This record is New York. Not the same New York PJ Harvey wailed about on Stories from the City, or the one Sonic Youth addressed with NYC Ghosts & Flowers; one more akin to the lower east side after-hours retreats of Luna's Penthouse or Yo La Tengo's I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One. It's both quiet and loud in a way that invokes flickering lights against the city sky at dusk.
Been Here and Gone isn't as much sad as it is tired. Maybe it was a long and busy day. The air might be getting colder. Maybe the seasons may have already changed. There's a light on in the kitchen and a window cracked in the bedroom. The Empire State Building rests on its side from the view on your pillow as you lay sleepless in the heat. Thalia Zedek's weathered voice reflects it all.
A long way from her days spent with Come, Uzi, and Live Skull, Been Here and Gone seems the mature and reminiscent record of an aged career, like Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now or Neil Young's Harvest Moon. Supposedly inspired by the cabaret-style shows Come played between their third and fourth records, this album grew as a result of popular response to her stripped-down solo shows. On record, guitars, drums, piano, and violin play along, but may as well evaporate into the smoggy breeze, as the focal point at all times is Zedek's lulling voice. Echoes of Patti Smith, the Geraldine Fibbers' Carla Bozulich, and Mecca Normal's Jean Smith curl from her throat, stark and patient, as if she were singing indie rock's torch song. And maybe she is.
Been Here and Gone sounds vintage but timeless, like an old photograph. And while neither groundbreaking nor post-whatever, Zedek captures moments like Kodak paper. Vaguely psychedelic instrumentation opens "Excommunications (Everybody Knows)," a Leonard Cohen-style dirge (its subtitle seems an homage to one of his best known songs) that trudges woefully along, until the effects fade, leaving the song to end stark and bare. "Desanctified (Full Circle)" works its charm with a see-sawing Dirty Three feel that's akin to green-faced sea-sickness. Here, though, this isn't a bad thing; the song shows its teeth where many of the album's other tracks hold but a solemn gaze.
The record also features three piano-led songs, all of them covers. Two of these, Gary Gogel's "1926" and Leonard Cohen's "Dance Me to the End of Love," work as a sort of center to the album, lightening the mood, and gradually bringing things closer until they're back in full view. The final track, Luiz Bonfa's "Manha de Carnaval" is consummate while simultaneously welcoming, bringing closure to the Been Here and Gone's long and insomnian New York night. It was best spent like this, anyway.
