I hadn't been home more than a minute when a bird flew into the bay window of my kitchen and fell to the wooden deck, where it lay crippled on the brown-stained boards in the midday sun. Since these moments seem to wait for me, holding fast until I'm around to witness them, I didn't panic. Instead, I did what I always do: assess the situation and appraise the severity of damage. Unable to get a decent angle on the bird from the window, I stepped out onto the deck in bare feet and abruptly leapt back inside, feeling as though I'd just stepped on hot coals.
Its head was all wrong, turned around at an unnatural angle, and its legs were buckled beneath its stout, rust-colored breast. For some reason, I thought of hockey-- specifically of when, as occasionally happens, a defenseman lines up an unsuspecting player skating across mid-ice with his head down. These situations often end with a bloody face to the burning-cold ice, the rest of the body limp. Every movement is slow and brief and seemingly involuntary. This bird moved its neck in much the same way. But you pity the bird over the hockey player because of its lack of understanding. It never knew it was in danger.
The bird--a sparrow, thrush, warbler?-- offered little resistance as I scooped it up. Its legs kicked, a wing flapped, but that was all. By the time I laid it down beneath a nearby tree, it had righted its head, although it showed few signs of being able to walk, let alone fly. And still, despite all this, I would soon forget about the bird, remembering it only after it disappeared. But as it lay there among the fresh mulch and old tree roots, I couldn't help but have a paradoxical American Beauty moment, transfixed by the sadness and beauty of this injured animal.
I have a similar experience every time I listen to the Red House Painters, for lead singer/songwriter Mark Kozelek can be as emotionally raw and direct as nature itself. Over the course of five albums between 1992 and 1996, he composed melancholy acoustic strains and electric drones in which he sang mournfully about anger, sadness, and loss. Kozelek wrote the same song over and over again with mind-numbing consistency, compelling you to either face him and his personal truths or live in denial. Once he held your gaze, you couldn't look away. And yet, once the music ended, you were strangely free of his grasp. The sound of the bird's beak against the glass still rang in your ears, but all that truly remained were a couple feathers and faint oil streaks on your kitchen window.
With 1996's Songs for a Blue Guitar, a Kozelek solo album in thin disguise, he expanded his sound beyond the well-traveled passive-aggressive territory to just plain aggressive territory with a few bona fide rock songs. And now, with Old Ramon, he's taken it step further. If you're wondering why it took five more years to do so, then you haven't heard one of the more harrowing album-on-the-shelf stories of our time. A full retelling here would be redundant-- Pitchfork alone has already written it more than five times. So here's the short of it: Old Ramon was recorded in the fall of '97 through the spring of '98, but was tied up in contractual obligations when Island Records imprint Supreme was axed amidst a slew of cutbacks and mergers. Since then, Kozelek's produced a John Denver tribute album, appeared as the Stillwater bassist in Almost Famous, and released two lackluster acoustic solo albums, one of them comprised solely of AC/DC covers.
There's a split-second moment at the beginning of the opener, "Wop-A-Din-Din," when it seems the change is drastic. A loud drumkick ignites a whirl of thought: is this album going to be loud, heavy... upbeat? Not at all. You realize this as soon as the familiar acoustic strumming comes in. Kozelek croons, "She's got the green eyes/ And the long Egyptian face/ She moves across the floor/ At her own pace/ When we're here in bed/ She'll jump up on my chest/ And when we lock eyes/ There's so much love I wanna cry." It seems like the same old Kozelek, especially when he sings about "knocking her around," until you realize it's about his cat. But when choir-like backup singers chime in on the chorus, it becomes apparent that things are indeed different this time around.
Old Ramon only improves from there. "Byrd Joel" begins acoustic, then builds into a rock song with a mid-tempo drumbeat and a non-stop, fuzzed-out bass. When, on "Void," Kozelek sings, "Fill the void in me now/ Make it up to me, girl," a two lofty guitars join to make a potentially desperate song sound downright optimistic. The 8\xBD minute Big Star rocker "Between Days" may well be the band's hardest song to date. "Michigan," with its pedal steel and trotting percussion, is a Neil Young-inspired country knee-kicker. And the 11-minute epic, "River," features a few raucous guitar solos that don't seem at all out of place. Even their trademark acoustic numbers-- the Denver tribute, "Golden," and the excellent closer, "Kavita," for instance-- are among their best work to date.
Many slower outfits-- Low, American Music Club, Codeine, et al.-- are sometimes pinned with the theory that if you've heard one of their albums, you've heard them all. Such is no longer the case with the Red House Painters. At over 70 minutes with just ten songs, Old Ramon-- named after a Spanish children's book-- might seem a tad overlong, but it actually enhances the experience. With so many previous albums filled to the brim with sad, low-key songs, it's hard to tell if the sonic and lyrical changes are what make this album so compelling. But one thing's for sure: Old Ramon isn't that ailing, grounded bird. It's that same bird finding new life and flying off.
