Jandek Albums of 2020 - Reviews

2020 was the year that Jandek released more albums than any year yet (ten). Of course, though, they're all live albums recorded in years long past. Considering that Jandek impressively performs completely new and unique music during every live show (only very rarely doing live versions of songs from old albums), it makes sense that Corwood Industries wants to release every recording of a live show as its own album. 

I'm past the point of having any sense of order in which I post my Jandek reviews -- if I try to post them in the order that I wrote them, it would be a lot more work for me because my older review drafts are much sloppier and longer. So I'm going to take a huge leap forward and post a bundle of reviews of relatively new albums for you all!

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Berlin Sunday: Laid back rock show with Sheila Smith on vocals. Not super memorable except for the faster songs, you can just skip this one honestly. 6/10

Manhattan Saturday: Nearly 3 hour non-stop noise rock performance across 3 discs. Wow, I have to admire the musical endurance and the energy. But the music is pretty standard Jandek-style noise rock, with only a few exciting moments. 6.5/10

Boston Friday: Avant-garde jazz album not far off from London Thursday, also pretty long. Not necessarily essential but if you want something similar to the other jazz albums, definitely check it out. 7/10

Montreal Sunday: Pretty creepy, haunting album that matches the album cover very well. The harpsichord gives it a slightly gothic, despairing tone. Meanwhile, the flute and saxophone occasionally goes back to the jazzy theme of the last few albums, and then the guitar adds dissonance. The style is generally very sparse and quiet and focuses on the emotional intensity of a moment rather than the energy of the performers. The lyrics are quite confessional and raw and center around death. The music is really inaccessible; this is probably one of the most difficult Jandek listens at 2 hours long total and with a couple of the most depressing tracks being over 30 minutes long. However, the raw emotion and subtlety evoked from this performance and its uniqueness are undeniable. 8/10

Fort Worth Saturday: Another accessible album with country blues influences (i.e. fiddle and banjo, country-ish lyrics and vocals), pretty similar to Hamman Hall! But it’s a little boring and long. Regardless, gotta love some relatively accessible country Jandek. Some parts are also genuinely hilarious because of Sterling's overly dramatic country-imitating vocals. 7/10

Rudyard’s: Jandek does so many genres on these live albums and we finally get to the Jandek funk rock show! Sterling plays guitar (noisy and weirdly melodic, similar to Houston Thursday) and sings with some band members who play wonky bass and drums with groove and rhythm. The crowd is unbelievably invigorating too - they react to every lyric, the cheering is great, and they even chant to the beat at one point. The CD consists of just one song titled “Two O’Clock Sun” with a few different sections. The lyrics are simple and charming, they’re like a stream of consciousness throughout a narrator’s day. It’s certainly a fun show and I understand all the hype around it. It boils down to the fun Jandek funk song, and it’s not as profound as his best work and it doesn’t try to expand beyond one idea despite being an hour long. Basically, that’s why I’m not calling it a top 10 Jandek album or anything, but I still love it, of course. 8/10

Grinnell Saturday: An instrumental chamber performance with Sterling on piano, plus band members on oboe, violin, and double bass. It’s basically a fully instrumental version of the brilliant Atlanta Saturday. However, this isn’t quite as coherent, with slightly more amateur-sounding instrumentalists. Sometimes they don’t even play in the same key as each other. And it’s a lot more boring, actually, since it’s 2 hours long and there are no lyrics. There are still some pretty sweet melodies here, and you have to love the more accessible Jandek performances. 7/10

Amsterdam Saturday: Pretty standard, relatively short noise rock performance with rather poetic lyrics. I guess it’s got pretty good bass too. A few fantastic highlights like the first song, but it drops off aside from that. 6.5/10

Aarhus Sunday: I finished all the previous Jandek albums a month ago and I waited the entire month for someone to upload his 2 most recent albums to the Internet so I could finally finish the whole Corwood discography and…!!! Well, this isn’t that big of a finale. It doesn’t really bring anything new to the table. It’s your typical Jandek experimental rock show, with a very slow pace, calm droning vocals, and a long length; the main point of interest is the piano, which is played by two instrumentalists: Sterling Smith and Phil Todd. It’s slightly jazzy especially with the piano and Alex Neilson’s avant-garde drumming. It’s fine and non-offensive but it’s just so extremely skippable. 6.6/10

San Francisco Saturday: 2 hour show with the usual noisy rock style. The most unique part is Tom Carter’s bass, which is highly distorted and loud, making the show sound more like a duet between two guitars. The lyrics here are also pretty depressing and pessimistic. “Stop Hurting Me” was a highlight, the bass there kept a memorable kind of rhythm. But there’s also “Alone”, the most suggestive song I think the man ever wrote. It’s pretty hard to judge such an enormously long show though… I might raise my score if I relisten to it and get a better feel for it, but it’s also unlikely that I’ll do that considering the amount of Jandek live albums to revisit. 7.4/10

Jandek - Lost Cause - Review

https://corwoodindustries.com/product/0759/

Lost Cause is one of the most unique Jandek albums and definitely worth a listen for anyone who's trying to get through the highlights of his discography. The album is generally split up into a very accessible and warm first half, and a crazy avant-garde second half. The first half's set of acoustic blues songs include fan-favorite masterpieces, the dark "How Many Places" and the heartbreaking "Crack a Smile", which was covered by someone as big as Jeff Tweedy of Wilco. The second track, "Babe I Love You", is sparsely produced, but is also Jandek's poppiest acoustic song. It features some of his most infamously absurd lyrics, such as "Baby, I love you / Look outside / Genitals".  

