Danny Kroha Solo Album has Field Recording Vibe

The Detroit-based minimal garage rock trio the Gories was one of our favorite garage acts to come out of the Motor City in the ’80s.

Now, Gories singer-guitarist Danny Kroha just announced he’ll release his sophomore solo album, Detroit Blues, on Feb. 5 via Third Man Records. Limited edition turquoise vinyl will be available at TMR storefronts and select indie stores.

Kroha just issued a video for the first single, “Poor Howard.”

The album features Kroha’s interpretations of traditional folk, blues and gospel songs from the public domain, created with an assortment of anachronistic DIY instruments like the one-string washtub bass, jug bass and the Diddley Bow.

It could be considered part two of his debut solo LP, Angels Watching Over Me. 

 “It was me in a room playing acoustic instruments and doing my own arrangements of some old songs,” Kroha says. 

On many of these traditional songs, Kroha dropped, added or rearranged verses from various sources, mixing up music from one song and words from another creating his own amalgamation of early blues and country. There’s a DIY one-string washtub bass made from a fire snake rail-heater that can found on some railroad tracks. There’s also lots of the kind of jug bass, frequently heard in early rural American music.

“Kroha mixed up all the traditions and kicked out a new old sound that could really only happen in Detroit,” as it’s put in the press release.

“I listen to both genres, for sure,” Kroha says. “I just wasn’t trying to make a record that sounds like that. It just came out more like a field recording than a studio recording.”