Sun Kil Moon Albums (3)
What The Critics Say
Despite the change in his band's name from Red House Painters to Sun Kil Moon, songwriter Mark Kozelek has changed very little in the past decade-and-a-half. Sure there was a left turn when he did a rather unorthodox (to say the least) album of covers of Modest Mouse tunes, but he recorded those songs as if they were his own and performed them like that as well. There are forces at work in Kozelek's own songs that follow like a ghost train from one destination to the next. April is no different. Memory is the fossil fuel that drives his creativity unhurriedly along a rather labyrinthine maze to the same place: wherever he is, he wishes he were somewhere else. But it's also the acceptance of that fact that makes these songs what they are. His touch on the guitar varies. In its trademark loping, ever-so-slowly unfolding of a ten-minute narrative like "Lost Verses," it's a blend of acoustic and electric guitars, and he hovers around the same three chords like it's a mantra as his words come from some place caught between the depths and instructional truth revealed over time, and the immediate wince of powerful emotions. It's a tension, but one that is not unbearable or taut. "The Light," evokes Neil Young at his most languid. Layers of distorted, warm-toned, countrified 4/4 time, with a single trance-like snare, hi-hat and bass drum, and four-note bassline to pace the words along their great length. There are other times, though, where Kozelek just lets it rip, as on "Tonight the Sky" that touches on Young's riff from "Ohio," as well as "Like a Hurricane." The volume level varies, the droning drums and bassline walk a line and make so much space for the guitar overdubs that at first, the lyrics are almost superficial -- but anyone who has listened to Kozelek for any period of time knows that this is a mistake. They are clear enough to hear, but feel like an afterthought to that druggy loose vibe coming up from the garaged out instrumental mix. At some point -- and it's different in each tune -- the vocal cracks open with some nearly unbearable truth, so personal, so ultimately gut-wrenching that the listener catches her breath, caught between empathy and embarrassment for the singer. The release that takes place at about the six-minute mark, where the vocals are all but swallowed by the guitars, is liberating for moment, but it also swallows the protagonist whole. Kozelek handles all the guitar chores, and has a wonderfully empathic rhythm section in Geoff Stanfield and Anthony Koustsos. Bonnie "Prince" Billy appears on "Unlit Hallway," while Ben Gibbard and Eric Pollard also guest. And those choruses, those backing vocals that seem to float up to where they can be heard, but just barely? They are among the most glorious elements of the sound -- on this record in particular. Kozelek is simply continuing on his way here, but that said, to stand apart from all the superlatives and just get lost in his creation here, he has made the best record of his career. This is as perfect an entry point, as it is a summation -- no easy feat -- of where he's been thus far; which is to say, he's always back at the guitar, writing and playing from that haunted center and trying to make sense of the weight, the grief, and the love both expressed and received along his lonesome road. Early versions of April also contain a bonus disc with four alternate versions of album tracks. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The curious sophomore effort from Mark Kozelek's Sun Kil Moon -- with both Geoff Stanfield and Anthony Koutsos returning from Ghosts of the Great Highway -- is a tribute album to indie rockers Modest Mouse and is entirely made up of songs from their catalogue. That said, Kozelek treats these tunes as if he wrote them himself. The same blend of acoustic and electric guitars exist here as they did on the band's debut, but Kozelek's voice is mixed way up in an otherwise sparse production. Shimmering acoustic rock and country meld and wind together on "Neverending Math Equation," and "Space Travel Is Never Boring." The slow, off-waltz time of "Jesus Christ Was an Only Child" is, in a way, the hinge piece of a recording that deals with memory, childhood, and the emerging of a fragmented person built from these experiences. The allegorical tone of the tune suggests affinity, difference, and the small ways in which what we were taught when we were young opens up spaces in us where we can encounter the world. "Four Fingered Fishermen" acknowledges this with its small strolling blend of acoustic guitars and Kozelek's iteration of his witness of those different than himself. The beautiful and moving "Grey Ice Water," done mariachi style with backing vocals from Michi