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SCORCHED EARTH POLICY MIXTAPE / DIGITAL ALBUM

NOTE: THIS IS A DIGITAL-ONLY ALBUM. THERE IS NO CD VERSION CURRENTLY AVAILABLE.

Ever since his music was featured in Quentin Tarantino's film Django Unchained as well as the Discovery Channel and the National Geographic Channel, Brother Dege (AKA Dege Legg) can no longer lay claim to being "one of the best kept secrets in the Deep South." Dege is a musician, writer, workingman and heir to a long line of unusual characters born and raised in the southern U.S. Like the mad lovechild of Son House, Faulkner and Patti Smith, Legg has burned a crooked trail to the Promised Land. Avoiding traditional career paths, he has spent as much time exploring the backwoods weirdness of his home state as he has forging his own brand of incendiary, "psyouthern" roots music. The journeys are parallel. Since the late '90s, Dege has pushed slide, resonators, and the Deep South, kicking and screaming into the 21st century, melding elements of folk, Delta blues, punk, rock, metal, hippie ragas and outlaw county into one blasted, raw whole.

Following his two previous acclaimed solo efforts (2009's Folk Songs Of The American Longhair & 2013's How To Kill A Horse) Brother Dege is now set to release a unique digital mixtape entitled Scorched Earth Policy, featuring a mix of newly recorded studio songs, demos, covers and field recordings.

Dege explains the idea behind his new digital mixtape project, "I'm a big fan of southern rap culture, especially DJ Screw (Houston) and screw tapes. I love how hip-hop has bred this vibrant mixtape culture, rapping over each other's beats and songs. Some of the songs are raw and unmastered and of varying quality, but I love that."

"In no way am I trying to rap, I'm paying tribute to the culture of the modern south and mix tapes, and just applying that idea to the realm of the slide guitar, delta blues and experimentalism."

"In the modern world of Pro-tools recording, there's an overemphasis on things being perfect. Things do not have to be perfect. Much of this obsession with perfection has sucked the soul out of a lot of bands. New music can be raw and flawed - warts and all - and still releasable to the public."

ALBUM: SCORCHED EARTH POLICY
BROTHER DEGE MIXTAPE
Production: Tony Daigle and Dege Legg
Engineering: Dege Legg and Tony Daigle (drums)
Recorded at various home studios and unorthodox locations

Track List:

NEW SONGS
01 SCORCHED EARTH INTRO
02 SET IT OFF
03 THE DAY I WAS BORN
04 YELLABONE
05 TOWER OF BABEL
06 REVOLUTION

COVERS
07 SUPERNAUT (Black Sabbath from Vol. 4)
08 POWERLINE (Husker Du from New Day Rising)

SPOKEN WORD
09 THE ZATAN BOYS

DEMOS
10 JONES FOR WAR
11 SPEAKING TONGUES
12 WAY OF THE LAMB
13 HAUNTED HEART
14 BOMBS AWAY
15 FLOWER POWER CHAIN GANG
16 THE PROMISED LAND

FIELD RECORDINGS
17 OPERATION: MELLOW
18 MAMOU
19 YINNING ON A YANG


More Dege info:

Grammy-nominated Brother Dege's (Django Unchained, 2013) Scorched Earth Policy is the slamming summertime mix tape of 2014. Inspired by the scorching heat and humidity of the Deep South and the mixtape culture surrounding it, Scorched Earth Policy is a massive double album (19 tracks) that radiates all things summer: the mountain-pounding heat, swimming in the river, blasting metal riffs, road trips, falling in love, throwing down, and above all sweating under the MILEWIDESUN. Scorched Earth Policy is a Riff circus of burn burning, slide-delta blues, rock and roll, psych, and southern folk - all of it laced with some black chowder distortion, eerie slide guitars, and MORE RIFFS. Summer is about Riffing. The album includes five new songs, two covers (Black Sabbath and Husker Du), tons of demos, field recordings, and a spoken word collage. As usual, all of these tracks were recorded by Legg in odd, nontraditional places: trailerparks, warehouses, sheds, open fields, and even a pond. This is the jam, people! Double album. MFing rock & roll. 19 tracks. And more riffs than you can fit in Riffelstiltskin rucksack.

