In the liners for his second album as Novi Split, San Pedro-based multi-instrumentalist David Jerkovich offers "sincere apologies to Mr. Tom Waits," which honestly seems a little presumptuous. Pink in the Sink is melodic, tastefully low-key indie folk in the Elliott Smith vein, worlds away from the gutters and back alleys, both real and metaphorical, of Waits' music. A touring member of Kind of Like Spitting and Ill Lit, Jerkovich (who goes by "David J.", apparently not intending the Bauhaus reference) plays almost all of the instruments on Pink in the Sink. Not much on this album demands even a mention of Waits, much less an admission of debt.
Instead, perhaps Jerkovich ought to apologize to Beyoncé, whose "Crazy in Love" he covers so morosely that it sounds drained of its vital elements. The self-aware sincerity of Jerkovich's delivery turns the obsessive lyrics into jive kitsch-- no folkie could ever sell the line "Kinda hopin' you page me right now" or "You got me sprung and I don't care who sees." On the other hand, as unrewarding as Jerkovich's version is, the track does mark a sea change for the album, revealing an indie-folk artist unafraid of contemporary r&b-- his approach is neither ironic ("Man, that R. Kelly sure is crazy!") nor tokenistic ("Sure, I like black music, see?").
Preceding "Crazy in Love" are three solid, if not exactly exciting songs that reveal Jerkovich's vocal similarity to Fountains of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger as well as his penchant for subtle, usually pointless wordplay. Featuring just Jerkovich and his acoustic guitar, the opener "You Got Served" is a hurt letter to an ungrateful friend whom he literally served. "Voices Carrie" and "California Skies" ups the ante with a fuller band, string arrangements, and a wider lyrical scope.
Then there's "Crazy in Love" batting clean-up, and with it the album changes very subtly, with rhythm becoming more of a priority. Loops, beats, and samples pop up, either spurring songs along or filling empty spaces and only occasionally sounding like, say, the Postal Service. Despite a sample that recalls "Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand" by Primitive Radio Gods, another one-man band, "Doctor" is the album's best track, with a prominent bridge that's half-rapped and half-sung but doesn't sound awful or even self-congratulatory. Rather, these urban flourishes mesh fairly well with the more expected musical elements on Pink in the Sink, such as the quivering strings on "Julie" and Michael Rozon's stately pedal steel on the countrified closer "Young Girls". When a song like "Julie" or "Open" stalls or becomes overly weepy, there's always some half-interesting musical idea to prop it up for a few more measures.
But Pink in the Sink is more curious than confident, with Jerkovich never exploring these r&b sounds satisfactorily. In fact, rarely do they inform the structures of the songs, the shapes of the melodies, or the direction of the lyrics. Instead, they sound like late additions, applied in the studio instead of during the songwriting process. So even as this interest in rap and r&b distinguishes Jerkovich from the crowded indie field, it also gives the impression that he is still finding his voice as an artist.
