Emerald City (Dig)

John Vanderslice - Emerald City (Dig)

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CD Details

Artist: John Vanderslice
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2007-07-24
Music Label: Barsuk
Soundtracks:

Kookaburra
Time To Go
Parade, The
White Dove
Tablespoon Of Codeine
Tower, The
Minaret, The
Numbered Lithograph
Central Booking

Music reviews of Emerald City (Dig)

Music Review: Back to Oz
Rating: 4 Stars

Just got this early this week and felt I needed to say something on the latest Vanderslice. After the second time I listened to it, I dug up all his albums I own. This involved digging into my overpacked closet. You see I've been listening to John since "Occult Figurines" which I found to be a cool if minor indie rock album. And then he released Time Travel is Lonely. My interest grew and I realized what I had found. A talented songwriter who payed as much attention to the lyrics as the instrumentation and the arrangement. I mean he is the real deal! Somewhere between Malkmus and McCrea both vocally and lyrically with a undercurrent of melancholy. There is something direct and poetic about his work. This is pop, before that was a bad word, that is evocative and concise. Musically the elements are expansive and harder to pin as being anyone but Vanderslice. Then came Life and Death of an American Fourtracker which seem to slant more to art over pop. It took me awhile to crack it but I did. I like a lot of it but found some of the experimentation didn't take with me. It seemed like it was needlessly obtuse in the music department.
I had no problem with the Beulah style horns, it was just the studio-centric noodling. Some could call it prog pop, I thought of it as needless stretching. But it grew on me. The real moment of doubt came with Cellar Door. Gone was the light conceptual draw of the previous albums for more of a short story feel. And there was one too many ballad type songs. Not to mention a feeling of creative exhaustion which made it more of a song by song experience than an album one. It left me in a state of uncertainty which made me unsure if I wanted to bother with Pixel Revolt. So I drifted away until I heard about Emerald City. After devoting so much time, I figured what the hell. And it was worth it! I think that this is the ideal place to start. Back is the internal cohesion and a nice split between innovation and tradition. Not to mention a blur between autobiography and invention which is Vanderslice's strong suit. It is a solid presentation of what makes him singular in a world bloated with singer/ songwriters with a vision. So why should you want to check it out? It shows that you don't have to suffer to hear good creative music with a personal touch. Not a party record but it sustains you through those introspective/alone moments. This stuff is crafted! Inviting yet enigmatic. It just keeps drawing me back.

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Description of Emerald City (Dig)

Vanderslice recorded this album in the midst of anguishing legal limbo after a visa application for his French girlfriend was rejected by US immigration. The album takes its title from a reference to the "Green Zone" in Iraq, but its themes are broad.

With the album title referring to the Green Zone in Baghdad, the latest from John Vanderslice is rife with fractious circumstances on a grand scale. His writing was fueled not only by inescapable global realities, but also an ultimately futile process to obtain a visa for his French girlfriend. The contrast of small personal details against a backdrop of larger sociopolitical events is what makes such riveting characters come to life in his songs. Eschewing broad specifics and flat reportage, his poetic bearing makes the slivered glimpses of lives in flux feel as resonant as a next-door neighbor or a family member further afield, but connected by phone. All of these lyrical aims would fall flat without Vanderslice's consummate compositional skills. These are first and foremost hook-filled songs, and it is upon repeated listenings (which they can't help but draw a listener into) that more complex matters of darkness, grief, love, hope, and death begin to emerge. --David Greenberger

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