Kurt Vile

Kurt Vile, the man with the punk rock name, grungy mane, and classic rock sensibility has had a good year. His own brand of classically American slacker balladry has garnered many plaudits, with Uncut recently deeming Smoke Ring For My Halo their best album of the first half-year. I'm inclined to agree.
      This set of songs has slowly, incrementally, embedded its way into my consciousness, as befits a truly awesome work. If an album grabs you by the throat on the first listen it's seldom able to do so past another half dozen or so airs. The specious charms of the first listen are overrated - it's the test of longevity that distinguishes the fireworks from the flash in the pan.
   Smoke Ring For My Halo is an album full of songs rather than singles. Songs that take melodic left turns and benefit as much from druggy atmospherics and ambience as from conventional melody. Take the opener, 'Baby's Arms'; bleary synths and hushed drums played with maracas create a woozy cocoon for Vile's lyrical meanderings. Hypnotic, repetitive de tuned guitar lines encircle Vile's murmurings about his "one true love", and how aside from this he has "nothing to latch on to." It's all circular melodies and smoke filled rooms, queasy sounding, yet comfortable. Like a drugged sleep. It goes nowhere fast, and doesn't really evolve into anything as orthodox as a chorus/ verse structure. Yet this is what is so charming about both the song and Vile generally.
          Though by far his most crisp sounding offering and a long way from the four track sensibility that informed past efforts such as, God Is Saying This To You, there is still an endearing lo fi sense of spontaneity. Each lyrical observation and non sequitur arrives as if Vile has just stumbled upon it himself. As in the great "On Tour", where he begins, memorably, with this arresting juxtaposition, "On tour, Lord Of The Flies." Each affirmation comes swiftly followed by its own hesitant negation, as seen in the above quoted line... "I'm just playin', I got it made, Most of the time." It's this stumbling after meaning and melody that makes both the music and the lyrics appear so sincere. Vile's greatest strength is the illusion of transparency his songs create, the sense the listener gets of them unfurling before their eyes. As if we are following Vile's ruminations step by step.
     Vile is also an obvious student of rock with an enviable record collection. One minute he can sound like blood heir to Dylan's crooked throne of obliquity, the next, a dead ringer for Neil Young. But at his heart Vile is something less grandiose, but no less interesting. He has an uncanny ability for being candid without sounding in any way theatrical or rehearsed. For being introspective yet not morose. Despite the frequent moments of doubt and equivocation, the overall mood is one of optimism. As on "In my Time", when Vile muses on his past and future, greeting mortality with phlegmatic shrug: "I know when I get older / I'm dying / But I got everything I need anyway, that's fine now / That's fine now."
     "In My Time" is also a good summation of his musical style too, containing, as it does, elements of his lo fi past (the drum machine intro), some multi layered chiming guitars with folky tunings, and even a solo during the bridge that could grace both a Dinosaur Junior track or even be an early Zeppelin riff. All these disparate elements are held together with Vile's nonchalant ease creating one of the poppiest moments on the LP.
       So, as with friends and fellow contenders for best album of 2011 title,  The War On Drugs, Vile can make music that while not going anywhere very fast, gets to where it is going in great style. Even if that is exactly where it started. It is this drone like repetition that aligns the two acts as kindred spirits drawing from the same pool of classic and psychedelic influences. Here's to the year of the slacker ballad.
    Vile's music may at first seem a little amorphous and lacking in the hook departmet, yet over time it will reveal its ample charms. Don't rush these slacker types, man.