Sun Kil Moon - Ghosts of the Great Highway
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Free Music Notes for Ghosts of the Great Highway
Free Music Review: Another Pretentious Review
Hit: 5 Stars
Okay, seriously now. I won't add any more beautifully (!) descriptive adjectives to the melange of reviews thus far (yes, it's called sarcasm, and I am dangerously comfortable with it). Here is the story of how I ended up buying Ghosts of the Great Highway today. I first heard of Mark Kozelek when flipping through the Vanilla Sky soundtrack (if you're wondering: eh, I'm not a big R.E.M. fan) and loved the song on there--don't remember which one it was. Anyway. Burnt it onto a mix cd, listened to it for months. Forgot about it for a while. Then, last week, I was at a music store looking for a certain Creedence Clearwater Revival cd, and found "Ghosts" in the wrong spot. I thought it was a fantastically interesting cover, name (no I did not think it was Korean), and title. I mentally made a note to find out who the heck this band was.
Yes, I forgot about it again. Dammit, I know. Then this morning I found a bit review of Sun Kil Moon in a magazine and I found out that it was not a mystery band after all, but the new project of a songwriter I had fallen peacefully in love with. Oh, my God. I bought it right away. Fifteen bucks be damned. I waited until I got off work. I had a long drive ahead of me, in rush hour, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. The sunlight was perfect.
I have been looking (without really looking) for music that is real and quiet and positive and realistic at the same time. I even started to get off my ambient track and into old stuff like Woodie Guthrie and Artie Shaw and Marian Anderson as well as roots-type artists, just old musical people who are completely overlooked today (but it's better that they are not advertised everywhere, either, I mean, look what happened to poor Norah Jones). Discovering Mark Kozelek and the Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon, for me, was like finally waking up and noticing something that had always been there and that I had overlooked for flashier things. Kind of like being in love with that hot surfer guy in high school and not realizing that my best buddy was in love with me. That kind of thing.
Here's to noticing the subtle, small beauties of life. Yay!
The tracks I loved: "Glenn Tipton", "Last Tide", "Floating", and "Si Paloma" . . . okay well I loved the other songs too, I love the whole damn album except for "Lily and Parrots". Sorry, it's just kind of noisy. Anyway. Enough of this.
Free Music Review: Controversial and electrifying trip through time and space
Hit: 5 Stars
"Ghosts of the Great Highway" sounds like the aural equivalent of volumes of freezing cold ice water crashing down on your head first thing in the morning, waking you from a deep sleep with a devastating and electrifying screech. It sounds like a sonic juggernaut of fantastic music that distills the last twenty years of independent rock into one round-trip ticket to an unknown but somehow strangely familiar galaxy. Picture yourself careening towards a plate glass window, riding helplessly in some sort of roller-coaster device, traveling at breakneck speed, knowing that the window is a portal to another dimension, and that all you have to do in order to make sense of the destiny thrust upon you is to accept your fate and somehow try and enjoy the inevitable full mental breakdown that comes with knowing what is about to happen. I must say, however, that although I think this album contains the most fantastic music I have ever heard, the cover of the album is entirely inappropriate. As many fans of Mark Kozelek have already pointed out to him at concerts and such, and as fan web sites have already discussed to death, the cover art is a by-product of the typical "schlock rock" target mass audience consumerism that we have all come to fear so much in this country. On top of that, I think it is wholly inappropriate and somewhat of a royal gaffe for such a cover to ever see the light of day. I think, however, that once the controversy dies down (and maybe JetSet Records execs decide to pull the cover and replace it with one that does not contain such an inappropriate reference), this album will come to be regarded as one of the finer moments in the history of music, gay OR straight.
Free Music Review: An incredible work of art
Hit: 5 Stars
I was very fortunate to learn of Mark Kozelek only a little over a year ago and when I did, I immediately asked how I could have missed hearing this true artist for the past several years. Ghosts of the Great Highway was the first album that I heard from Mark and was absolutely struck at the amazing lyrics, vocals, and melodies that literally drip from the album. Even more mesmerizing is how the album has a freshness about it literally every time I listen to it. You constantly look forward to the next verse and chorus and fall completely into the songs that sometimes carry out for several minutes only to be disappointed that they indeed must end.
I found each and every song to be wonderfully crafted. Unlike some, I felt there was no misstep by Mark Kozelek in the decision to let certain songs deviate from the normal mellow acoustic presentation to the grungesque fuzzy guitars on a couple of the tracks. To me, this only enhanced the appeal of the CD and offered, again, an overall freshness. Specifically, "Lilly and Parrots" is actually one of my favorite songs on the album.
Since listening to "GOGH" I have naturally gone on to purchase more of Mark's albums from all stages of his career...but this album will always be at the top for me. So as the reissue of this CD is offered next month I felt it was a great time to share my thoughts on this amazing album. Truly the best CD I have come across in a very long time... and I'm certain you'll agree.
Free Music Review: Brilliant and haunting
Hit: 5 Stars
This happens to me once or twice a year: I become completely in love with an album to the point that I almost can't bear to listen to anything else. In high school it was the classic rock classics (The Wall, Physical Graffiti, The White Album, The Unforgettable Fire), and as my tastes matured some I branched out a little into less radio-friendly fare (Nothing's Shocking, Earth Sun Moon by Love & Rockets, Robbie Robertson's self titled) and embarrassingly often even loved (and still love) records that were downright cheesy (Third Eye Blind, Gish by Smashing Pumpkins, First Band on the Moon by The Cardigans).
Along the way there have been flirts and crushes (Coldplay, Foo Fighters, My Bloody Valentine) all containing excellent and love-worthy music, but nothing that could rock me like the proverbial hurricane.
Anyways. After Grace by Jeff Buckley I never thought I could love that way again, but along came Juliana Hatfield with the "Please Do Not Disturb" EP (let's not forget "Only Everything") then Elliot Smith with XO and after a dry period Jet Age by Superjesus and Ben Kweller with Sha Sha.
All of which has led up to my new love: Ghosts of the Great Highway by Sun Kil Moon. I listen to a track or two in the morning, then a song here and there at work, and the whole album once or twice before I go to bed. I just can't get enough. I must be taking crazy pills! I can hear the songs in my head 24 hours a day.
Free Music Review: Kozelek - Gifts the listener, again.
Hit: 5 Stars
Ever just stand in the shower and lose your sense of time? This lush album is awash in strings mostly due to its virtuoso lead guitar who moves between electric and acoustic at the most sublte of moments that you sometimes miss the transitions but also because of a three person string conservatory backing him up. Si Paloma is simply transporting as it alternates between cascading mandolins and sharp guitar attacks. Carry Me Ohio is going to me the song that sticks in your head with its languid beat and Mark's plaintif voice floating somewhere overhead lamenting how sorry he is that he can never love you back, begging his past to carry him forward. Kozelek empowers the past more than other artists but it never pulls him back, he seems to use it like a sensual sonic slipstream to work things out.
Duk Koo Kim has been reviewed elsewhere as the obligatory power rocker but not so. Its trademark Red House Painters. Play it back to back with Cruiser from Old Ramon and you're there - you're in Kozelek's tightly controlled night, begging for an angel, longing to be free, floating on layers of sound, dirging the lost soul, and always looking down as though out of body on a nostalgic California landscape.
One more point, Mark seems to parrallel Neil Young in one important way. Folky Neil has a Crazy Horse mud and bravado sentimentality and so does Mark. Two songs stand out in this vein - Salvador Sanchez and Lily & Parots.