The experimental folk music of Julian Lynch, spread out over a handful of cassette releases, singles, and now four proper albums, is unfailingly polite. In an installment of Pitchfork's "5-10-15-20" series, Lynch even hinted that it had to be that way because he didn't want to annoy his neighbors. It's work that tiptoes gingerly into the world, and there's something endearing about that, indicating a lack of confidence, perhaps, or an intuitive reflex to stick a few barriers between himself and the world that he can't dislodge.
Parallels have been drawn between Lynch's work and post-rock in the past, and it's hard to escape those again on Lines. "Carios kelley i" initially spins into the wistful orbit of the Sea and Cake before taking a detour into the jazz fusion world Tortoise explored on TNT. The difference between those groups and Lynch is that, some four albums into his career, it's still hard to figure out who he is and what he's trying to communicate. Lyrics are mostly rendered indecipherable, good ideas are picked up but never returned to. It's music that easy to marvel at, to admire the technical skill and use of sound. But it's much harder to fully fall in love with.
Lynch's music is always meticulously arranged, and the pristine structure of Lines makes it feel like little has changed in his painstakingly precise world since 2011's Terra. Lynch has a considerable talent in this arena; he knows exactly when to bring in a parp of flatulent horn, or to release the tension when a great pile of instrumental parts begin to teeter on top of one another.
He can play it simple, too. "Lines" is one of the prettiest songs he's written to date, and is expertly built up from a simple piece of strummed repetition that allows the rest of the instrumentation to amiably wander into the track as it progresses. It's the second longest song here, which feels key. Often Lynch is a little too quick to call time on his genre digressions. The Can-influenced "Horse Chestnut" feels like it could have arrived at a different spot altogether if he loosened the tight control on it. But that isn't, and never has been, Lynch's place, and wishing him to get there is, by now, a mostly futile pursuit.
That "place" where Lynch resides still mostly remains in the folk tradition, in affably worked songs spun around simple guitar structures, like this album's "Gloves". There's never any dirt under his fingernails, never any sense that he has the confidence to reach a place of great lyrical depth. And that's fine, mostly. Occasionally there are unwelcome turns, the stodgy rock of "Onions" being a particularly egregious offender, but mostly this is Lynch doing what he does in his usual tasteful but somewhat unremarkable way. If Lines adds something to the world, it's akin to the feeling you get from a small act of kindness from a stranger. Not something you forget in a hurry, but not something that necessarily adds much significance to your life. Lynch seems comfortable here, scattering out another set of question marks, his unassuming approach etched in just a little harder with every passing release.
