Review: Tan or Boil – Seamstress In A Suitcase

Originally published in Delusions of Adequacy Feb. 10, 2009

Pittsburgh is no stranger to migration. The city lost half of its residents in the years between 1950 and 2000, some of that, no doubt, due to the impact closing steel mills exerted over the region. Jason Bacasa is one of many recent émigrés. Born in Pittsburgh, he studied graphic design there before hitting the road, settling at times in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago. He now makes a home in New York. His debut record under the namesake Tan or Boil has been released by an Australian label, Preservation.

All of this, by way of introduction, is a long way of saying Seamstress in a Suitcase, the aforementioned debut, offers a surprising lack of regional context or color, given the roads Bacasa has traveled and traversed to arrive at it. Bacasa’s voice seems to betray no accents; though two songs on the 13-track disc reference Manhattan, they do little to reflect the pace or size or scope of an American metropolis. It’s a record Bacasa wrote and developed, according to his label, while working with an acoustic guitar and four-track recorder during “continual travels.” But, it is not On The Road or of the road. It is a beautiful document that seems to have come out of nowhere.

Bacasa’s often-fragile songs betray many familiar influences – the melancholy acoustics of early Leonard Cohen, maybe even singer-songwriters like Bill Callahan and Elliott Smith. But they also transcend the familiar. His delivery is, for lack of a better phrase, incredibly conscious. Each note on that acoustic guitar slips into the ear at precisely the right time and his delivery – a breathy whisper, with a frequent vibrato – is anything but off-handed. Songs like the album-opening “Take A Picture,” “Rugburn” and the beautifully titled “The Sea Undoes The City” are fragile – there’s that word again, like flower petals floating in shallow water – but they are far from falling apart.

Bacasa is aided, quite notably, by fellow Preservation artist Aaron Martin, whose duties as an accenter and multi-, multi-instrumentalist herein include electric guitar, lap steel, saw, bass, sheet metal, circus toy, ukelele and then some. His “arrangements” on the aching “Camouflage” include strings that will tear out your heart. (The strings reappear, in a more hinted form, on the record’s title track.) On “Rugburn,” Martin pairs Bacasa’s acoustic guitar, briefly, with a solitary drone; it could be a high-pitched organ, a penny whistle or a highly controlled piece of feedback. On the closing “The Gaps In My Teeth,” as the guitar line slowly unravels, he offers brushes on a snare. It’s a beautiful partnership these two have established.

If there’s one negative note to be sounded it’s that Bacasa’s voice, for some listeners, might be a hit or miss affair. He whispers his way through most of the proceedings, somewhat appropriately given the tender nature of his songs. The pulse of the record, as a result, is slow and steady, almost ethereal. But the vibrato, which Bacasa is able to unfurl without raising the volume of his voice, might be an acquired taste for some. Those who embrace it may suggest it adds a quirkiness to the record, a surreal bit of inflection that fills in colors where other singer-songwriters would let a simple whisper suffice. Those who do not might have trouble warming up to this. (It should be clear where this reviewer stands.)

There are plenty of engaging moments on the 45-minute disc but a few of the more memorable occur during “Visas, Paperwork,” track seven, which Bacasa seems to have thrown into the middle of the record, at least in part, to keep listeners on their toes. The song begins as many do, with finger-plucked acoustic guitar, solitary. But these notes hover quietly below the surface, more unassuming than much of what surrounds them, before Bacasa begins the song proper with a backing band of sorts – a carefully composed series of glitch-beats and guitar loops courtesy, we are to believe, of Martin and the Melbourne-based electronic artist Part Timer. As the song, which is genuinely catchy, nears its close, just two short minutes and change in, Bacasa offers an emotive reprise on guitar. It’s a simple but effective choice – one of many – a tender, instrumental passage that’s yet another reason why Seamstress in a Suitcase is a record to remember.

Review: Vic Chestnutt, Elf Power and The Amorphous Strums – Dark Developments

Originally published in Delusions of Adequacy Feb. 4, 2009

So, where do you want to begin? The way electric guitars scratch and scrape, building toward a verse, before Vic Chesnutt spits out the words “Well, that little fucker, he’s had enough/ The little fucker, he just can’t keep up?” Chesnutt’s voice, airy and almost far-off and distant, reciting a list of evocative, pseudo-obscure vocations as he and company shift the album-closing “Phil the Fiddler” forward with dreamy bass and sometimes-transcendent guitar, like psych-rock gurus aiming to play it a little more straight? The poppy refrains of “We Are Mean” or “Bilocating Dog,” which punctuate their sentiments with mouth trumpet solos, falsetto backing vocals, tambourine and the familiar sound of a guitar steeped in reverb? No matter where you begin – and these aren’t even the record’s finest moments — the verdict’s always the same: this nine-song collaboration among Athens, Ga. fixtures Vic Chesnutt, Elf Power and The Amorphous Strums is an accomplished one, full of great songs and definitely worth tracking down.

Dark Developments begins in anything but darkness. By way of opening, we’re treated to “Mystery,” where Chesnutt offers spare lyrics over an ambling assemblage of sometimes-glassy guitars, poppy bass and humming accordion — it’s a literary, often light-hearted kind of pop/pop-rock that surfaces throughout. It’s also an introduction to the record’s modus operandi: Chesnutt subverts his trademark folksiness and Elf Power some of their sonic weirdness to meet somewhere between as they craft an interesting hybrid of pop structures and psych-rock flourishes. (There’s not enough of a breadcrumb trail to say how The Amorphous Strums fit into the equation here, though the playing by all parties involved is more than admirable. Even the record’s press materials are silent on the Strums’ contribution.)

The record has no shortage of standouts. On “Little Fucker,” Chesnutt seems to rejoice in obscenity like a schoolboy and the resulting joy surges, uninhibited, through the song, especially on bridges where choppy guitars are let loose. The sullen “Stop the Horse,” whose lyrics offer the CD its title, and the bluesy “Mad Passion of the Stoic,” which is equally downtrodden, seem to channel Lou Reed. (Or they may tip the hat to Chesnutt’s own work on records like 2005’s Ghetto Bells.)

The aforementioned “Phil the Fiddler” hits some high marks during its early verses, all swaying guitar and 4/4-intent, but expands over the course of its seven minutes to include a lengthy and enveloping psych-rock jam. The throbbing, dance-ready bassline of “Teddy Bear” – somebody throw bassist Derek Almstead some recognition – flirts with reggae, even while those traditions are supplemented with the spacey notes of an omnichord.

One of the biggest complaints a listener might have is that, at 39 minutes, Dark Developments just doesn’t run long enough. (Or that a CD recorded, in Chesnutt’s attic, during two years should have yielded more outtakes and take-outs.)

“In the city it is grey/ In the country it is green/ In the country, we are happy/ In the city, we are mean,” Chesnutt sings near the beginning of “We Are Mean,” a pop song that could’ve been recorded by Herman’s Hermits if that group had a dark sense of humor and perhaps a little more attitude. (For urbanites taking offense, don’t worry: in the second verse, Chesnutt suggests people in the country are mean, too.) The song’s another example of how great the record is, and how unassuming it can sound in its best moments – a great combination of Chesnutt’s warm, folksy refrains and Elf Power’s more experimental chemistry. In under four minutes, “We Are Mean” shifts effortlessly between bright-eyed pop verses and choruses with grungy guitars and refrains of “We are mean! We are mean! We are mean!” Only nine songs? Mean, indeed.