The Foghorns: Thawing Out With Golden Ghosts

In the middle of some frozen nowhere, a man is warming up his poor raggedy ass in a cabin, sipping whiskey and dreaming of home. He'd probably feel a lot better if he could hear The Foghorns, a band that recorded much of its album New Low after a wearying trip from its Reykjavik base to Brooklyn. Wisconsin native Bart Cameron and his Icelandic pals play bluesy, folky tunes that make reliable companions in the middle of this shitball winter. It's the kind of music that tired people play best, and these folks were indeed pretty worn out by the time they started their set Thursday night at Cafe Zoma, a cozy coffee shop/venue here in Madison. Australian violinist Marisa Allen, who has a project called Bremen Town Musician, brings yet another welcome layer of melody and warmth to the band's current U.S. tour.

Bart's got plenty of stories about his move overseas, and told some in an interview for our local edition of The A.V. Club. However, the song "Golden Ghosts" (MP3) tells it much better. That version is from Olympus, a free recording of the band's going-away show in Reykjavik last year.

Odd note: The Oshkosh Northwestern, the newspaper that inspired the mockery of The Onion, did a rather crummy story on the band. A story in the UW-Oshkosh student paper is much cooler.