Karl Blau-- one third of D+, with Phil Elvrum, and Bret Lunsford of Beat Happening, and a contributor in The Microphones-- is a lonesome voice at a backwoods sing-along, but Clothes Your I's is a campfire very unlike the chatty marshmallow roasts I attended as a kid. The atmosphere of this recording is a solitary ritual of stalwart self-reliance, something the listener observes from a distance, the view partially obscured by sulphur, fireflies, and crooked black trees.
Blau grew up in Anacortes, Washington on the San Juan Island of Fildalgo in Puget Sound; the site leaves an indelible mark on the album's watery geography, which emerges to the sound of a boat's distant foghorn. Blau situates himself within a world of "concrete nettles" and blackberry bushes, rainfalls, "I's", solitude, and a sun that's "a revolutionary in the skies." He focuses on natural forms of epiphany like burning pine, the dampness of "loving" soil underfoot, the milky rays of the sky, always working against "the separation of our state from nature."
"Pendulum" leads, the strongest track on the record; this catchy three-minute pop song sounds like the cheerier work of Neutral Milk Hotel, teetering with a folk-art sensibility: "Worn through the fabric of the chest by years of a tender cheek/ Speak talk of the rainfall today and mention sunbeams burning the skin of yesterday." There's rust on the cheap old swingset in its backyard, crammed with coded language; on this track, it's so external, it's as though the musicians are using smoke and driftwood as part of the instrumentation, watching rain drop on a cymbal, a branch tap against a snare. Much like The Microphones, Blau excels at filling up spaces with organic sounds-- banjos, trombones, saxophones, shakers-- while avoiding overwrought clutter. He makes each detail seem like it was born exactly where it rests. I could chock this up to divining, but more pragmatically it might have to do with the fact that Clothes Your I's was laid down at Dub Narcotic with the aide of Phil Elvrum and Calvin Johnson, notorious for their recently spacious analog recordings.
A number of other strong moments dot the record: "Computer" begins with a minute of dissolving horns that drift in and out of sight before turning opaque dirge complete with chimes and plucking tones; "Sunsign" works a brilliant samba atop a flood of percussion, horns, and boy/girl call-and-response, and "Creepin' Jesus"-- with lyrics by Nate Ashley-- sounds like Will Oldham back before he was too reserved to scream and howl. Following "Creepin' Jesus", though, Clothes Your I's stumbles. "Fasten Me to You" has a cloying guitar line so detached, it dredges up images of new age gurus. It's also one of the longest tracks, trailing off into a seemingly endless repetition of the choral refrain followed by guitar swell, ad infinitum. On "I Hold You", the same busybody sensibility remains like the remnants of a dewy hippie hoedown-- I keep seeing overalls for some reason. These two misfires act as a troubling dip-tych, daring you with their inability to resolve, falling apart into meandering jams. They're prettily pastoral in a way-- I dig the flute-- but if I see a tie-dye, I get well nervous.
During "Bid-R-Bunch", the record's tiny farewell, Blau regains his footing, going multi-track psychedelic like Olivia Tremor Control, raising the roof for Mother Nature. Thirty seconds after the end, a strain of "Pendulum" starts up again, but instead of singing about the sun and shifts in luck, Blau draws on "and to love..." for a minute. The reemergence after those less-than-stellar trip-ups acts as a reminder of how things went downhill for a bit, but also creates a nice loop, a fading frame of reference.
When he's at his best, Blau resembles a prophet scarfing honey in the desert, a John McPhee speaking in tongues, chanting in a whisper from Lord Byron's Vision of Judgment about out-of-tune angels. Clothes Your I's isn't as perfectly poetic or blissful, but its rag-tag patchwork is a brief and enjoyable ride. It's also the closest thing to a drum circle I ever plan to attend.
