Sun Kil Moon, Ghosts of the Great Highway (Jetset Records)
Ghosts of the Great Highway, the debut album from Mark Kozelek's new band Sun Kil Moon, opens with Kozelek singing beautifully over acoustic guitar, "Cassius Clay was hated more than Sonny Liston/some liked K.K. Downing more than Glenn Tipton/some like Jim Nabors, some Bobby Vinton/I like em all." Writing a John Denver-ish country-folk song about which boxer or Judas Priest guitarist you prefer might seem a bit unusual, but Kozelek's always been his own man, whether working through 10-plus minute electric guitar drones with the Red House Painters or playing quiet, gentle covers of AC/DC songs under his own name. That individuality combine with songwriting skill and a beautiful voice to make Kozelek one of a kind. His songs have an immediacy that's hard to describe and impossible to replicate. That opening song named after the Judas Priest guitarist ("Glenn Tipton") ends up being about so many things, from father-son bonding to what vanishes from the world when someone you know dies. His songs are surprising in the way, in how they wind their way around your heart even when he's singing about something small or unknown. Whether they're playing a gentle, introspective folk song ("Last Tide"), getting their Crazy Horse ya-yas out ("Salvador Sanchez"), or doing some variation of the two (the catchy rocker "Lily and Parrots," the 15-minute slow dream that is "Duk Koo Kim," or the gorgeous instrumental "Si Paloma"), Sun Kil Moon pulls you into their world and captivates you entirely. In that respect, Ghosts of the Great Highway is as alluring as anything Kozelek has done. It's one of those albums that grows in depth and significance each time you hear it.
Upstate, Missing: The Official Soundtrack (Friendly Psychics Music)
Upstate's 5-song CD Missing is billed as "the official soundtrack" to "a Joe Bargdill film" of the same name. Perhaps it is, but I'm not ready to dismiss the idea that the film doesn't exist at all. For while the CD art would make you think that Missing's a crime film about guns and heists and whatnot, featuring a gang of tough guys, the sullen indie-rock songs on the CD sound more like the soundtrack to lost love than to a would-be Mean Streets or Dragnet. "I don't understand your tactics," the first song begins, and all of the songs exude that feeling of being in the dark about what somebody else is up to. An ear-pleasing mix of acoustic and electric guitars send a delicate note of hope, while vocals that recall Lou Barlow at his most serious give everything an air of hopelessness. But then again, the CD's palpable sense of mystery does fit in with the suspense film notion. The more I listen to Missing the more I think that either it is indeed the soundtrack to a crime film or Upstate are out to bring some genuine pain to the indie-label world. "Should we bring his neck/wouldn't that be fun," goes a line in "Immune Like Me." If I were a would-be rock star, I'd watch my back.
Issue 18, December 2003