Father John Misty


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Fear Fun (2012), 6/10
I Love You Honeybear (2015), 5/10
A Pure Comedy (2017), 6.5/10
God's Favorite Customer (2018), 5/10
Chloe and the Next 20th Century (2022), 5/10
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The Fleet Foxes' super-prolific drummer Joshua Tillman released the solo albums I Will Return (Keep Recordings, 2005), Long May You Run (Keep Recordings, 2006), Documented (2006), Minor Works (Fargo, 2006), Cancer & Delirium (Yer Bird, 2007), Vacilando Territory Blues (Western Vinyl, 2009), Year in the Kingdom (2009). At his best, he drew from the desperate verve of Neil Young and early Van Morrison to paint a series of disturbing self-portraits at the pace of scorching albeit spartan blues-rock, folk-rock and soul-rock.

Joshua Tillman, relocated to Los Angeles, continued his solo career under a new moniker and a new persona, the drunk and horny Father John Misty, with Fear Fun (2012), a collection of vibrant songs, produced by Jonathan Wilson, that rediscover the realist art of Randy Newman and Warren Zevon, including the eccentric and clever parables of Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings (the standout) and Funtimes in Babylon. Musically, Tillman doesn't strive to innovate: he's content with the barrelhouse blues-rock I'm Writing a Novel and the country singalong Everyman Needs a Companion.

Father John Misty continued his witty verbose mission on the autobiographical concept I Love You Honeybear (Subpop, 2015), again produced by Jonathan Wilson, offers more variety but also excessive string arrangements. Holy Shit is emblematic: for a few minutes is just a passionate song, but then the strings flood its melody and end up burying it. At times the albums sounds like the worst of the California sound of the 1970s: the commercial soul-infected singer-songwriters like Carly Simon and James Taylor (When You’re Smiling and Astride Me, The Night Josh Tillman Came to Our Apartment), the laid-back country-rock bands a` la Eagles (Strange Encounter), and the last vestiges of Frank Sinatra's generation. The oddest hybrid is the tex-mex Tamla-soul of Chateau Lobby #4, followed by the frenzied circus stomp of The Ideal Husband. The comic Bored in the USA is the song du jour in the mode of Randy Newman.

A Pure Comedy (Subpop, 2017), on the other hand, a far more serious album, has several winners starting with the faux falsetto soul of Ballad of the Dying Man and the sarcastic Warren Zevon-ian sermon and crescendo Pure Comedy. Here the piano has become the dialoguing voice and the orchestra has taken the back seat. His sociopolitical commentary is uncontrollable and rolls out the austere Jackson Browne-ian parable When The God Of Love Returns, There’ll Be Hell To Pay, the environmental anthem Things It Would Have Been Helpful to Know Before the Revolution, and the effervescent fanfare with Elton John-ian echoes Total Entertainment Forever. This time, instead of looking deferentially to the worst of the 1970s, he's trying to match the best, like in the ten-minute So I'm Growing Old on Magic Mountain that evokes the spirit of early Neil Young and Joni Mitchell and drowns it in a funereal coda. The 13-minute Leaving LA (arranged by minimalist composer Gavin Bryars) is a mournful epic in the tradition of Bob Dylan's Desolation Row, Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant, Don McLean's American Pie and Billy Joel's Piano Man. The stripped-down arrangements greatly benefit his music that avoids the awkward missteps of Honeybear while still indulging in the occasional eerie soundscape (Birdie).

God's Favorite Customer (Subpop, 2018), another autobiographical concept from Father John Misty, abandons the philosophical tones of the previous one and, at the same time, adopts a Beatles-esque sound. The orchestral pop Hangout at the Gallows is typical of Tillman's new course, an elegant combination of Pink Floyd's Learning To Fly , the Beatles' Hey Jude and the usual Elton John. Date Night sounds like Lady Madonna with electronic distortions. Disappointing Diamonds Are The Rarest Of Them All is John Lennon at his most moronic. Luckily, the catchiest of the batch, and a quite humorous one, Mr Tillman, eludes that stereotype and unwinds a great Hollies-ian carillon.

Four years later, Father John Misty returned with a bizarre concept, Chloe and the Next 20th Century (2022), an album of lush string arrangements that evoke the big bands of the Jazz Age and of the Great Depression with songs that borrow from country, jazz and musichall, something that the likes of Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman could have done in their heydays. Despite being basically a joke, it ranks as his most ambitious and austere album yet. Chloe evokes the small orchestras of Dixieland jazz. Buddy's Rendezvous and We Could Be Strangers are overdoses of nocturnal jazz (although the latter has a Beatles-ian refrain). The harpsichord-driven Q4 recalls anthemic keyboards-driven ditties of the 1960s like the Rolling Stones' She's Like a Rainbow. The waltzing Her Love evokes latter-day Beach Boys and Goodbye Mr Blue sounds like a tribute to Gordon Lightfoot. The apocalyptic The Next 20th Century is a Leonard Cohen-esque dirge although derailed half-way by a loud guitar distortion. There's bossanova (Olvidado) and Frank Sinatra-ism (Funny Girl) worthy of a Broadway musical. None of these is a masterpiece (far from it) and the whole is easily forgettable, but the effort is impressive nonetheless.

(Copyright © 2021 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )