I’ve been a
late-bloomer over the course of my entire relationship with Sun Kil Moon.
Arriving in time for 2008’s April and anxiously awaiting 2010’s Admiral’s Fell
Promises didn’t accelerate those records’ slow-burning intensity, although both
placed well on SCQ’s Top Twenty Albums lists, respectively. But music this
isolated and sparse shouldn’t take so long to digest, should it?
I mean, Mark Kozelek’s
greatest smoke-and-mirrors – his strictness against embellishment, insistence
on saying exactly what he wants (regardless of how long it takes) and an oft-mumbling
delivery – should be weakened by the straight-up candor of Among the Leaves,
but it isn’t. Taking direct shots at former loves, life on the road, aging
friends, sad-sack fans and occasionally himself, Kozelek’s restlessness no
longer weaves a subtext but the diary-detailed plot of Among the Leaves. And
somehow, perhaps thanks to the record’s very Sun Kil Moon-ish length, these
seventeen songs hide their graces for that unassuming upteenth listen, when
Kozelek’s lonely croon hits your headphones at the most opportune moment.
Granted, there’s
more than enough evidence to support the idea that Kozelek’s writing more for
himself than any of his fans, but that’s part of what makes his records so exceptionally
insular. Getting lost in Among the Leaves’ pristine guitar work and
instrumental subtleties, to the point where the bludgeoning force of Kozelek’s
lyrics fall completely unexpected into our laps, is a sorrowful joy to behold,
ensuring a rare immediacy amid one of indie-rock’s more impenetrable catalogs.
As faultless as
2010’s Admiral Fell Promises was technically, it was that same adherence to method
and minimalism that occasionally parched the recordings. One might argue
self-exiled songwriter Mark Kozelek had a hunch in this regard, given that in a
catalog of seventy-some-minute marathons, he chose to wrap up that 2010 effort within an
hour. As a penultimate growers-album sitting atop a life’s work of growers,
Admiral Fell Promises confirmed that Mark Kozelek doesn’t have a lot of readily
comparable contemporaries: his scope is massive but understated, his
songwriting is intensely personal and, most importantly, he gets away with it.
Sun Kil Moon’s
latest addition, Among the Leaves, veers unexpectedly on impulses; its
seventeen tracks, much like chapters ripped directly from Kozelek’s tour-diary,
dive into matters close to the singer’s heart without the former record’s
relaxed, classical-guitar flourishes. This relatively direct approach allows
Kozelek to detail a myriad of lyrical topics in quick succession, and make no
mistake: the man has a lot to discuss. Among the road-weary muses, there’s
romance (“I Know It’s Pathetic But That Was the Greatest Night Of My Life”), disdain
(“Sunshine In Chicago”), and full-on fatigue (“UK Blues”, “UK Blues 2”) – all
of them delivered with Kozelek’s studious ear for melancholy and dry humor. He
even pens a tribute to his favourite guitar-mender on the mystery-tinged
“Song For Richard Collopy”.
With his temperament
placed closer to the front of the mix – making the lyrics more clearly
discernable – Kozelek risks alienating casual listeners over nearly eighty
minutes of storytelling; a track spent complaining about the chores of
songwriting (“Track Number 8”) should, in particular, draw ire. Yet longtime
fans of Sun Kil Moon will instantly gravitate to Among the Leaves’ various
snapshots and emotions. The potent immediacy employed by shorter compositions creates
a surprisingly digestible whole, with folk songs “Not Much Rhymes With
Everything’s Awesome At All Times” and “Red Poison” bridging lengthier new
classics such as “Lonely Mountain” and “Young Love”. Like a rough-hewn tapestry
spanning two or so years in a working-artist’s life, Among the Leaves occupies
a messily satisfying place in Sun Kil Moon’s formidable career.
Mark Kozelek’s universe reads as plain and traditional on paper, his M.O. being elegantly strummed ballads, usually acoustic. His discography under such casual lens may not even sound distinctive enough to be warranted its own universe… but anyone who has met a Sun Kil Moon fan knows differently. Over a series of releases split indeterminately under his birth-name and Sun Kil Moon moniker, Mark Kozelek has etched a new form of songwriter record out of his unique strengths: languid and lengthy, serene and reflective. And with each full-length tablet, Kozelek has refined his focus, gradually isolating his crunchy Crazy Horse styled arrangements to delicate one-man acoustics.
