It’s week #2 of the Pax-Am reboot and we are treated with another digital single from Ryan Adams’s archives. This time we get a track that was dropped from early consideration for Cardinology and another track that surfaced a bit as a “foggy” video. The third track is another demo from Cardinology.

Side A is the track “Allumette” clocking in at 1:43 and according to the Ryan Adams scholars on the ryanadamsarchive.com site was listed on an early proposed tracklisting for Cardinology.

Apparently the song is in reference to the 1974 book by Tomi Ungerer titled Allumette; A Fable, with Due Respect to Hans Christian Andersen, the Grimm Brothers, and the Honorable Ambrose Bierce. The Ungerer book is a re-imagining of the Hans Christian Andersen story “The Little Match Girl” where the girl this time lives and carries out her wish.

Side B is the track “What Color Is Rain” which  showed up as a video on the old version of Ryan’s video blog, affectionately called “Foggy.”

Again we are treated to a home demo of Cardinology– this time “Go Easy.”

All three songs are 160Kbps mp3’s and there aren’t any FLAC’s or cover art.

As you might imagine this caused quite a stir on the boards since this release differred in content from the first single’s inclusion of FLAC’s. Another point that upset some was that these songs weren’t the same quality as the songs on the first single, which were ostensibly multitrack recordings that were mixed for release and these songs were sketches. But for $1.49 who should complain? All of these songs are unreleased and we’re lucky that these songs are seeing the light of day– AND Ryan is excited to release them!

Both “Allumette” and “What Color Is Rain” are relatvely short songs but sound like they might have been written about the same time– both using multitracked guitar picking and utilizing a similar drum track. According to Ryan’s retorts to the complaints he used GarageBand to record them.

Both songs are very pretty songs with Ryan singing in a soft but urgent voice. These are songs that would have fit comfortably on Easy Tiger.

Click Here to purchase Pax-Am Digital Single No. 2

Click Here to read my review of Pax-Am Digital Single No. 1