Album: Benji
Artist: Sun Kil Moon
Born: Massillon, Ohio
Released: February 2014
Genre: Indie Folk
Following a dense and musically-rich Beyoncé album on this blog with a stark and spare indie record highlights perfectly the wide appeal of popular music; sometimes just great songwriting, stripped of any musical artifice and delivered by a middle-aged man, is enough to create a compelling record. No other album I can think of in recent times is such as unrelenting meditation on mortality. Musicians like Cat Power, Arab Strap and Low have all been described as "sadcore", but none of them produced records as bleak as Benji (on which Mark Kozelek, aka Sun Kil Moon, is like a more extreme version of Leonard Cohen or Bill Callahan). Helping him record the album are two musicians that have had their own moments of gloom: Will Oldham (I See A Darkness) and Steve Shelley, drummer for Sonic Youth (Bad Moon Rising). Benji catalogues an alarming number of deaths that have befallen people close to Kozelek, including a cousin, uncle and grandmother, as well as friends. The album also references terrible tragedies like the Newtown school massacre and those that died at the hands of serial killer Richard Ramirez. The song Richard Ramirez Died Today Of Natural Causes sees Kozelek almost overwhelmed by the death he finds all around him, so much so that it affects his creative process as a musician ("The headlines change so rapidly / then I came to the studio to work on something pretty / and I saw the news on James Gandolfini").
I was dimly aware of indie band Red House Painters, but had no real sense of Mark Kozelek's music before seeing him perform as Sun Kil Moon at Green Man Festival in 2014. The most striking thing about his set was how unprepossessing Kozelek looked when he came on stage, dressed all in black and still wearing his coat. Then the songs started to ramp up in emotional intensity and the music came alive, with Micheline a particular highlight. I bought the album just after returning home from the festival and found this glossary a really useful guide to the record's references and themes. As with many of the best albums, context is important and it's hard to get your bearings and appreciate Kozelek's vision without some background info. Sometimes, like on the opening line of Truck Driver ("my uncle died in a fire on his birthday"), the lyrics are bleak and straightforward but there's more often a novelistic sense to the songs, with a wide array of allusions to places, people and American tragedies. Kozelek also makes several references to 70s records -- Pigs (Pink Floyd), Young Americans (David Bowie) and Houses Of The Holy (Led Zeppelin) -- and legendary 4AD label owner, Ivo Watts-Russell, who gave Kozelek his big break. I Watched The Film The Song Remains The Same is one of the record's highlights, with Kozelek reminiscing about "the thunder of John Bonham's drums" but how the slower songs, like Bron-Y-Aur, appealed more to his melancholy nature, and ignited his love of music. Other highlights are the duet with Will Oldham on I Can’t Live Without My Mother’s Love and the closing pair of songs, Micheline and Ben's My Friend (which has a hint of Counting Crows about it). The overall effect, despite the dark subject matter, is life-affirming; Kozelek would even finish the year by releasing his own Christmas album.
Following a dense and musically-rich Beyoncé album on this blog with a stark and spare indie record highlights perfectly the wide appeal of popular music; sometimes just great songwriting, stripped of any musical artifice and delivered by a middle-aged man, is enough to create a compelling record. No other album I can think of in recent times is such as unrelenting meditation on mortality. Musicians like Cat Power, Arab Strap and Low have all been described as "sadcore", but none of them produced records as bleak as Benji (on which Mark Kozelek, aka Sun Kil Moon, is like a more extreme version of Leonard Cohen or Bill Callahan). Helping him record the album are two musicians that have had their own moments of gloom: Will Oldham (I See A Darkness) and Steve Shelley, drummer for Sonic Youth (Bad Moon Rising). Benji catalogues an alarming number of deaths that have befallen people close to Kozelek, including a cousin, uncle and grandmother, as well as friends. The album also references terrible tragedies like the Newtown school massacre and those that died at the hands of serial killer Richard Ramirez. The song Richard Ramirez Died Today Of Natural Causes sees Kozelek almost overwhelmed by the death he finds all around him, so much so that it affects his creative process as a musician ("The headlines change so rapidly / then I came to the studio to work on something pretty / and I saw the news on James Gandolfini").
I was dimly aware of indie band Red House Painters, but had no real sense of Mark Kozelek's music before seeing him perform as Sun Kil Moon at Green Man Festival in 2014. The most striking thing about his set was how unprepossessing Kozelek looked when he came on stage, dressed all in black and still wearing his coat. Then the songs started to ramp up in emotional intensity and the music came alive, with Micheline a particular highlight. I bought the album just after returning home from the festival and found this glossary a really useful guide to the record's references and themes. As with many of the best albums, context is important and it's hard to get your bearings and appreciate Kozelek's vision without some background info. Sometimes, like on the opening line of Truck Driver ("my uncle died in a fire on his birthday"), the lyrics are bleak and straightforward but there's more often a novelistic sense to the songs, with a wide array of allusions to places, people and American tragedies. Kozelek also makes several references to 70s records -- Pigs (Pink Floyd), Young Americans (David Bowie) and Houses Of The Holy (Led Zeppelin) -- and legendary 4AD label owner, Ivo Watts-Russell, who gave Kozelek his big break. I Watched The Film The Song Remains The Same is one of the record's highlights, with Kozelek reminiscing about "the thunder of John Bonham's drums" but how the slower songs, like Bron-Y-Aur, appealed more to his melancholy nature, and ignited his love of music. Other highlights are the duet with Will Oldham on I Can’t Live Without My Mother’s Love and the closing pair of songs, Micheline and Ben's My Friend (which has a hint of Counting Crows about it). The overall effect, despite the dark subject matter, is life-affirming; Kozelek would even finish the year by releasing his own Christmas album.
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