J. Tillman || Watch || Listen
Carving out a darkly brooding persona with roots in Neil Young's early '70s output, Richard Buckner's elliptical Americana, Nick Drake balladry, and assorted, harder-to-pinpoint gospel, country, blues, and folk idioms, Tillman’s two most recent solo long-players—Cancer and Delirium (2007) and Minor Works (2006)—are packed with memorable songs. Often built upon the simplest, ingratiating musical maneuvers--like the little stair-step acoustic guitar on Minor Works' "Crooked Roof"--Tillman's songs rarely hew to the literal, instead deftly navigating allegory and alienation, the occasional revelation stacked against heaps of melancholy. On Vacilando (so named from the Spanish term, indicating a wanderer for whom the experience of travel is more important than the reaching of a destination), though, he strips away his tendency for over-production, resulting in a more focused, refined approach. Tillman's cavernous vocal range, all texture and nuance, is front and center; meanwhile, a wise-beyond-his-years lyrical depth that, one fathoms, springs from (or, more accurately, is a reaction to) his restrictive religious upbringing, results in pithy imagery, i.e., "Suffering doesn't know God's name (from "New Imperial Grand Blues") or, from the album's opening salvo, "All that you see, you have dominion/All you don't know, you are forbidden." The record's insistently bleak tone threatens to tilt into claustrophobia at times, but Tillman winningly subverts expectations. The striking full-band cut, “Steel on Steel,” with delicious French horn/pedal steel interplay and Fleet Fox Casey Wescott on keyboards, melds agonizing romantic heartbreak to an epiphany on life's ephemeral nature. It's a leftfield instant pop classic, Tillman winding his silkiest vocal around the song's glistening melody. "New Imperial Grand Blues," in contrast, is a pulsating rocker, a jarring peek into the Crazy Horse side of Tillman's brain. It’s a bone-rattling blues called “Master’s House”, however, that best embodies Tillman’s talent: “How easily the heart of man is tamed” he surmises, over the music, his quivering, floating tenor gaining a steady, stoic determination. It’s an explosive assessment, with implications reverberating into personal, spiritual, even geopolitical realms. Tillman’s own spirit, meanwhile, you suspect will be tough to quell. - Uncut
With:
Evan Way (Parson Red Heads)
Big Search (Foreign Born, Fool's Gold, Glasser)
All Ages