{"id":434,"date":"2010-02-04T09:03:53","date_gmt":"2010-02-04T15:03:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=434"},"modified":"2010-02-04T09:03:53","modified_gmt":"2010-02-04T15:03:53","slug":"review-half-handed-cloud-cut-me-down-and-count-my-rings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2010\/02\/04\/review-half-handed-cloud-cut-me-down-and-count-my-rings\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Half-Handed Cloud &#8211; Cut Me Down and Count My Rings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-436\" title=\"half-handed-cloud\" src=\"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/half-handed-cloud.jpg\" alt=\"half-handed-cloud\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" \/>HALF-HANDED CLOUD<br \/>\n<em>Cut Me Down &amp; Count My Rings<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\nOne thing you can say about John Ringhofer (a.k.a. Half-Handed Cloud) is he\u2019s never short on ideas. Falling somewhere in between the sing-songy evangelical pop of Danielson and the lo-fi inventiveness of Guided by Voices\u2019 Robert Pollard, this collection of rarities, singles, and B-sides, is comprised of 46 tracks, taken from the 17 non-album releases Ringhofer produced between \u201900 and \u201909. From the somewhat cringe-worthy \u201cShepherd\u201d songs of his <em>I\u2019m So Sheepy<\/em> EP to the confident B-sides from 2006\u2019s <em>Halos &amp; Lassos<\/em>, this album gives listeners a sense of Ringhofer\u2019s development as a songwriter. Each song grouping is explained in detail by Ringhofer in the album\u2019s liner notes. Although this album presents a wide breadth of material, a few things remain consistent: the immature wonder of Ringhofer\u2019s overtly Christian lyrics, a lo-fi approach combined with more ambitious arrangements, and a commitment to melody and brevity\u2014apart from a couple tracks, these songs all range between one and two and a half minutes. <em>Cut Me Down &amp; Count My Rings<\/em> isn\u2019t the easiest album to digest, but for fans of Ringhofer\u2019s prolific output, this retrospective collection is thoughtfully compiled and beautifully presented. (Asthmatic Kitty, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.asthmatickitty.com\">www.asthmatickitty.com<\/a>) <strong>Jonathan Dyck<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HALF-HANDED CLOUD Cut Me Down &amp; Count My Rings One thing you can say about John Ringhofer (a.k.a. Half-Handed Cloud) is he\u2019s never short on ideas. Falling somewhere in between the sing-songy evangelical pop of Danielson and the lo-fi inventiveness of Guided by Voices\u2019 Robert Pollard, this collection of rarities, singles, and B-sides, is comprised [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[415],"class_list":["post-434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-half-handed-cloud"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}