Production: Tony Daigle & Dege Legg
Engineering: Tony Daigle & Dege Legg

Instrumentation:
Dege Legg: vocals, slide, resonators, electric guitar, bass, percussion, and sounds
Howie Wells: guitar on "Day I Was Born"
Danny Devillier: drums on "Yellabone" and "Day I Was Born"
Seth Rung: bass on "Yellabone" and "Day I Was Born"
Stephen Gardner: drums on "Tower of Babel"


Full of raging, dirt-earth pounding slabs of swamp heat, haunted redemption, and bell towers of experimentation, Brother Dege's albums Folk Songs of the American Longhair, How to Kill a Horse, and Scorched Earth Policy are tour de force artworks that rage from barn burners to ancient Delta blues meditations to whirlwind slide guitar hurricanes. Like the Delta masters, it is emotion-packed, imperfect, flawed, desperate, yet insanely alive and vibrating with an X-variable hidden deep in our human core.

Avoiding pricey studios, Legg recorded his previous two albums and the newly released Scorched Earth Policy in nontraditional spaces such as sheds, old houses, warehouses, trailerparks, and open fields. Much like the field recordings of Alan Lomax, Legg's music tunnels into the ancient mysteries of pre-war blues and its devil-obsessed masters. His last three albums are quickly being heralded as the Delta-slide, millennial reboot for generations to come.


Track Notes:

SCORCHED EARTH INTRO
collage arranged and edited by Dege Legg

SET IT OFF
recorded: the warehouse and Electrick Comoland
Dege Legg: vocals, slide/resonator, bass
Danny Devillier: drums

DAY I WAS BORN (SAINTS OF OLD)
recorded: the warehouse and Electrick Comoland
Dege Legg: vocals, steel resonator
Howie Wells: guitar
Seth Rung: bass
Danny Devillier: drums

YELLABONE
recorded: warehouse and Electric Comoland
Dege Legg: vocals, steel resonator
Howie Wells: guitar
Seth Rung: bass
Danny Devillier: drums

TOWER OF BABEL
recorded: the warehouse
Dege Legg: vocals, guitars, bass
Stephen Gardner: drums

REVOLUTION
recorded: the warehouse
Dege Legg: vocals, guitars, bass
Stephen Gardner: drums

COVERS
SUPERNAUT (Black Sabbath)
recorded: the warehouse
Dege Legg, vocals, slide, guitars, bass, drums

POWERLINE (Husker Du)
recorded: the warehouse
Dege Legg, vocals, slide, guitars, bass, drums


SPOKEN WORD
THE ZATAN BOYS: spoken word reading from the Dege Legg’s book The Battle Hymn of the Good Ol’HIllbilly Zatan Boys book. Published 2000.
Recorded: the warehouse

DEMOS
JONES 4 WAR
Recorded: trailerpark
Dege Legg: vocals, slide, harmonica

SPEAKING TONGUES
Recorded: trailerpark
Dege Legg: vocals, slide, percussion

HAUNTED HEART
Recorded: Santeria Hell House
Dege Legg: vocals, slide, percussion

BOMBS AWAY
Recorded: trailerpark
Dege Legg: vocals, guitar, percussion

WAY OF THE LAMB
Recorded: trailerpark
Dege Legg: vocals, sitar-guitar, percussion

FLOWER POWER CHAIN GANG
Recorded: Youngsville, LA
Dege Legg: vocals, guitar

THE PROMISED LAND
Recorded: Santeria Hell House
Dege Legg: vocals, slide, percussion


FIELD RECORDINGS / SCAPES
OPERATION: HAVE U NEVER BEEN MELLOW
Recorded at fishing pond, 2009, Mamou, LA

MAMOU
Recorded in backwoods clearing, Mamou, Louisiana, 2010

YINNING ON A YANG
Recorded at fishing pond, 2009 Mamou

Brother Dege (AKA Dege Legg) is one of the best kept secrets in the Deep South. Legg has burned a crooked trail to the Promised Land, pushing slide Delta Blues into the 21st century, melding elements of folk, Delta blues, punk, rock, metal, hippie ragas, and outlaw county into one blasted, raw whole.

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