J. Tillman had a great one-off record last year entitled Year in the Kingdom. Or at least I thought it was a one-off. As drummer for pfork sweethearts Fleet Foxes, I treated Tillman’s solo work as just that, something like one of those Strokes going solo, or a Beastie Boy having a “music baby.” A quick search proved my folly, when I discovered that Tillman has no fewer than five albums released in the last decade. My reliance on AMG’s sparse page on Tillman kept me in the dark for a bit, but I think my error just goes to show how much more I could/should know about these things.
In “rediscovering” Tillman’s backlog, I’ve fallen in love with nearly every record, but I’m particularly fond of Minor Works. Sure, it sounds a lot like Buckner, and that obligatory Molina sadness is drizzled over all them potatoes (i.e. “tracks”), but Tillman is breathier, sweeter, less jaded than those old birds. There’s something here that sounds too gentle to be browbeaten by sorrow. There’s no regret; instead, there’s a quiet joy.
J. Tillman — “Crooked Roof” from Minor Works
Pretty straight stuff, but sung with that deep, rich Tillman voice. I love the soft, sweet choir of voices accompanying that last chorus; the entire thing feels like cream in coffee to me. Suddenly I am famished.
J. Tillman — “Earthly Bodies” from Year in the Kingdom
And here’s a track from Year in the Kingdom — overall, I think this transition from a devoted singer-songwritery style to the more haunting, almost starved collection of hymns highlighting Kingdom is largely a space accounted for by 2008’s Vacilando Territory Blues. Somewhere in that long walk, Tillman got spooked, his voice etherealized and the grandeur he found in his travels materialized before him in a sparkling vista. As Tillman sings, “I have broached the giants who came before us, /and in a resurrected voice, / I can conjure up a soundless void.” Seek these albums out and hear it for yourself.
Meanwhile, in Jason’s blog-induced dreamstate, a disruption, the allure of gaming long-gone:
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