Monday, March 16, 2009

Jandek cont'd


Jandek - Glasgow Monday (The Cell) This is probably the loveliest of Jandek's CD's, though until he sings you wouldn't recognize it as one. He plays simple, sweet piano figures throughout most of it as Richard Youngs and Alex Nielson fill out the gaps with sympathetic drones on bass and percussion respectively. It was recorded on teh occassion of his third live performance, back when tere was still some rumor that this was a hoax. Youngs and Neilson would make a dog barking at a cement mixer sound elegant, and possiblty have at some point on a limited edition CD-R somewhere. This album is a little like if a Leonard Cohen album took too much laudnum and cooed back at you from the brink of implosion. Here he sounds transfixed in wonder: "What.... do.... I... Have....? Some... semblance .... of...my... body.... an overview.... of... my .... mind " like a Beckett character trapped in mud or an urn or something caught during a fleeting moment of rapture.
The Dirty Projectors - Slaves' Graves & Ballads (lala) The Cell reminds me of this album a little, if more elemental/skeletal depending on how you look at things, than anything the Dirty Projectors would do.

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