That’s where Admiral Fell Promises finds Kozelek, alone with his nylon-stringed muse over ten compositions that expertly showcase his careful contrasts and classical influences. Such restraint, while initially difficult to sit through, eventually proves worthy of any other Sun Kil Moon listening environment; the detailed folk of ‘You Are My Sun’ and the title track sympathetically evoke quiet thoughts while ‘The Leaning Tree’’s curious turns keep us spellbound. It’s anyone’s guess where Kozelek plans to go next, what with Admiral Fell Promises pared down as much as possible, but records so lovely don’t look too far ahead. Sometimes it’s enough just to enjoy the moment.
“Have you heard this yet?” Heather asked suddenly, lifting a copy of Admiral Fell Promises from a pile on her bed. No, my girlfriend Emily replied, explaining how she and I had been saving it until autumn came around. The end of September had ushered the beginning of fall and, although the outside gardens were still wet with green, we decided to end our Sun Kil Moon fasting. Heather hadn’t heard it properly either, having tried it once in her fiancé’s noisy car and given up. Now that fiancé is a husband, Heather’s his wife, and the soft finger-plucked notes of ‘Alesund’ dance into a room threatened by abandonment. Wall decorations that have marked her territory from student flops to this parental loft now lie on the bed, while cherished CDs have been pillaged from their shelves. Endless pamphlets for wedding locations, wedding dresses, wedding caterers and honeymoon resorts fold crisply into the trash.
Emily and I sat against Heather’s closed door, exhausted from a day of Boston shopping and Indian cuisine. No sooner had I arrived at the house when I developed a fever, something that made Mark Kozelek’s stripped arrangements more isolating but no less soothing. Certain tracks spoke out more immediately, like the sweetly melodic title track that harkens back to April’s more contemplative material. That’s the problem with the present, though; trying to determine the worth of a current moment seems impossible next to the power of a later memory. Admiral Fell Promises works no differently, expelling the attributes that would catch most listeners off-guard in favour of slow-burning melodies that dig under our skins over time.
Drinking tea on the floor and hopelessly dazed, I was still vulnerable to Kozelek’s skeletal atmospheres developed over lonely nylon strings. ‘Half Moon Bay’ speaks to New Hampshire’s blanketed night, its almost bluesy refrain carried by a haunted vocal performance. The bleak ‘Australian Winter’ burrows further toward autumn’s frozen end, begging for a fireside to warm our faces from all Kozelek’s old-fashioned inhospitality. Although technically astounding in their naked skill, these cold-hearted compositions can’t be salvaged by Kozelek’s warm timbre alone, his guitar’s darkness enveloping us no differently than the mouth of night swallowing this farmhouse. To quell the burden, the majority of these lengthy tracks drift off into incidental classical figures that provide a lighthearted bent to ‘The Leaning Tree’ and deepen the emotional complexity of ‘Third and Seneca’. And occasionally, as on ‘Church Of the Pines’, Kozelek breaks into bouts of experimentation, seemingly testing passages off of each other to see how they gel. Naturally, they do.
An hour of such narrow scope can understandably blur upon early listens and the calm beauty of ‘Bay Of Skulls’ closed the disc while we conversed unaware. Heather was due to take her luggage to the new apartment downtown but ended up staying late to watch bad movies, snack, and take comfort in the cozy paralysis a farmhouse affords after dark. Most of Admiral Fell Promises’ virtually endless subtleties were lost on us then, leaving only gentle progressions that scored tired conversations, but I’m swimming in those details now. Maybe, like all of Sun Kil Moon’s best work, that’s what substitutes all of Admiral Fell Promises’ empty space: memories. Those occasional waves of reflection in which you realize the implications of what was once an ironed-flat, cause-and-effect present and the crises, the ruts, and rites of passage you now admit as your past. Wistful for whatever reasons, maybe that’s the push Kozelek’s music gives us: to feel those moments we lost to the present.
