revelations

Red House Painters - Revelation Big Sur

I think that, over time, Red House Painters’ Songs For A Blue Guitar will become one of my favourite albums. Yea, it’s a stupid thing to bother predicting and guessing at, but after about eight months since I first heard it, I’m constantly playing it and listening to it. What’s so amazing about my love for this CD, I think, is that I tend to become frustrated with albums that include a lot of long (7+ minute) tracks, especially when those tracks include long instrumentals. And this CD does, big time. I haven’t really figured it out yet, but for some reason this CD commands my attention for its duration the way a lot of CDs don’t.

It’s even more amazing, maybe, that the instrumentation on the CD at large is really sparse — it’s just Kozelek’s voice, guitars (acoustic or electric, depending) and some drums sneak in there on a few tracks. So simple. This isn’t a huge techno track that builds and builds in layers.

So maybe it’s because I’m just waiting for what Kozelek’s going to say next. Maybe it’s the wavering between almost-jittery, almost-abrasive rock songs and quiet folk croons like “Revelation Big Sur.” Maybe it’s the subtle changes in instrumentation throughout the songs. I don’t know. But I know that these are rainy-day-nostalgia songs, come-down songs; the kinds of songs you’d want to listen to coming home from a bar with friends. Songs that exist in their own space-time — in a place where the conversations that you have you never fully remember the next day.

I also know that “Have You Forgotten,” the album’s first track and the song I heard eight months ago which prompted me to get all of SFABG, is a song that some days I just have to hear. I’ve got to play it.  It’s a triumph.  (If you go searching for it, avoid the radio-edit (the one that was in Vanilla Sky) and listen to the 6 minute, album version.  Or at least listen to them both.)

Every time I drove back from North Bay to Georgetown this past school year for teaching practicums I’d put on this CD for the last stretch, cutting across greenbelt farmlands. I’d make detours through Glen Williams and down side streets to make sure I got through “Silly Love Songs,” an eleven minute long McCartney cover and the second last song on SFABG. It was beautiful. And maybe that’s part of it too, you know, the way certain CDs develop these associations and attach themselves to events.