Joining Grandaddy slightly later than its founding members and leaving just before of their official 2006 disbandment, guitarist Jim Fairchild has embarked on a solo career that seems to profit from the slow-growing and modest realization of his own music. Many of the songs on Ten Readings of A Warning have existed for some time, but changes in Fairchild's career and the accumulated encouragement of well-known peers spurred the album's recording. It is a deeply ruminative and powerful collection whose homespun production is emboldened by Fairchild's transient West Coast "studio"-- familiar or borrowed houses in cities like Los Angeles and Portland. He harnesses the best elements of collaboration, in which ex-Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss and Modest Mouse percussionist Joe Plummer, to name but two, respond to Fairchild's vision by contributing the backing drums to Fairchild's guitar, keyboard and vocals.
Fairchild had been plagued by the thought of becoming a singer until Isaac Brock and others played mascot. His vocals may not be striking, but they possess the clean, familiar tones of John Vanderslice and suit the wide-open sound of his songs. Even the plugging, lilting, but ultimately simple "Killing Sheep" is memorable, especially when spiced up with an electric guitar solo that remakes his vocal line with a grungy sound and grungier note pattern. The following "Pile of Burning Leaves" has a quiet narrative intro that develops into a punchy atmosphere of piano, slightly echoed drums, rangy guitar, and clear, loud, but controlled vocals. The clipped line "Not having a baby" pairs itself with the title as a macabre and evocative scene made more sentimental by its musical accompaniment.
"Mouth in A Cloud of Smoke" is the juicy center of the album, but lacks the shy, sweet elements of the opening tracks. Instead, it defies technology by sounding perfectly recorded despite its origins in a makeshift living room studio. Brian Deck, who has also worked with Modest Mouse and Iron and Wine, mixed the record, so perhaps that has something to do with it. Like the gutsier instrument showcases on Andrew Bird's latest, "Smoke" is stronger in number, dependent on thick, low piano thirds and seamlessly loud, almost liquefied electric guitars. When Fairchild's vocals join the melody, he's not overpowered, instead complementing the pomp with a human adamancy that lends meaning to all the noise. "I Know It's Wrong" follows it with a similarly chunky, resilient piano-guitar-drum fusion, but the composition has a little too much of a stronghold on its catchy melody and precise rhythm to really set itself in the mind, at least initially.
The album is sandwiched by cozy, effects-free instrumental atmospheres, its four central tracks ("The Velvetest Balloon" and "Love Leave" are two more standouts) being the most fun because of their anthemic, crowded, but ultimately neat-freak compositions. Fairchild plays with the same tools later, bringing a piercing keyboard cadenza into the middle of acoustic guitar ditty "Backward Forward Through". The songs benefit from these mood-altering featurettes, the keyboard being Fairchild's greatest help because of its versatility. But it's the guitar that he's known for, and when electrified and given center stage, the songs shine. As gritty bit parts on "Sprinting Hyphens" and "Summer Stay", the guitar is useful but doesn't always save the songs from the tepidity that ubiquitous acoustic guitars can be guilty of. His lyrics remain arcane and romantic until the end, creating a tapestry of what we can assume is an epoch of love in bliss, turmoil, and transience. Often addressed in second person, they are only coaxed into our consciousness by other moving, colorful ingredients, which spark songs that are digestible, addictive, and sometimes magnificent.
