:: Track Listing

1. Smith 1972
2. Motion Sickness
3. Night Out For The Downer
4. Prices
5. Engine Fire

:: Record Review

Damien Jurado

Just In Time For Something EP
(Secretly Canadian; 2004)

Rating: 68%


Recorded on a 1967 tube-powered reel-to-reel and put to “salvaged ¼” tape,” the new collection of five songs from Seattle alt-folk artist Damien Jurado is a warm, if annoyingly brief, introduction to his gothic musings on stultifying Midwest ‘scapes. Recorded in one eleven-minute swoop, Just In Time is the shortest of short sets, the most intimate of barbait intimacies, rife with tuning down time, mumbled song introductions, and the long, awkward rustling of sheet music or lyrical notes. Be-flannelled and alone, Jurado’s approach to these tunes is somber; muffled by the grimy obsolescence of technology, Just In Time carries the weight of years it’s never experienced.

“Smith 1972,” as cryptic and devastating as anything off Jurado’s beautiful Ghost of David (2000), is a spectre of Nick Drake’s earliest recordings. Continuing the hollow vein of Where Shall You Take Me’s (2003) “Bad Dreams,” Jurado strums confidently through his psychedelic folk opener, buffeting the anguish of Tim Buckley with a more arresting and familiar dread. The recording technique itself is a confident stride, mild but resolved; every piece of the song is stark and exaggerated by the lonely hiss of the tape. The beat of pause in “Smith’s” short length is a brilliant move.

But the hiss is overpowering, and Jurado, suffocated ever so slowly--and even a bit cheaply--by a giant pillow, begins to paw for breath in “Motion Sickness.” His resignation is haunting: “The fear it will not lead you / The ghosts intend to keep you / And I have no more candy for the kids.” Then, waddling like a fat cousin next to its brisk partners, “Night Out For The Downer” is the longest of the album at four minutes. Puberty’s a bitch to its deep choruses, splitting the old ¼” tape apart like a tense libido. It sounds ugly, but Jurado’s strumming is adept and, allowed to develop, gracious melody glows in his voice.

“Prices” and “Engine Fire” seem closest to Jurado’s most obvious influences, the former a heady Richard Buckner froth and the latter a soggy Seattle tribute to the Boss and his Nebraska (1982). This is nothing new for Jurado, as Take Me’s “Matinee” can most immediately attest, but hearing Jurado’s coffee-soaked nerves removed from crisper production pushes his tragedies a bit closer to realization.

His method---the old tape transferred to CD, a complete excursion into ten minutes of Damien Jurado’s life—is a chin-hair shy of obnoxious. The sterility of digital recording is completely eschewed for an uber-analog approach, carrying the warmth of Take Me and Ghost to a ten-dollar extreme; unfortunately, carrying the aesthetic this far risks puncturing the realm of novelty. Lyrics are obscured and too many parts of Jurado’s melodies are hunkered down under healthy nostalgia. Even so, eleven minutes is a short extreme, and this is all we have of his “July 7th”: bedroom tapes for the die-hard collector and five elegant songs that probably shouldn’t be removed from their shit-streaked wrappings. Dom Sinacola :: 17 November 2004 |