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Jim White is a New York singer songwriter (California born, Florida raised)
whose
Jim White Presents Music From Searching For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus (Luaka Bop, 1997)
Wrong-Eyed Jesus (Luaka Bop, 1997) was a sophisticated exercise
in the southern gothic genre.
The atmospheric When Jesus Gets A Brand New Name,
Book Of Angels and Stabbed In My Heart sound like
a Nashville version of Stan Ridgway;
Heaven Of My Heart and Burn The River Dry sound like a
catchy version of Van Morrison.
Electronics altered the soundscape considerably on
No Such Place (Luaka Bop, 2001). Despite the bare-bone confessions of
The Wound That Never Heals and God Was Drunk When He Made Me,
a dance-club feeling is injected in the desolate stories of
Handcuffed to a Fence In Mississippi,
10 Miles To Go On A 9 Mile Road and
Ghost Town Of My Brain.
That feeling is very urban and rather removed from his "rustic" beginnings.
Bound To Forget and The Wrong Kind Of Love
carry in their veins the neurotic tics of big-city life.
Drill A Hole In That Substrate And Tell Me What You See (Luaka Bop, 2004)
is his least consistent
and least engaging album. Somehow, White sounds detached and uninspired.
The lyrics continue his personal saga, but the music seems to be chosen in a
rather careless manner to match those lyrics. White (or his producer) seems to
be more interested in the general "sound" than in delivering the specific song.
In Phone Booth in Heaven the background noise is protagonist.
Static on the Radio and Bluebird are the most cohesive tales,
mainly because they sound sincere emotional outpouring and not just sonic
artifacts.
Transnormal Skiperoo (2007) was another low-key effort that boasted
a few country singalongs (Turquoise House, A Town Called Amen) but little of the stylistic
creativity that had made him a divine transgressor.
Sounds of the Americans appeared (2011) and
Where It Hits You (2012) contained their doses of calm, charming
country-pop vignettes.
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(Translation by/ Tradotto da Stefano Letmein)
Jim White è un cantautore e cantante newyorkese (nato in California, cresciuto in Florida) il cui Wrong-Eyed Jesus (Luaka Bop, 1997) fu un sofisticato esercizio nel genere gotico-sudista. Le dense atmosfere di When Jesus Gets A Brand New Name, Book Of Angels e Stabbed In My Heart suonano come la versione Nashville di Stan Ridgway; Heaven Of My Heart e Burn The River Dry suonano invece come la versione orecchiabile di Van Morrison.
L'elettronica modifica sensibilmente l'atmosfera sonora in No Such Place (Luaka Bop, 2001). Nonostante le nude confessioni di The Wound That Never Heals e God Was Drunk When He Made Me, un'atmosfera da dance-club viene iniettata nelle desolate storie di Handcuffed to a Fence In Mississippi, 10 Miles To Go On A 9 Mile Road e Ghost Town Of My Brain. Quest'atmosfera è davvero urbana e piuttosto distante da quella degli esordi "rustici". Bound To Forget e The Wrong Kind Of Love portano dentro di sé i tic nevrotici della vita nelle grandi metropoli.
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