Jayson Triplett is a Starkville original. An artist that makes his way living, preaching, teaching and playing his art. Better known to some by his alternate persona, Ming Donkey, Triplett has been a fixture in town for the past few years. He is a prolific artist, creating in various mediums. Arguably, Ming Donkey’s one-man band is as much performance art as it is raucous, driving roots music.
His latest release as Ming Donkey on Ultra Low Fidelity vinyl epitomizes the one man approach. Touted as “written, performed, recorded and designed one July weekend in 2009,” the album is down-home gold. The A side to this back-woods release is “Lil’ Cross-Stitch Bitch” followed up with “Waiting On The Georgia Line” on the B side. What you hear is what you get on this recording.
Triplett recorded all the sounds on the album simultaneously, including his dogs appearance on the tracks. The process Triplett used is identical to the early days of audio recording where one microphone was all that was available to catch the performances of the blues pioneers as the music of the Delta poured out of their instruments as harsh and stout as a jug of moonshine.
“I made all the sounds at once, except for those the hounds of hell — my dogs Booger and Tilly inserted themselves in the mix. Like Lomax’s field recordings, the sound is raw, real and intimate like a visit with a friend from my living room to yours,” Triplett said.
For a piece of art you can tap your foot to, this album fits the bill perfectly. You can catch Triplett out and about in Starkville in various bars shrieking and thudding his way through one of his haunting incantations.