Aceret and Emily Herron, is the full articulation of seeing people and the world as somehow interconnected, no matter how random the encounter with them. Tiny Cities is so aptly titled, a recording of motion, the passing of distances, and the sometimes too-close experience of intersection, connection, and disconnection that happens in both open and claustrophobic environments -- check "Trucker's Atlas" for the rootless awareness of caged-in restlessness no matter how wide the terrain is to run and move. How it comes off is a seemingly original work, which makes it more extraordinary considering that these aren't his songs. This is a gorgeous recording, one that in a very intimate way opens up an entire universe of possibility for understanding, integration, and brokenness. A fitting tribute indeed. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
'Ghosts of the Great Highway'
Release Date 11/4/2003
Tracks 10
Label JetSet
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Sun Kil Moon is a new band project fronted by Mark Kozelek of the Red House Painters. Given the composition of Ghosts of the Great Highway, it's difficult to see how it will all turn out in the end, given that Kozelek takes on the roles of singer, songwriter, guitarist and who knows what else, while the band sports two drummers in Anthony Koutsos (also formerly of RHP), and Tim Mooney (from American Music Club and the Toiling Midgets), as well as bassist Geoff Stanfield, who came from the ruins of Black Lab. There's a string trio present on the album, as well as some minimal use of keyboards, but the propulsive sounds here are guitars, drums, and Kozelek's haunted, Neil Young-inflected voice. Fans of RHP's later work, such as Songs for a Blue Guitar, may be prepared for the material here -- but then again, maybe not. There is a decidedly languid pace here that is not as mopey as RHP, and the melodies are more pronounced and out front, purposefully intertwining with the layers of guitars and strings. Lyrically, Kozelek is as obsessed with memory and the romance of it as ever. In "Glenn Tipton," the opening track, Kozelek compares the blows received by Sonny Liston and Cassius Clay to the debated preference by fans for one Judas Priest guitarist (K.K. Downing) over another (Glenn Tipton), and Jim Nabors over Bobby Vinton, and contrasts them with his own memories of his father watching late-night movies on TV, as he observes himself doing the same thing, and finally, with the death of a friend who owned a donut shop. An acoustic guitar is the sole accompaniment that this tune full of non sequiturs needs through its verses, before a 12-string, organic percussion and bass enter the middle. The lyrics may not add up, but they evoke the notion of nostalgia, the ache of time's passage, and the dreams of what might have been. "Carry Me Ohio," with its slowly rung electric guitars, dual tap kits, and stripped-to-the-bone bassline, is a lexicon. Side by side narratives of broken lovers and Kozelek's boyhood years in Ohio turn in on one another, and into the shimmering drift guitars and a limpid pulse. There are two versions of "Salvador Sanchez": one is straight from the Crazy Horse riff book. Kozelek tells a heroic and heartbreaking story of the champion featherweight boxer, the "magic matador," who died at the age of 23 in an auto accident. The guitar solos open and wind, and the drums usher in the great textured feedback in the bridge. "Duk Koo Kim" appeared in a different version from Cameron Crowe's Vinyl Records label earlier this year. Here it's over 14 minutes long; it's a swirling, kaleidoscopic, instrumental with strings, xylophones, guitars, and drums everywhere. It's a dream cycle that has its roots in the most brilliant and dynamic psychedelia, and charts a panoramic vista of lush textures and towering sonic waves. "Si Paloma," with its acoustic guitars piled on top of one another, and mandolins thrown in for good measure, is its mirror image, all bright, sprightly, and shiny, like a full-on mariachi band playing Big Star. The disc closes with another bout of mirror logic in "Pancho Villa." The cut is simply a gorgeous acoustic read of "Salvador Sanchez," given the different arrangement and the placement of Kozelek's voice in the mix -- not to mention his changing accents in the lyrics; it's a different song, hunted and haunted by its predecessor, sending the record off in a mist of myths and legends, where memory is as present as the moment one lives in, and as distant as whatever it took to get there. The bottom line here is that Kozelek's aesthetic with Sun Kil Moon may not be radically different than his RHP project, but it is moving, graceful, and consciously beautiful. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
