Mark Kozelek - a retrospective

July this year saw the release of Admiral Fell Promises, the third studio album of original material from Sun Kil Moon, ostensibly the front for the latest musical offerings from Mark Kozelek. This time around, Kozelek threw us all a curveball as he ditched the backing band for nothing more than a nylon-stringed classical guitar and his distinctive, multi-tracked voice.

And it’s brilliant. But how did he reach this point in his career, and how has Mark Kozelek managed to keep it together for the past 20 years or so? Is it the case that the song writing in the early years was the release on the pressure valve that we often need in life? Does the shift to writing about people and places mean that he’s comfortable with where he is now, or was that always the case?

Back in 1992, 4AD released what’s really a set of demos named Down Colorful Hill by a band called Red House Painters. Made up of Kozelek, plus Anthony Koutsos, Jerry Vessel and Gordon Mack (Koutsos, Vessel and Phil Carney still appear live with Kozelek as Sun Kil Moon) this is where the journey began. Even back in those early days, Kozelek wasn’t afraid to let a song last as long as he felt necessary. Down Colorful Hill begins with “24”, a 7 minute song about being scared of turning, yep, 24:


“so it's not loaded stadiums or ballparks
and we're not kids on swingsets on the blacktop
and i thought at fifteen that i'd have it down by sixteen
and twenty-four keeps breathing in my facelike a mad whore
and twenty-four keeps pounding at my door
like a friend you don't want to see”

The sound was, to an extent, typical of 4AD at that time as there’s something atmospheric and ethereal surrounding the melancholic (acoustic) guitar workout that the band became known for. This was followed by the 9 minutes of pain and loss titled “Medicine Bottle”, which became a template for RHP sound. From this early point it’s clear to me that Kozelek is releasing something out of himself by being this starkly confessional:

“the hurting never ends
like birthdays and old friends
we forget what is flesh blood and bone is human
turning phone lines to airlines
unwilling to face
the love is found on the inside not the outside
and like a medicine bottle
in the cabinet i'll keep you
and like a medicine bottle
in my hand i will hold you
and swallow you slowly
as to last me a lifetime...”

Whether it is a song about being in trouble with the old booze and pills, or whether it’s a metaphor for being addicted to being with a lover is something we can debate, but there’s no doubt the feelings are real.

The one minor quibble with Down Colorful Hill is that the space-y sounding production doesn’t quite fit with Kozelek’s own production values on subsequent releases but, as a statement of intent it’s quite something.






1993 saw the release of the career-defining – some might say career high – of Red House Painters, also known by the title Rollercoaster due to the sepia-toned cover art. Produced by Kozelek, it’s an album of epic ambition at 74mins in length, but more importantly it’s epic in spirit and songcraft. Again, nakedly personal lyrics are to the fore alongside beautiful folk, pop moments, the classical guitar stylings mentioned in the opening to this post and strange experimental drone/dirges like “Funhouse.” There’s breezy moments like “Grace Cathedral Park”, a personal favourite of mine, and the record also sees the first appearance of Kozelek’s long-term muse and ex-girlfriend Katy (more of which later) in, of course “Katy Song”:


“you walked awayand left a bleeding part of me
empty and bothered
watching the waterquiet in the corner
numb and falling through
without you what does my life amount to?”


Kozelek has acknowledged that this album is seen by many as a high point, but has admitted he’s not keen on revisiting the time spent recording and producing the record, with only a few songs still played live today. Clearly a difficult record to make - and listen to at times - it’s no surprise then that an artist wouldn’t particularly want to spend time with old acquaintances like that.




Only a few months passed before more songs from that recording session surfaced as Red House Painters II, or Bridge, as most people know it, again because of the artwork. It’s more of the same as found on Rollercoaster and suffers slightly for that, but we do hear a lighter touch in RHP style as found in the delightful “I Am a Rock”, a cover of the Simon & Garfunkel song, and an interesting take on “The Star Spangled Banner”.



