Lobelia, the first proper album by Wisconsin multi-instrumentalist Michael Jantz, is, to say it simplest, a nice and easy instrumental listen. That might seem like a backhanded compliment, the way you'd describe music that's suited for a dinner party or a Sunday afternoon, but never something you'd seek out or throw on the stereo simply for personal pleasure. But Lobelia, named for a flower Jantz' parents used in homeopathic remedies, is the sort of album that, if you hear it once, you'll only want to hear again and again. It's immersive and personal music, continually unfolding and forever revealing. Jantz prefers atmosphere to extravagance, using these 52 minutes to create a dozen moods instead of a half-dozen quick hits or technical workouts. He's created an open audio diary of sorts, something to keep exploring and discovering-- the quintessentially nice and easy instrumental album you hope never ends.
With a careful mix of banjo, guitar, field recordings, and electronics, Jantz carefully paints short, bittersweet scenes of domestic life. "Summer Street" might be an appropriate title for a lithe, summer-of-fun jangle, but for Jantz, it's the score for waves of heat rising from blacktop, for the languid days of high heat and low activity. "Porch Screens" filters an old country guitar tune through a scrim of psychedelic distortion, the tones washing out into a serene glow. During "Falling Off Your Bike", hazy guitar notes fall through tape fuzz and slide guitar moans, while "The Quarry Slide" is a jubilant builder, moving from a momentary cycle of apprehension to a dance shuffle in only five minutes. "The Bee's Nest" appropriately buzzes, but Jantz plucks a sprightly, comfortable melody above the hum. Even the most threatening sights feel like home, he suggests. These pieces are like old postcards, with predictable images warped by the very personal contexts of the messages scribbled on the back. Like Alessandro Stefana's Poste e Telegrafi, the Books' The Lemon of Pink, or even the best of Stars of the Lid, Lobelia takes ideas and sounds you know and recreates them in Jantz' image.
In instrumental music, the focus is so often on the playing and performances, with the laurels going to the musicians with the best chops. That has its place, of course, and it's at least part of the reason why people gravitate to music with words so consistently. It's easier to relate and hold on to a well-articulated story, sentiment, or slogan than it is a particularly perfected technique. Jantz is no slouch instrumentally-- the webs of guitar on "Paper Delivery" are involved and perfectly placed, while the richness and delivery of every chord during "The River's Course" speak to a craftsman who knows his tools. But Jantz' songs are bigger than their parts, more sophisticated than his playing suggests. When his emphasis is on imagination and feeling (and it mostly is for Lobelia), Jantz makes his most compelling music. "I Forgot", for instance, is the album's longest piece by about three minutes, but it's built almost entirely of lazy electronic hum and plucked notes that bounce around the room like the world's slowest pinballs. It's gentle and gorgeous. When Jantz mixes sounds of his newborn's laughter after nearly six minutes, it's a brilliantly sweet moment embedded in a simple piece of music-- a nice little bit of joy in a form that sometimes elects to strip the personality from its people.
