Bonnie “Prince” Billy
Sings Greatest Palace Hits
Drag City
Whatever your take on an artist re-doing his own material, one thing this collection confirms: Will Oldham has completely disappeared up Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s ass.
Whether Oldham’s getting the mail forwarded is debatable — last year’s folksy Master and Everyone suggests the artist-formerly-known-as-Palace still has minimalist pictures left to paint. But your relationship with this collection depends on your devotion to Palace’s warbling lo-fi and Oldham’s Appalachian Hillbilly persona (which, from the tropical cover painting and tray-case photo has morphed into Hawaiian Hayseed).
There will be the usual Luddites who snip at BPB’s shiny sound and pitch a fit because he recruited some of Nashville’s most expensive hired guns — drummer Eddie Bayers, Hargus “Pig” Robbins (piano) and Stuart Duncan (fiddle) — to gussy up the Palace songs and make “em real purty (which they surely did).
On the other hand, Oldham battles the notion that he’s not serious enough to be taken, well, seriously. The multiple identities thing doesn’t help, nor the persnickety ‘tude. But that’s got squat to do with the music. Aside from the tongue-in-bearded-cheek title, there’s nothing remotely “jokey” about this collection.
Oldham has recorded some of the most honest, affecting and adult (either “adult” definition will often do) songs of the last decade, be he Palace or “Prince.” “You Will Miss Me When I Burn,” “More Brother Rides,” “Gulf Shores,” and “Ohio River Boat Song” could be played on tuba and triangle and still transcend. Sure, one or two tunes don’t make the transition well, but these were the runts anyway: “I Am a Cinematographer” and “I Send My Love to You.” The rest are just reconfigured but equally engaging takes on essential Palace songs; that in and of itself validates this undertaking.
But is it really country? Hell, a Stetson-full of Nashvegas superstars or barrooms of alt.country wannabes aren’t any more authentic. Truth is, these songs were homespun when they crawled from the hills, muddy river crossings and mining camps of Oldham’s Palatial imagination; they still are, even with a nice new gloss of Bonnie “Prince” on them.
Track to burn: “More Brother Rides”
Grade: A-–John Schacht
Preston School of Industry
Monsoon
Merge
Whereas Preston School of Industry’s debut, All This Sounds Gas, was his dizzy post-operative response to Pavement’s salty dissolution — Spiral Stairs, the lobotomized secretary to Steven Malkmus’ conceit, would have you believe Monsoon is the baptismal of Scott Kannberg the solo artist. Unfortunately, even with members of Wilco and The Minus 5 in attendance, the soiree drags. Charming, but never arresting, the album proves to be an assembly line of derivative, country-washed jangle pop wrought under the calibrated pretense of linearity. In essence, the guy’s on autopilot.
Even the more inspired moments, such as the catchy “Walk of a Gurl” and the delightfully crestfallen mandolin breakdown of “Tone It Down,” don’t break the spell of moderation, despite all his attempts to deftly weave slide, electric, and acoustic guitars in and out of stock drum clips and weary bass lines. The songs all blend together without so much as a drowning man’s gurgle, and it’s just this lack of distinction that consistently grounds the effort. Thusly, while a good chunk of Malkmus’ solo work has served as Neosporin for those most affected by Pavement’s evaporation, Kannberg clumsily continues to cast salt on the wound.
Track to burn: “Walk of a Gurl”
Grade: C–William Morris
Ativin
Night Mute
Secretly Canadian
Ativin probe dirges and sound loops where dissonance rears its head at unlikely junctures. Night Mute is a mostly instrumental recording where subtle, single-note repetition can be as jarring as a blast of feedback. The trio doesn’t get bogged down in sound manipulation and retains a sense of melody. Drummer Mark Rice has obviously listened to a lot of jazz, as he doesn’t pound the drums so much as coax them through the guitar lines. Guitarists and songwriters Dan Burton and Chris Carothers merge the dual guitars with the percussion using that same technique; they do a chilling cover of Love and Rockets’ “The Game.” The rest of the record consists of somber originals that avoid excessive gloom, although the 2-minute track “Endless” will amplify anxious moments. Ativin resemble a more ambient version of the defunct Athens’ band Harvey Milk, mixed with a little Durutti Column. The vocals offer whispered and mostly non-decipherable lyrics, but one can imagine the dark alleys from which they emerge. Night Mute is like a recurring dream filled with unease, but somehow optimism surfaces in the end. The opener “Night Terror” is full of omens; the closer asks the listener to “Sleep Well.” I’ll try.
Track to burn: “The Game”
Grade: A-–Samir Shukla
This article appears in Mar 10-16, 2004.