It wasn’t until 1995 that we heard from RHP again, and the warmer, welcoming Ocean Beach, an album full of bucolic folk, but with those epic excursions Kozelek was becoming famous for. The biggest change was a drop in the drone found in songs like “Funhouse”, and the album benefits from Kozelek finding his niche behind the recording desk, and from beginning to muse on place, as found in “Brockwell Park” a paean to a night in London....without Katy?


“if the days weren't so precious
and no worlds where shorted wires had kept us
things would be better than this
there's an angel by the ocean i miss
and trips on the train
before our lives changed...”



Kozelek sings of being away from home, distracted away from the celebrations in the park, thinking of someone on another continent. “San Geronimo” is another which talks of missing someone or somewhere


“somewhere up fifteen miles
sifting through crackling vinyl
lost memories of my you
thare coming into view
between lost hills divide
quietly we sleep inside
lost summers of my youth
i spent them all with you..... weekend in san geronimo
love how the starlit skies show
weekend in san geronimo
sentiment within me glows”



While the shift to places and memory in songwriting has taken place, there’s still the personal present in the lyrics, but Kozelek’s writing on Ocean Beach seems more comfortable with addressing these issues, there’s even a small change in voice, a slight deepening of tone – he’s not 24 anymore of course.


1996’s Songs for a Blue Guitar is where we find Kozelek and co. first embracing the electric Crazy Horse-style soloing that peppers the later work of Sun Kil Moon. It’s a change in direction that no-one expected, and also saw the beginning of Kozelek’s love of cover version, reworking songs by Yes, Wings and The Cars in his own inimitable style.


This is the Kozelek that I love best, still indulging in the lovely folk music that has peppered his career but expanding into electric, heavier areas. Unfortunately, this was the last that we were to see of RHP until 2001. The restructuring of major labels and indies in the late 90s claimed a lot of casualties, and the last RHP record Old Ramon didn’t surface until 2001. By then, any momentum the band had was lost due to label machinations. It’s hard to see who is to blame – 4AD, Warners, or just the whole machine?


An RHP retrospective was released in 1999 (my first introduction to the band), but Old Ramon was worth the wait, one of those “lost classics” people talk about when discovering some dusty old tapes in a record company’s vault. It’s very much in the vein of Songs... containing the same mix of folk and Crazy Horse-ness, but with songs written for Kozelek’s cat (“Wop a Din Din) there’s certainly a lighter mood present:


“She's got big green eyes
And a long Egyptian face
She moves across the floor
At her own pace
When I'm here in bed
She'll jump up on my chest
And when we lock eyes
there's so much love I wanna cry.”


But that was it for RHP. The turn of the century saw Kozelek make a solo break for it, releasing Rock N Roll Singer. Fully embracing his love of cover versions and releasing his inner rock god, the album high points were lovingly crafted covers of three AC/DC tracks. This experiment was followed through to its natural conclusion with 2001’s release of What’s Next to the Moon, a record consisting of beautifully re-imagined Bon Scott era AC/DC tracks.

Whether this was simply clearing the decks for the next phase in Kozelek’s career, an example of someone simply having fun with their career, or an avoidance of the personal is up for debate, it seems to be an aspect of his output that has stayed the course, and it should be welcomed. Kozelek himself has said these were easiest and most fun of his records to make.


In 2002, Kozelek formed Sun Kil Moon with long time bandmate Koutsos, Tim Mooney and Geoff Stanfield. Jerry Vessel also contributes. In a way, this was RHP in all but name. Throughout Kozelek’s career he has been the one to write the songs, produce, and direct the players – it’s only where he takes it from album to album that differs. So, Kozelek makes the point that it’s only the name that really changes; even the personnel pretty much stays the same.

But 2003’s Ghosts of the Great Highway is possibly the best of Kozelek’s career to date. It’s an expansive record, layered in desert dust, electric, countrified and simply terrific. This is the point where Kozelek adds people to the places he’s always written about. Three songs are named after boxers (he’s a fan) and one after Judas Priest guitarist Glenn Tipton. This opening track, “Glenn Tipton”, veers from singing about boxers, movie stars and old school pop crooners to tales of death, murder and loss. The thunderous “Salvador Sanchez” is an album highlight, Kozelek singing of loss once more, but this time of the loss of a potentially great Mexican boxer:

“Salvador Sanchez arrived and vanished

Only twenty-three with so much speed

Owning the highway

Mexico City bred so many

But none quite like him sweet warrior

Pure magic matador.”

