FEATURED REVIEW..........................................................04 SEPT 2006
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Artist:
RICHARD BUCKNER |
We here at CHEEZEBALL.NET hold Richard Buckner in high regard. Though we tend to agree that his third release, Since (1998), remains his best work to date, we’ve been duly impressed with his efforts, well, since. Alt.country, alt.folk, indy-rock—call it what you will, but over the past twelve years few musicians have matched Buckner’s ability to consistently turn out well-crafted and provocative albums.
Meadow (2006) is no exception. In fact, it’s a gem. If you’ve attended a recent Buckner show—either one of his solo sets or, if you were even luckier, one of his recent gigs with guitarist Doug Gillard—then you’ve already heard most of this new album. The ten tracks complement one another well and, as a whole, the CD expands upon the abstract atmosphere of Buckner’s recent discs, Impasse (2002) and Dents and Shells (2004).
Like Buckner himself, Meadow is hard to peg. It’s not really alt.country. It’s definitely not alt.folk, which he really hasn’t been doing much of since Devotion + Doubt (1997) anyway. Perhaps it’s geared towards a college radio audience, but even that seems unlikely.
The truth is, audience—that ol’ chestnut of rhetorical analysis—has become somewhat of a vexed issue when it comes to Buckner and his music. Responding to whether devotees of his earlier CDs might be “put off” by his recent work, Buckner retorted, “Well f*ck ‘em” (Comes with a Smile, Autumn 2005). (In all fairness, this was only the beginning of a more thoughtful response about challenging oneself as an artist and the need to write albums for different kinds of audiences and different moments in time. But point taken: “Well f*ck ‘em” puts bluntly the oft-problematic relationship between the artist and his audience.)
Which is why The Hill (2000), a concept album based on Edgar Lee Masters’s Spoon River Anthology (1915), proves even more compelling in light of Buckner’s recent releases. Spoon River certainly offered Buckner a road less traveled, musically speaking, but it also allowed him the opportunity to confound his audience. Whether intentional or not, The Hill presented a real challenge to those who cut their teeth on Since or Devotion + Doubt. Thematically, sure, Buckner’s music and Masters’s unflinching look at the displacement and fragmentation of modernity do share some common ground. But The Hill marked a distinct break in Buckner’s work—no doubt the result of trying to fit someone else’s writing into a complex and seamless musical score. (Despite its eighteen “titles,” The Hill is one continuous 34-minute track.) In fact, with the release of this latest CD, it’s possible to see The Hill as a fulcrum of sorts, with Meadow, Impasse and Dents and Shells balancing Buckner’s earlier work as he takes a deliberate turn toward the repression of narrative structure.
Don’t get us wrong; Buckner’s lyrics have always been “poetic”—laced with intricate juxtapositions (“I’m gonna raze your faith until the vein is done & dry”) and metonymy (“Gauzy Dress in the Sun,” “Cradle to the Angel”), favoring assonance and alliteration (“Tough-is-as-she-does, won’t you slump on over + stir my shuffle down”) over more traditional rhyme schemes. But there was still a narrative quality to these early songs, perhaps best embodied in the now-iconic “Blue and Wonder.” Like a Raymond Carver poem, they pieced together relatively accessible, linear narratives about break-ups, drinking, depression, and other forms of material and spiritual deprivation.
From Impasse to Meadow, however, Buckner’s writing has, by design, taken on a surreal quality. Buckner admits that, as a result of his inclination to “over-edit,” he takes songs apart and reassembles them “like a puzzle where things shouldn’t fit but end up fitting” (Comes with a Smile). This passage from Impasse seems representative:
Dusty from the talk, stalled & wired, he was bro-
ken in the fight, but, something mattered. Was it
remembered all wrong as saved, but, always sown?
In a dream, she said, “You were careful. You were
calm. Were you always on your own? There must,
somewhere, be time for lives & living.”
(Once there was a child who growled & shattered.)
Buckner may have approached this level of abstraction on Since’s “The Ocean Cliff Clearing,” but his recent work more consistently—and purposefully—dissolves the structures of accessible meaning. And he’s amplified this surrealism with a fuller, more resonant musical sound.
Meadow brilliantly continues this turn, especially on the standouts “Town,” “Kingdom,” “Spell,” and “The Tether and the Tie.” The lyrics keep us submerged just below the surface, sense pleasantly lost in the embedded almost-logic of the songs. It’s as if, having worked through Masters’s poetry, Buckner discovered new ways to deconstruct his own lyrical voice. Alt.country or not, the results are compelling.
In summation: No cheeze here. The most notable production decision? The forward-placement of Buckner’s vocals. And that we like.
kw
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A NOTE ON THE RATING SYSTEM:
5 CHEEZEBALLS = UNLISTENABLE SCHLOCK
3 CHEEZEBALLS = A DIFFICULT SLOG
1 CHEEZEBALL = THE ODD FORGIVABLE MISSTEP
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