No. 38 of 2011: Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring For My Halo

There's something to be said for simplicity in music.  And I'm not necessarily talking about the lack of musical instruments or specific parts of a song.  A song may be simple and still have multi-part arrangements which support the feeling that the artist is trying to convey, a form of simplicity that is felt more than tangibly documented.  You can have a song just be a guitar and vocals and something may feel slightly off to the listener; the song may feel unfocused, overly complex, either lyrically or musically, and suffer from it.  But when an artist knows exactly what and how to say a certain thing, that thing being the heart of whatever he or she intends, then that is the sound of simplicity, a feeling that you have done exactly what you set out to do, and nothing less.  And while some may argue that I'm playing fast and loose with the concept of simplicty, I feel that this is indeed a correct way to articulate its use.

Kurt Vile has long labored away trying to grasp this particular bit of musical insight.  On his previous albums, the songs felt a bit murky and trod over, as if he didn't quite know how to get from point A to point B within his own song and that made for some less than cohesive musical execution across those records.  But with his latest release Smoke Ring For My Halo, Vile has finally laid to rest that hesitancy and restrictiveness that so belabored his earlier work.  He's finally come to understand the way that simplicty can operate from within a song, working its way out from the inside.  This new-found freedom allows him to clearly segue from song to song and allows the album as a whole to breathe, to expand and contract naturally.  And if that flow allows Vile his usual excursions into depression and despair, then all the better as the results smolder with the intensity of a man who knows what the end holds and who is not afraid to keep his eyes open, and every now again, as on the breathtaking "Baby's Arms", he allows an ever so slight interruption from the darkness, in his own way.  Songs like the rollicking "Jesus Fever" and crushing closer "Ghost Town" allow Vile a way in which to involve us as the listener on a more personal level, as we are mostly just eavesdropping on him anyway.  He knows we're listening and sadly this may be the only way he can think of to make a stand and reach out to someone, through the music which means so much to him and which allows us to grow so close to the man behind the music.

Tracklisting:

01. Baby’s Arms
02. Jesus Fever
03. Puppet to the Man
04. On Tour
05. Society Is My Friend
06. Runner Ups
07. In My Time
08. Peeping Tomboy
09. Smoke Ring For My Halo
10. Ghost Town (listen to the mp3 below)