There are other songs of love and loss on this great album, with “Lily and Parrots” naked and forthright in the feelings it expresses:

“you are my love

i hold you above

everything and everyone

yeah everyone everyone.”

These songs are made all the more sad in retrospect due to the death of Katy, Kozelek’s muse, in 2003, lost to cancer at the age of 35. The songs on the album were written before her death, but Kozelek would address this later.

2005 saw the release of Tiny Cities, a covers record this time made entirely from Modest Mouse songs. While it’s an interesting record, it never really connects for me and seemed a stop-gap release. By this time, Kozelek had started his own record label, Calo Verde, and gave him the space and freedom to allow him to get such records out to the public.

As someone who has always written about sadness, loss, and love, Kozelek was never likely to shy away from facing up to the death of Katy. 2008’s April is the album that stands as a tribute to Katy. It’s an unflinching record that faces head-on the loss of a loved one, and Kozelek admits that he thinks of her every single day and finds memories of her on every street corner in San Francisco.

It’s not an album that I can say I “enjoy” as such, but the scope and ambition and love and passion that fills every note of every song is something to be admired and respected. It’s such a heavy – in the emotional sense – record, with only rare excursions into the full-band rock outs found on Ghosts. It opens with “Lost Verses”, and sets the tone perfectly:

“I see you well and clear

Deep in the moonlight dear

Your radiant august eyes

They are the suns that rise

They are the light that blinds

They end these lost verses.”

“Lucky Man” is a song that talks of many places, from Ohio to Spain, as if Kozelek is on a search for his lover, and ends with this:

“Woken up to this new April’s sleepy gray skies

The rain has swept the dust that left, the gutters rise

The fog it spills into the hills, crawling out East

The windows weep, beside me now though she sleeps and I

Now have I found her.”

Only to lose her, sadly. “Tonight the Sky” tells the story:

“I met my fallen Angel one last time

I promised always through me she would shine

I held her hands, I sunk into her heart

Til powers unrelenting, pulled us apart..... Tonight the skies

Are open for you

Mountains and big clouds

Divide us in two.”

It’s heartbreaking from start to end, but as Kozelek has said, “the timing was right”. It’s hard to put into words what Kozelek must have gone through to get this record out from his heart, but I can only admire him for making something which stands as a beautiful tribute to a lost love.

This brings us back to the beginning of this article. Admiral Fell Promises is a result of Mark Kozelek wanting to make a record where he sang and played as beautifully as he could. As a result, a full band sound might only have muddied the waters around him, so it was just Kozelek and his classical guitar. And what a treat that turned out to be. Each song becomes a virtuoso performance, resulting in numerous style and tempo changes – even within the same song. Again, places are to the fore, with “Alesund”, “Third and Seneca” and “Bay of Skulls” the standouts for me.

It’s much less heavy-going than April, and certainly doesn’t seem to be a particularly “sad” album. Who knows where next for Mark Kozelek? I think the song writing did keep him balanced in those early Red House Painters days, the palette got a little brighter when singing of loss and love through other people and other places, but Katy will always be with him in some form. Whether electric or folky, Kozelek is never dull, and as for whether he’s comfortable with where he is now, I’ll leave him with the last word:

“Is there anything else i could see myself doing? Not really. A few years ago, a girl in Ireland asked me. "Mark, what is your dream?" I just told her I was living it. It’s true. I'm basically living a very close version of what I was always working towards, so I can't complain.”

Album Review - Blitzen Trapper: Destroyer of the Void

Daytrotter has a lot to answer for.

Ok, so it's great to have a website where you get free downloads of live sessions from a wide variety bands, and there's nice artwork and nice things to buy. But there's always a downside. And the downside is.......folk rock.

