Purgatory Hill

Wisconsin's Pat MacDonald is best known for his old band Timbuk 3's offbeat 1986 hit song "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades," and in his latest project, Purgatory Hill, he cranks Timbuk's bluesy leanings hard in the direction of the sizzling, gutbucket North Mississippi sound defined by R.L. Burnside and the Fat Possum stable. On Purgatory Hill's 2009 self-titled debut disc, the duo lays down some seriously swampy and electrifying riffs, armed with nuts-and-bolts instrumentation perfect for its stripped-down, amped-up approach to alt-blues—a tambourine, a stompbox, and a hand-built Lowebow guitar made out of a cigar box and two wooden rods.

Updated 01/13/2010