Dan Melchior – Catbirds & Cardinals LP (Northern-Spy) / “Red Nylon Valance” b/w “Dogbite Meltdown #1” 7” (SDZ) / Excerpts (& Half-Speeds) LP (Kye)
RECOMMENDED
At this point Dan Melchior only makes worthwhile records. There are many, and nearly all of them go in a different direction, sometimes within the context of that release. He may be … scratch that, he is our most consistent singer-songwriter among those who’ve been prolific at every stage of their careers, and should at least be as widely known and accepted as guys like Robert Pollard and Nick Saloman. Catbirds, from last year, is one of Melchior’s finest in recent memory, at least as good as his last landmark Christmas for the Crows, and definitely the “pastoral” selection in his catalog, with some of the most good-natured melodies and gentlest interpretations of his nickelodeon psych-pop side. Opener “Summer in Siberia” finally contextualizes Dan into someone other than his musical persona: he’s kinda like Mark Corrigan from “Peep Show,” framing an imbalanced relationship in the context of WWII ground battles and appeasement. That comparison holds as long as you want it to, but apart from “Drama Queens on Prozac,” the sort of kneejerk hipster takedown that seems to appear on all his records, there are more moments of transcendence here than casual listeners might expect The “Red Nylon Valance” single offers up two brooders, a direction in which Melchior doesn’t often look, but he nails them both, quiet/loud Midwestern dynamics drawing lightning bolts out of the tension “Valance” generates, and leaving it unresolved with a percussion-free murmur called “Dogbite Meltdown #1.” The limited edition Excerpts (& Half-Speeds) outpaces his other 2011 album Assemblage Blues as his most abstract offering to date, and there’s nothing like it in his body of work, or most others. It’s two sides of fragments and non-song experiments in drone, astrospatial projection, subdued melodies and analog delay, all Orchid Spangiafora with no troubadour in sight, until some blues riffs materialize and level everything out. Anyone else would have to sweat to pull together such an effort, but Excerpts is superior to the best most folks can offer, and proof that even this guy’s leftovers are flecked with gold. (http://www.northern-spy.com) (http://sdzrecords.free.fr) (http://kyerecords.blogspot.com)
(Doug Mosurock)
