Robyn Hitchcock enlisted the help of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings for Spooked-- his first full-length collaboration (not counting, of course, The Soft Boys and The Egyptians)-- and, consequently, it's the most "American" album he's ever made. The record is a departure from Hitchcock's usual eccentric left-of-the-dial pop, a left turn almost as unique as the story behind the album's creation: One of Hithcock's friends sent him a photo of the coronation of a new Miss Ohio named Robyn Hitchcock; the coincidence reminded the English singer of a striking live performance of Gillian Welch's "Miss Ohio".
How different is Spooked? It begins with Hitchcock scat-singing a melody line that typically may have been played by a guitar or a keyboard. The track, "Television", has an understated but pretty three-part harmony, and even though the song's titular subject is a bit worn, it still develops a very Cronenberg-ian relationship with its subject matter: "My kid will look like you, I swear." If only he could have gotten Debbie Harry for a duet.
The 11 tracks that follow (one of which is a spoken-word aside) all feature spare instrumentation-- often just one or two strummed acoustic guitars-- but they aren't stripped-down versions of the types of pop songs with which Hitchcock has built a sizeable cult audience. Instead, Spooked sounds closer to folk-inspired songs Hitchcock performed very early in his career, his recent forays into Dylaniana, and Welch's prefab Americana. For Hitchcock, it's both a departure and a return to his roots.
The album boasts an array of instruments, albeit all played for "MTV Unplugged" effect. NRBQ's Joey Spampinato takes bass on two songs; "Everybody Needs Love" features electric sitar (one that's more Beatles than Dylan); and harmonicas, organs, and percussion show up throughout. The album has a spontaneity that makes Hitchcock sound newly invigorated, but it's a little shapeless. Spooked doesn't seem especially well thought-out, and while that could be part of its charm, some songs-- like "Creeped Out" and "We're Gonna Live in the Trees"-- sound underdeveloped and often outright irritating. Furthermore, this austere folk sound isn't always the best setting for Hitchcock's voice and songwriting. While "Television" and "Flanagan's Song" sound perfectly suited to this sound, "If You Know Time" and the nearly a cappella "Demons and Fiends" cry out for a faster tempo, a sturdy backbeat, and an electric guitar.
What holds Spooked together is the same thing that seems to have inspired its title: Hitchcock's fascination with America and American music, which suggests a darker reading of the album, one that depicts the United States as a terminally spooky place, akin to Greil Marcus' "old weird America." Hitchcock's is a new weird America: There's a palpable eeriness behind the fluorescent sheen of strip malls, suburban sprawl, and dubious politics. He namedrops Condoleeza Rice on the spoken-word "Welcome to Earth"; "Creeped Out" is about American girls who "tell the future every 28 days"; and his cover of Dylan's travelogue "Trying to Get to Heaven Before They Close the Door" sounds newly, nervily paranoid from a non-American point of view.
This dread, mostly unnamable but certainly strong, suffuses the album with a gravity that extends from the first song through the last. Still, for all its anxiety, Spooked often sounds generous, even hopeful, especially on "Everybody Needs Love", on which Hitchcock sings, "Some people are maimed/ They're not as worth it as the label on them claims/ But everybody needs love." That's a mantra that new weird America could embrace.