For every great session by The Antlers, Akron/Family and Magnolia Electric, you get one from Benjy Ferree, Margot & the Nuclear So and So's (Worst. Name. Ever. What's with the mix of '&' and 'and'? Jeez.) and The 22-20s. Ok, they're not folk rock but they were rubbish trad blues-rock when they split up in 2006, and they're not any better now. In fact, they might be worse. Come on fellas, your last album wasn't even good enough to be released in your own country (according to Wiki). Know when to stop.

Anyhoo, the point was that Daytrotter are a bit top-heavy on the easygoing AM folky stuff. What is the folk rock equivalent of landfill indie? Cornfield folk? Wide open road rock? This prevalence of middle-of-the-road music seems to have infiltrated Blitzen Trapper.....

In between the release of Wild Mountain Nation and Furr, something changed with the Trapper. Out went the sci-fi sounds, the punk jams like 'Devil's A-Go-Go' and the strange prog excursions and wig-outs. In came Bob Dylan and his (The) Band, and mellow times ensued. The link? All those Daytrotter session BT laid down that were heavy on the acoustic side.

Obtusely, Destroyer of the Void does in fact begin with the conceptual, proggy title track - a rollocking good intro - but then meanders into the album equivalent of middle age. Sure, there are lovely moments such as 'The Tree' (with Alela Diane - I bet she's been on Daytrotter) but generally this floats along just so.....inoffensively.

To be fair, the execution is flawless, it's just that Blitzen Trapper are less of a band minus the psych moments. If this was a review that went with stars out of five, it would get 2-3. I hated that in magazines in my younger years. Can I really waste ten quid on a 3 star review? It could be average.....

...and this is what Destroyer of the Void is. Average.

Album Review - Mountain Man: Made the Harbor

Apparently the three woman who make up Mountain Man met at the Vermont college that's reputedly the inspiration behind the fictional college featured in Donna Tartt's The Secret History, the book that made my own first experience of university seem depressingly mundane by comparison.

It's interesting, then, that Mountain Man have made an album that creates a natural world far removed from the bricks and mortar (boards) of college life. High in some imagined Appalachians, three woman share harmonies, a sparingly plucked guitar and an eerie, echoey sound that makes me think that they must have rented the cabin next door to Justin Vernon while he was making Bon Iver's debut For Emma, Forever Ago. Turns out the natural reverb comes from the abandoned (urban) building that Made the Harbor was recorded in, a fact that jarrs against the tales of chickadee birds, herons and buffalo.

These are tales from another age, recalling Harry Smith's folk anthologies, some ancient choir singing wordless melodies to nature and the joy of womanhood. This wasn't something I picked up on at first, but alongside mother nature, there are references to children, mothers and lovers.

It's been a long time since I've heard a capella harmonies sung so beautifully, on what's a beguiling record that takes the listener away to another - calmer - world. Strangely, though, no danger lurks in these woods: these are simple songs evoking a time when oral history was something to be cherished.

One for summer nights on the back porch.

The Wooden Birds

Having placed American Analog Set at number two in the list of songs in my previous post, I decided to see what the band was up to.....turns out, not very much.

While it's a shame that a great band doesn't appear to want to make music together right now, de facto band leader Andrew Kenny does have another project on the go - The Wooden Birds.

Kenny's touch is instantly recognisable with The Wooden Birds; the gently - sometimes driving - metronomic rhythms of AmAnSet are present, but there's a more folky feel replacing the comforting synth hum of that band's work.

I'm not sure if they'll have a place in my heart alongside AmAnSet, but if anyone is missing the engaging songwriting of Andrew Kenny then they can find some solace in this:

http://www.thewoodenbirds.com/media.html

Ten for Today

Apologies for the lack of recent posts - sunshine and the World Cup have taken precedent!

Anyway, here's ten songs that I've listened to today on my iPod whilst out in the sunshine:

1.Broken Social Scene - World Sick
2.American Analog Set - First of Four
3. Rare Earth - Get Ready
4.Love is All - Spinning and Scratching
5.Four Tet - Harmony One
6.Secret Machines - Lightning Blue Eyes
7.M Ward - Sad, Sad Song
8.Galaxie 500 - Jerome
9.R.E.M - Swan Swan H (acoustic)
10.The Ruby Suns - Trepidation, Pt.1

Here's a preview of what's to come on the blog: reviews of the latest releases from Blitzen Trapper, Mountain Man and Local Natives. The latter isn't particularly new, but it's new to me!

