sun kil moon?

he's a million miles away
from that beer-commercial guitar day

pic.twitter.com/CsOOGMopiz

— Ryley walker (@ryleywalker) November 12, 2018

the 'Fork finally gives up, a couple releases after most of the rest of us:

Kozelek isn’t the only songwriter who has had success with this mode of exhibitionist expression, of course, where the tiniest detail or circumstance plucked from day-to-day activity can offer an unexpected insight about life, loss, or emotion at large. After the death of his wife, Geneviève Castrée, Phil Elverum turned the act of taking out the day’s garbage into a moment of quiet desolation—and a jolting reminder as to why he had to keep going. Last year, Julie Byrne used the image of crossing the western United States to express a core of existential restlessness. Vivid songwriting, whether hip-hop or country, can hinge on these lived-in details. But during This Is My Dinner, Kozelek treats his songs like status updates on a Facebook account he again tells us he does not have. You often hear about bands leaving room for the singer, building up the lyrics rather than blocking them out. In this case, you wish that Kozelek had left any space at all for what sounds like a subtle, sophisticated backing crew, anchored by the expressive drumming of the Dirty Three’s Jim White. But, no: This is about Kozelek.

Recent themes return—Kozelek’s travels of Portugal and Norway, his anxiety over mass shootings, his subservience to his moods, how he understands pain better than the rest of us, his issues with his dad, how much meaning he extracts from boxers. What’s different here, though, is just how much we learn about Kozelek’s former virility and how losing it seems more bitter than sweet. He tells us about the time a promoter called him indie rock’s Wilt Chamberlain, the basketball star who claims to have slept with 20,000 women. He tries to dazzle with bygone tales of all the ménages à trois he’s had in Copenhagen and how he just doesn’t need them anymore. He vividly recounts escaping down frigid Oslo streets after a fan’s boyfriend caught her giving him a handjob and sucking his thumb. “When you’re in your 20s, in my opinion, nothing should be off limits,” Kozelek, 51, sings. Listening to This Is My Dinner is like going to a 25-year-high-school reunion and sitting beside the sad, divorced, and bloated former jock who tells you a dozen times about his game-winning touchdown at homecoming, then winks every time a pretty classmate walks by.

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/sun-kil-moon-this-is-my-dinner/

haha, nice one

Really liking the demos/live disc of Red House Painters - Retrospective. "Waterkill" is great and I'll have to listen to other demos on youtube to see if they should have included any other unreleased songs.

Hope I find another band that either equals or tops pre-Ocean Beach RHP for this kind of sad music.

A+ seagull singing on live version of "Mistress".

Idk what’s with that falsetto voice he used to do. He doesn’t realize how much it sounds like that or a cat. Like you might think he’s doing a silly muppet voice on purpose but it appears he was always dead serious.

It works for me.

I'm not necessarily always put off by it, it's just so odd to me because if anyone else did it faithfully they'd sound like they're making fun of it.

But his singing voice was always weird. Especially by the time he got to the SKM phase, his voice sounds perpetually like he's got a jawbreaker in his cheek when he sings/talks. Or like he's extremely congested? I don't know; it's clearly outside of his control. It could be that it was less of a thing in the earlier RHP days because at that time his style was to really enunciate everything. I probably wrote this exact post at some point upthread.

I'm just glad to have opened this thread and not found that he has said/done something stupid.

Is he on social media?

No, thank christ

counterpoint: if he was on social media he'd have probably put all his bullshit there instead

he doesn't write songs anymore he writes feeds

"thanks but i would've preferred this with no music and as a twitter thread"

"Funhouse" is just so gutting

I'm just glad to have opened this thread and not found that he has said/done something stupid.

― djh, Saturday, February 9, 2019 5:57 PM (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^ otm

Early demo "The Bridge" sounds so much like "Cemetery Gates" by Smiths. I've read that Kozelek really didn't know much alternative/college rock back then but maybe the other members did.

I've been playing "Carry Me, Ohio" from "Ghosts of the Great Highway" on Youtube a lot recently. Sort of amazed that I don't own it. I must have been in a really bad mood (or listening to Kompakt) the year it was released.

there's a good alt version on the reissue bonus disc