Jandek - Chair Beside a Window - Review

“We can’t deny
There’s spirits in this house
You shut the door
The wind closes two more
I laugh a dark laugh
You smile and think about it”

These are the opening lines to “Down in a Mirror” by Jandek, one of the most haunting and poignant things ever recorded by anyone. Jandek picks the guitar strings slowly and rhythmically, lacking any musical standardization or even a key, but manifesting the most primal human emotion as he whispers about his dead lover haunting the house and begs for her to come back. A background sound that could be a rocking chair or Jandek tapping his foot follows the hypnotic rhythm. The digital warping from the deterioration of the recording becomes its own instrument that adds to the song’s mournful solemnity. It feels like I am hearing something so personal that is not supposed to be heard.

On the second track “European Jewel” on Jandek’s fourth album, Chair Beside a Window, the song starts in the middle of a harsh electric guitar strum backed by an awkward, buzzing bass and rising and falling drums that sound like a bunch of boulders falling instead of something meant to keep rhythm. Jandek starts singing with the same lyric that was cut off randomly at the end of the version of “European Jewel” that ended Ready for the House. His vocal delivery is off-kilter and more anxious than the incomplete version, but much louder than what we heard on the previous track from this album. In fact, it hardly sounds like the same artist at all. The song unexpectedly builds and builds and has some of the most brutal drum pounding and guitar shredding I’ve ever heard. Jandek immediately proves that he “ain’t gonna fool no more” and that this is going to be a much more varied and emotionally intense album than what we’ve heard so far, and it’s an artistic breakthrough for him.

The next 3 tracks continue to defy expectations with very intense, gradually building guitar strums and a quite theatrical vocal performance about “a poor boy who lost his mama”. Jandek’s guitar technique, which might have seemed like the most unimportant aspect of his music on the first few albums, is becoming a whole lot more eclectic and interesting. The abrasive harmonica on "You Think You Know How to Score" conveys unfettered aggression at the far end of the emotional spectrum that this album covers.

Suddenly, another character enters the empty void of the unknown Jandek world. A beautiful, comparatively melodic, birdlike female voice comes out of nowhere on “Nancy Sings”. She sings a beautiful lyric about connecting oneself with nature. Jandek accompanies her singing with a minimalist, keyless, yet somehow perfectly fitting guitar rhythm, one string at a time. She sounds like a more trained vocalist than Jandek, but similar to him in the way that they are incomparable to any time period or any aspect of culture, making it feel like time doesn’t exist when you listen to them.

“No Break” introduces another female vocalist, identified by Jandek in an interview as “Nancy’s sister Pat”, who has an airier, frankly incomprehensible voice. My friend has described the track as “the most surreal song I’ve listened to”, which actually makes perfect sense if you just listen to it. The electric guitar strums non-melodically, similarly to “European Jewel”, but the strangest part about it is the vocals. Pat awkwardly yells “Get it loud!” and then starts mumbling incoherently with her mouth right on the mic and breathes very heavily. Drums play gently and rhythmically in the background. The guitar rhythm picks up and Pat’s vocals escalate as she belts “You’re a jerk, go to work! You’re nuts! You’re nuts!” Everything about the song feels amateur and awkward. It sounds like a band who doesn’t know what they’re doing trying to sound check. But I’m not trying to criticize it for any of that. All of its “flaws” make the experience of this album more and more surreal. It feels like untouchable innocence and weirdness captured on tape, like The Shaggs if they were trying to make disturbing yet poignant art.

The rest of the album mostly continues the intense acoustic guitar strumming and singing, and is less interesting, but still quality listening. The lyrics are simpler than Jandek’s previous albums and mostly focus on just one idea per song, which fall under loneliness, love, and spite. “Love, Love” speaks of the power of the way of love, but Jandek’s anxious delivery and the peculiar line “Decide for yourself just what is God” clue us in that the singer is hiding darker feelings beneath the lyrics.

Chair Beside a Window represents a lot of artistic firsts for Jandek, and conveys a whole array of emotions not found on many of his other records. It is overall one of his most ambitious and interesting concepts, and is generally more listenable compared to the rest of his albums from this early experimental period. However, while it may be listenable and show skillful improvement, it still has that feeling that most Jandek albums have, that a ghost is haunting this record, and it conveys it the most prominently out of a lot of what he’s done. It’s also still incomparable to anything anyone else was creating at any time period, and captures a unique childlike innocence combined with rather mature songwriting and lyrics. It is one of my most favorite Jandek albums that I revisit all the time, and many fans believe it’s his best of all.

9/10

Essential album?: Yes

Essential songs:
Down in a Mirror*
European Jewel*
Unconditional Authority
Nancy Sings*
No Break
Love, Love