brown are in Loftus, McCombs and Brown were founding members of Tortoise, and Harvey and Brokaw are long time friends who have been collaborating in kitchen for years. Pullman came together through a common desire to explore instrumental acoustic music; an exploration that had no room for development in their other musical outlets. Each individual had compositions for such a project dating back to 1993.
Turnstyles & Junkpiles was recorded in 4 days of 1997 in Brown's Chicago loft using two AKG 451eb microphones and recorded live to 2 track. The songs were written by the different individuals of the group specifically for this project. Parts were added or edited with the focus on retaining the spirit of the song as they were originally presented. The continuity of the record speaks to the shared history amongst the members and their belief that instrumental music can be lyrical. The melody and counter- melodies provide a natural swing and one hears the instruments, unaffected in the live mix, as if you were actually there. Instruments used during the recording of Turnstyles and Junkpiles were Acoustic Guitars, Acoustic Bass, Classical Guitar, Irish Bazouki, and Dobro.
While it's impossible to ignore the influence of John Fahey on their music, Pullman draw upon the influence of a variety of performers, fingerstyle and otherwise: Nick Drake, Leo Kottke, Ry Cooder, Bhrij Khabra, VM Bhatt, Bola Sete, King S. Ade, Wes Montgomery, Jim Hall, Steve Tibbetts, Robbie Basho, Peter Laing, Duane Allman, Dickie Betts, Doc Watson, Richard Thompson, and even Jimmy Page. The length of this list only speaks to the passion of Pullman for acoustic music.