“I’m really glad we waited until fall to hear that,” I told Emily the next morning, but I didn’t know the half of it. Rarely has a record stirred my interest in guitar tones so, and those obsessive codas have followed my park-side walks to work ever since our New England trip. Reminiscent of the four-track EP that April came bundled with, Admiral Fell Promises showcases Kozelek surveying the space of his own charisma, subdued but undeniably hypnotic. If memories are to assist us beyond the anecdotal excuses of this record review, let them highlight the refinement we’ve undergone as individuals since. And for Mark Kozelek, let Admiral Fell Promises stand as his sophisticated peak, a masterpiece of his former self.
All the same, a Sun Kil Moon record can’t be summed up by the tag-word ‘folk’ alone. With eleven tracks settling at 74 minutes, April is prone to classic rock and slowcore comparisons just as convincingly, the latter clearly dealing with the more superficial issue of running-time. Enough genre-ambiguity ensures April its own territory to shine, and it’s for the best; the Leonard Cohen musings and Neil Young guitar-slaying of opener ‘Lost Verses’ is enough to make anyone give up deciphering how Kozelek might feel about what Dylan did at the Royal Albert Hall forty-odd years ago.
These songs are meant to be heard outside the concrete jungles we’ve grown in, words for the rural expanses you’ve only walked from the passenger seat. ‘The Light’, like all of the LP, is a tight meditation on the guitar riff and how it can breathe relief or stiffen to a tough snarl; Kozelek’s gift is writing a seven-minute song that consistently thrills based on such minimal compositions. Occupying the best of these quiet reflections is ‘Moorestown’s string-drenched play-by-play and ‘Like the River’ (which enlists the fabulous Bonnie Prince Billy on backing vocals).
Despite the strange and isolated corners my love for music may often occupy, nothing brings me back to my roots like a solid folk record. Upon hearing its subtle moods, its careful strumming, I’m delivered back to my childhood afternoons cradled on the basement couch with my dad’s headphones blaring the music of the 70s. A youth of hearing the James Taylor records of my parent’s comes softly to mind as I listen to Mark Kozelek’s third album under the Sun Kil Moon moniker. Like what you can only expect from the most introspective singer songwriter, April is cloaked in unplugged minimalism and lyrical obscurities; its secrets seeping from repeated listens.
All the same, a Sun Kil Moon record can’t be summed up by the tag-word ‘folk’ alone. With eleven tracks settling at 74 minutes, April is prone to classic rock and slowcore comparisons just as convincingly, the latter clearly dealing with the more superficial issue of running-time. Enough genre-ambiguity ensures April its own territory to shine, and it’s for the best; the Leonard Cohen musings and Neil Young guitar-slaying of opener ‘Lost Verses’ is enough to make anyone give up deciphering how Kozelek might feel about what Dylan did at the Royal Albert Hall forty-odd years ago.
These songs are meant to be heard outside the concrete jungles we’ve grown in, words for the rural expanses you’ve only walked from the passenger seat. ‘The Light’, like all of the LP, is a tight meditation on the guitar riff and how it can breathe relief or stiffen to a tough snarl; Kozelek’s gift is writing a seven-minute song that consistently thrills based on such minimal compositions. Occupying the best of these quiet reflections is ‘Moorestown’s string-drenched play-by-play and ‘Like the River’ (which enlists the fabulous Bonnie Prince Billy on backing vocals).
That these songs rely on repetition also means that your initial reaction to a song’s first minute will likely also be your last. The backwoods eeriness of ‘Heron Blue’, for example, steers clear of April’s usual warmth and tires by the five-minute mark. Although each track lends a hand to April’s unshakably rustic atmosphere, a few dwell in their place for too long and risk reducing the record’s strengths.
In truth, I’ve been delaying this review for a month now, waiting for a weekend up north to properly live out April’s far-reaching introspection. The weathered sand dunes and rain-battered sand of unpredictable May should prove a capable cloud to soundtrack Sun Kil Moon after; the kind of nostalgic reminiscing too manly to accept a tissue over.