It's Hard To Be Humble When You're From Alabama

Last night, in the Captain's Rest in Glasgow, magic happened.

Phosphorescent played at the venue for what I count as being the third time in as many years. In a sweltering basement, Matthew Houck and his band played a set heavy with songs from new album Here's To Taking It Easy, plus some ecstatically received classic from earlier albums.

It's comforting to report that as well as being a talented musician, Matthew Houck is an all-round good egg, full of southern charm and generosity. He kindly allowed a ticketless friend of mine into the sold-out gig, which was greeted with a proposal of marriage. I've yet to hear if this proposal was accepted.

Before we get to the actual gig, it's worth mentioning support band Forest Fire. They were a marvellous surprise, a band with nods to 70s country rock, Smog, Jason Molina and Kingsbury Manx. Worth checking out, even just for the incredible moustaches.

On, then, to Phosphorescent. The new songs translated brilliantly to a live setting, it's clear that this band love playing with each other, transforming the album tracks into country classics worthy of a place at the Grand Ole Opry. However, it's the well-worn Phosphorescent tracks that always leave me breathless.

I will never, ever, tire of hearing 'Wolves', 'Joe Tex, These Taming Blues...', 'A Picture of Our Torn Up Praise' and gig standout 'Dead Heart', which morphed into a Crazy Horse style rocker to end the night in curfew-breaking style.

There was still room, earlier in the night, mind, to fit in a couple of Willie Nelson standards, as finely crooned as they were on 2009's To Willie.

This was absolutely worth braving the heat, sweat, and general airlessness of the Captain's Rest on a Friday night. A beautiful gig by a beautiful man.

Stag and Dagger, Glasgow

So, ten quid gets you a bunch of bands and a lot of free rum these days.

Vice magazine's one-dayer returned to Glasgow for another year bringing with it a mixture of big (ish) names, up-and-comers and some local talent. First up for me were Erland and the Carnival. This bunch of young 'uns got things started at ABC2 with a mix of The Coral fronted by Neil Hannon - harmless enough, but tarnished slightly by a touch of the "funky drummers."

Upstairs in the main hall, much, much better was to follow. Having witnessed The Antlers parade their fragile beauty at the living room sized 13th Note a few months back, it was always going to be interesting to see how they'd cope in a bigger space. I needn't have worried. The songs that make up the Hospice album became stadium-rock (in a way that The National are, not say, for example, U2 or Keane) but still managed to move the audience. This is a band destined for greater things.

There are so many things about Wild Beasts that are intrinsically wrong - the denim waistcoats, the bad moustaches, the 80s suit jackets and the guitars and bass being held in that Level 42 too-far-up-the-body way. Having said this, they seem a band perfectly suited for the big stage. It was a terrific set from a genuinely unique indie band, with Hayden Thorpe's incredible falsetto stealing the show - as always.

A quick dash up an unnecessarily steep hill to The Art School allowed us to catch one brilliant song from Egyptian Hip Hop. Despite the name, this was Sonic Youth style art rock, played by what looked like a bunch of 14-year olds.

Another dash down the hill, and fifteen minutes of the usual Mary Chain/New Order played at ear bleeding volume from A Place to Bury Strangers. It can sometimes appear derivative, but the experience of guitars, dry ice and noise really is enjoyable.

Another band, another hill. I wish I had seen more of the set from Titus Andronicus, because what I saw was terrific. They're like what The Pogues would have sounded like if they were on Dischord records. Sloganeering, riffs, shouting and the sight of a band having a real good time.

Finally, Sleigh Bells. One word for this - loud. Jackhammer riffs and electro beats (think Steve Albini messing around with mid temp hip hop and dance records) married to the singing, chanting and screaming of the absolute star in the making and focal point, Alexis Krauss. It shouldn't work, but it does. It doesn't sound to me like anything else out there right now, and it's a visceral treat. How convenient then, that the duo's debut album is called Treats.

A fine way to end the evening. See you in 2011.