As a singer, Tweedy patrols the trunk road between regret and resilience. Straight-legged sincerity, when he chooses to use it, is a good look: see the thankful love song “Even I Can See”. Tweedy is probably more instinctively comfortable undermining himself, as on the countrified “Natural Disaster”. That song’s image of “a lightning bolt punch a bird right out of the sky” may be a nod to the sudden death of a flamingo in Charles Portis’s book The Dog Of The South. On a further literary note, Tweedy’s pal, author George Saunders, provides a couple of lines to the sprightly “A Robin Or A Wren”, a song that manages to roll together romantic devotion, love of life, fear of death, and a playful suggestion of reincarnation. Saunders’ lines are about “the end of the end of this beautiful dream”. Tweedy, with his unerring ability to find himself while getting lost, ushers in a conclusion that is happy and sad, with hope kept aflame by his faith in the power of song.
(Dawn Landes, Uncut, December 2020)
Jeff Tweedy – „Guess Again“ (Official Lyric Video)
Das sind ein paar sinnige, abschliessende Sätze, die Dawn Landes über „Love Is The King“ geschrieben hat. Jeff Tweedy ist ungefähr so hyperkreativ wie Wayne Coyne von den Flaming Lips. Gerade ist Tweedys Buch über die kleinen Geheimnisse des Songschreibens erschienen, und das neue Album lässt auch nicht mehr lange auf sich warten. In den nächsten Klanghorizonten wird es auf jeden Fall auftauchen (oh, hoppla, das Teil erscheint erst im Januar 2021), die es im Dezember gleich zweimal geben soll. Postscriptum: The two close-up hours read like old hats, but, believe me, surprises are part of the game!
Klanghorizonte 19.12.: Neuland: Elena Duni, Ian William Craig, Hen Ogledd, Lambchop, Dino Saluzzi u.a. / Nahaufnahme: „Das Private und das Politische – Das Künstlerehepaar Robert Wyatt & Alfie Benge“ / Zeitreise: Bernard Hermann, Ran Blake, Al Green u.a.
Klanghorizonte 26.12.: Neuland: Jahresrückblick 2020, mit Jon Hassell, Tony Allen, Michel Benita u.a. / Nahaufnahme: „Die Soundtracks von Brian Eno für imaginäre und reale Filme“ * / Zeitreise: Herausragende Wiederveröffentlichungen und Ausgrabungen 2020, mit Thelonious Monk, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Terje Rypdal (Descendre, 1979), Beverly Glenn Copeland u.a.
* For a man as forward looking as Brian Eno, lately his back catalogue has been brought into focus. After the Installations boxset and the half-speed remasters of his solo albums comes this 17-track collection of film compositions spanning 40-plus years. What this compilation reminds us is how wide an audience his film music reaches – for every Arena documentary or Derek Jarman film he’s soundtracked, you’ll also find contributions to Trainspotting, Dune or Married To The Mob. At one point, I misread the tracklisting and thought he’d written music for Cool Runnings – which, weirdly, wouldn’t surprise me. As it is, of course, the standard is uniformly high, from the sinister pulse of the Top Boy theme to the haunting majesty of Dune’s “Prophecy Theme”. These are stunning, ethereal studies in sound – immersive and often dramatic, despite their inherently passive nature. (Michael Bonner, Uncut, December 2020)