John Vanderslice - FiveYears: SelectedRecordings 2000-2005

Sun 4th Sep, 2005 in Music Reviews

Big things are clearly expected of Mr Vanderslice’s new record, Pixel Revolt. So to educate those late to the party this compilation provides a timely catch up. Presumably a best of, in all but name, the collection uncovers Vanderslice’s thick blankets of richly textured chamber pop. Probably best known for his work as meticulous producer on several Mountain Goats records, he has also lured members of Spoon, Beulah and Death Cab for Cutie to his Tiny Telephone studio in Northern California. All have, along with Lou Barlow’s work with both Sebadoh and The Folk Implosion, influenced Vanderslice’s own sound.

Drawing from the five albums the prolific Vanderslice has released since 2000 the compilation offers several perspectives on his songwriting, which veers towards bitter narratives of loss, paranoia and obsession. Sometimes it bursts forth vocally in gleeful bile as on the rumbling, shuffle of Nikki O Nikki.

‘You know that guy
who stole your girlfriend
in the summer of ‘92
He’s going to die’

At other moments his lyrics bite with an unexpected darkness even when music lures you in. Take the gorgeous Trance Manual, with its lullaby glide of organs and plucked strings, contrast to the lyrical scene of ‘mujahidin barricades’ and ‘coalition guards’. In this strange world for a love song a woman dangerous yet alluring seems dressed ‘like the flag of a dangerous nation.’

Dark narratives are found also in the two tracks on offer taken from his first solo record Mass Suicide Occult Figurines. The hero of the crunchy Speed Lab survives a fire that tears through his drug factory.

‘I know God hates alchemical work’
but what else can I do’

While the rousing Bill Gates Must Die is the confession of a paedophile blames the simplicity of the Internet for letting his fall.

‘Someone made this easy,
Someone made this inevitable…
so for bringing me here
Bill Gates must die’

It’s unlikely material for a pop record but there is enough anthemic kick in the call for billionaire’s death to see it slip into playlists as a sinister novelty. When the track was first released, in 2000, Vanderslice suckered many journalists by issuing a hoax legal warning from Microsoft. The publicity earned him a reputation as a prankster, yet he clearly has a greater range than attention grabbing lyrical material of his first album indicated. He has also clearly spent a fair time absorbing his fair share of poetry and film as well, several songs adapting ideas and lyrics from Robert Lowell, Shelly and David Lynch. Yet it’s not nearly as serious minded as it may sound.

The opening track, Up Above the Sea, brings Eager Allen Poe to suburbia in the tale of a man tormented by a bluebird on his lawn. While his adaptation of Lowell, My Old Flame, finds the nostalgic narrator bemoaning that his old house has become ‘IKEA-d’.

However the most immediate and catchy of songs on the record clearly shows his true passion – his studio. Few musicians can pull off the trick of writing a love song about their favoured pieces of musical technology. There are exceptions; Magnetic Fields found space among their 69 Love Songs to sing the praises of the acoustic guitar, while George Harrison penned a rocking ode to his favoured Wah Wah pedal. Me and My 424 is Vanderslice’s bouncy ode to the wonder of the 4-track.

‘You can ask the 424 for guidance and for help.’

It’s a simple paean to the power of recording is a rare glimpse at directly personal writing from Vanderslice. Yet, scratch the surface a little and the story of a man possessed by sound fetishism, surrounded by TDKs and replacement parts for discontinued recording equipment veers close in theme to his lyrics of solitary figures of more obvious criminal passion; underground druggists and child pornographers. These characters share obsessions that bring to mind dark rooms, singular focus and secret passion. Indeed our moral guardians would probably take time out from banning films to be outraged if the knew they heard the extent of the love between Vanderslice and his analog studio.