release date: May 11, 2018
format: 2 cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,62]
producer: Mark Kozelek
label: Caldo Verde - nationality: USA
Track highlights: Disc 1) 1. "This Is My Town" - 2. "Live in Chicago - 3. "The Mark Kozelek Museum" - 4. "My Love for You Is Undying" - 5. "Weed Wacker" - 6. "Sublime"
Disc 2) 1. "Good Nostalgia" - 2. "666 Post" - 5. "I Cried During Wall Street"
Solo album by Mark Kozelek following the ep Night Talks (Mar. 2017) but this is only when counting pure Kozelek releases 'cause in between these two, Kozelek has issued two collaboration albums: Yellow Kitchen (Jun. 2017) together with Sean Yeaton (bassist in noise folk band Parquet Courts) and Mark Kozelek with Ben Boye and Jim White (Oct. 2017) - Boye has performed on several albums by Kozelek (often when performing as Sun Kil Moon) and Australian drummer Jim White (who has a long history as sessions musicians for e.g. Cat Power, Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, and Martha Wainwright), White also plays drums on the Yellow Kitchen album. This album consists of 11 tracks. It comes as an 11 track digital album, a 2 CD issue, and as a 2 lp vinyl issue, all with a total running length of more than 88 minutes.
Kozelek continues his flow of releases, which has been an ongoing production in the fast lane for most of a decade. He has issued an abundance of releases either using his birthname, his moniker Sun Kil Moon, or he has been engaged in various collaboration projects with a long list of others with different musical background. The common denominator is, however, Kozelek's songwriting - it's primarily long compositions, varying in length from typically 4 to 15 mins and characterised by drone-like or progressive backing, which at times, and especially when referring to his latest works, are pure improvs. Also his lyrics. Kozelek has taken a move away from written material to compositions which are pure streams of consciousness. A negative response to this labels some of his albums as 'babbling', and then others appreciate his original style. The thing is, when listening attentively to his narrations, there are always funny aspects and if you accept the style and forget that lyrics should be sung - Kozelek often just rambles along like reading aloud from diary notes mixed with journals or news paper articles, and he always takes a strating point in experienced episodes - but this may take him far. He has certain preferred subjects, which include boxing, music, drinking, authors, films and actors, and then he also talks explicitly about sex, and a constant here are his everday life experiences of ordinary things like shopping, meeting people ion the street, discusssions with someone about life or death or just about who's right and who's wrong, and then: descriptions of the road, the apartment, where he finds himself, seing cats or dogs, about forgetting, about remembering something important / not really important, about what he thinks of this or that song, this or that album. It's like listening to someone talking about everything and nothing. But. That can be a fascinating journey, and that's what I have come to enjoy about Kozelek: he's a great narrator.
It has taken me quite some time to get accustomed to Kozelek's change of style going from distinct alt. folk with bonds to americana and indie folk and / or indie rock to this modern expression of his, which at first could sound like he's not really making any efforts anymore. But I mostly just enjoy his sometimes hilarious observations, and I have come to see it more in line with other types of artistic advancement. Think of the progression of style by Picasso - imagine the sublime painter, who was fully capable of producing natural / photo-like and detailed sceneries, and then he went through stages with surrealism, developing cubism and a freer form of new-cubism - fra from his starting point. Now, Kozelek is no Picasso, and the comparison may seem ridiculous, but Kozelek too has gone his own ways in forming a new musical style based on improvs in a scenery of spoken-word arrangements. Like it or not, but this is his prefered expression at this point in a long career.
Recommended.
