A good way to start an endless argument is to ask a group of people what their favorite track is on a well loved record; say, "I am the Cosmos" or "Odyssey and Oracle" or "American Beauty", because of course everyone thinks a different song. Hearing one guy argue for "Still Ill" while the other guy insists "Suffer Little Children" is one of the more pointless and interminable ways to spend your time but it does signal an important thing: how brilliant the record actually is. Because while everyone loves "that first jam" on Karen Dalton's "In My Own Time" you can't get two people to agree on the the best song on "It's So Hard to Tell..." because one is a good record and the other is a great record.
I had a really difficult time choosing what song to talk about from "The Sky Behind the Sea". All nine songs have similar elements: Mike's reflective vocal glide; shaded, underplayed arrangements; engaging, story-rich lyrics. But each one had an individual appeal as well: the insistent creep of "Forever a Failure"; the overwhelmed, thunderstorm piano/vocal duet of "The Enemies of My Enemies Hate Me Too"; the jolting surprise of the last minute of "Pope John Paul." I couldn't believe how completely the album version of "Love's Not Yours" rivalled the stark trauma of its live performance, and at the same time was dumbfounded at the studio-experiment success of "Town Crier." But it's the striking balance between the poetic exactness and blithe musical ease of "Do You Wish I Left?" that I keep returning to.
Structurally, "Do You Wish I Left?" is both tidy and complete in a way that feels closer to a poem than a song. There are a few recurring images - hands/arms, the approach of closed doors, pennies - that guide the narrative with an artfulness that develops characters, establishes relationships, and wails out the climax with an incredible economy of words. The difference between "still I beat my knuckles upon his door" and "he scraped his fingers across my door" immediately illustrates the edgy disquiet of the former and the bad-touch darkness of the latter,
without explicitly saying either. It's a much more visually engaging creation with a sparseness that perfectly complements the musical direction.
As an album, "The Sky Behind the Sea" is careful, deep-breathing, with so much empty space, but then it's never underplayed or bleak. Each note carries so much weight, engaging the same chain of suggestion and reference as each word. So when the strings come in halfway through "Do You Wish" at the same time as Mike sings "models and wealthy men" there's the easy connection to be made between the richness of the violins and the characters, but there's also a heavier impact: the balance between really gritty,graspable images and these grander, more cinematic images, no different than the balance between the stark honesty of a voice and a guitar and the romantic evocation of orchestras and session men. And the seams are nowhere to be found.
Of all the things I like about "The Sky Behind the Sea" the quality I keep returning to most is its dignity. Even when the characters are at their most abject and the behaviors so rough Mike maintains this very classic, upright pose. I'm hesitant to place his record in or against any historical trajectory, but it's hard not to consider the unique space he occupies amidst the dejection of confessional songwriters, the flawed sincerity of nostalgic bands or the embarrassing maudlin of all the brooding, eccentric post-Talking Heads groups of today. His stories are as severe and blood-draining as the first type, as aware and respectful of their musical lineage as the second type, and as crafted and stirring as the third without carrying
any of their flaws. And while this victory owes the most to sheer talent, it's most easily located in his posture, in the inherent virtue of his voice and the warm sobriety of his songs.
Mike Bones is on the west coast NOW!
November 7th at The Hemlock Tavern in San Francisco, CA (with Jack Rose and MV/EE)
November 8th at 21 Grand in Oakland, CA (with Jack Rose and Colossal Yes)
November 11th at The Echo in Los Angeles, CA (with Douglas Armour)
November 12th at Pappy and Harriet's in Pioneertown, CA
(endnotes)
two exciting things to do this week:
-buy the new BURIAL CD "Untrue" the 100-second long track "UK" is as happy as a song can make a person
-download the new Cam'ron mixtape, there's a song that samples Prince's "Starfish and Coffee."
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