The middle tracks "God Came Between Us" and "I Love You Now It's True" feature more experimental and repetitive strumming, similar to the earlier Jandek albums, but are still very engaging songs that show growth in songwriting and guitar technique.

“God came between us, God came between us

And he lit our hearts on fire and put it out with oceans

Nobody’d ever see us, nobody’d ever know

But God came between us, God came between us”

We can't go without mentioning the final song, "The Electric End", an unexpected 19-minute behemoth of a full band going nuts with free improvisation and noise rock. The guitar goes wild, with hints of blues influences, with Sterling shouting random things and a crazy wind instrument entering a few minutes in. Revisiting this track after listening to the whole Jandek discog, it's still an impressive feat. 

Overall, Lost Cause is one of the most varied and thoughtfully-conceptualized Jandek albums of them all. 

9/10

Jandek - Khartoum / Khartoum Variations - Review

Jandek - Khartoum

https://corwoodindustries.com/product/0781/

Back to Jandek playing an atonal acoustic guitar and howling. I know I compare every album at this era to I Threw You Away, but that was truly the quintessential album that represents the despair and confusion of this era of Jandek. I find Khartoum to be pretty close in quality to I Threw You Away, but more barebones because it’s just the guitar and nothing fancy. The vocals are very dramatic, desperate, and exhausted. I got the same vibe as the aforementioned album from the lyrics as well: starkly and unabashedly depressed. I will probably listen to it again to get more into the nuances of the sound, but for now I will just analyze the lyrics.

“You Wanted to Leave” speaks of a problematic relationship. The singer describes the other as being uninterested in him and not as he expected, making them just part of a dream, and he also recognizes the damage he has done. He ends by comparing himself to the intrinsic beauty of the actions in nature. Very confessional song, but hard to follow.  “Fragmentation” is a sadly relatable song. It describes his difficulty in communication and being himself when all he feels inside is a “long blank stare”. 

“I Shot Myself” is depressing and visceral. He describes having shot himself atop a hill under the stars and being on the brink of death, but having sudden thoughts about goodness, mercy, and forgiveness. A very memorable moment. “New Dimension” sounds like a very personal letter to Jandek’s ex. He presumes that she is married, and warns her to be careful around himself if she is not because he thinks he’s harmful. He regrets taking her for granted because she was his world. This stings especially bad because of several previous albums that spoke of happiness in love, including the run from Shadow of Leaves to The Door Behind plus When I Took That Train. 

“Khartoum” is presumably about Jandek’s regrets in the same relationship. He describes his partner never having time for him combined with his instability and poor social skills making a weak relationship. He goes into a stream-of-consciousness about how he wishes he couldn’t think about it anymore. “In a Chair I Stare” is a very memorable song that I heard a long time ago before visiting the whole album. It reminds me of “What Things Are” from the previous album. The singer says that he has lost all control at the mercy of his brain, and all he can do is sit in a chair and stare, walk around, and then come back. The vocal delivery is tormented and devastating and I definitely feel bad for him.

“Move From the Mountain” continues the theme of regret. The song interestingly switches from first to second person, but is probably still about the same person. He says how he regrets moving away from the mountain, which probably represents the relationship, which he also regrets leaving behind. It ends with one of the best, most palpable lyrics on the album:

“And the world among men is so sad

I can sense my confidence splinter

Into pieces

Which bear your reflection

Why can’t I laugh and be happy?

What kind of vacuum took my enthusiasm?”

“Fork in the Road” describes the bareness and nothingness of depression again, but includes a glimmer of hope that he still sees the light and if he “turns to stone” or “flows like water”, then he can be anything instead of being nothing. The ending is satisfying to all the themes of this album. 

The emotions ran deep through this album and I felt very bad for Jandek while hearing the lyrics. The story forming from these past few albums has taken an even darker turn and his lyrics are more head-on depressive and regretful. It really strikes me how we are over 40 albums into the discography and the whole thing still feels like a big concept with a lot of lyrical connections and overarching themes. The musical style is nothing new here, but it is very solid. 

7.6/10

Essential album?: Yes

Essential songs:

In a Chair I Stare

Fork in the Road

Jandek - Khartoum Variations

https://corwoodindustries.com/product/0782/

I agree with everyone that Khartoum Variations doesn’t need to exist. It’s basically the exact same album as Khartoum, minus the track “Fork in the Road”, and it’s performed on electric guitar with a similar technique to The End of It All. I think the songs themselves are great so I won’t give it a negative score, but I’m keeping in mind that this doesn’t really add that much to the original album - the structures and vocals are the same. The guitar adds some interesting improvisation, e.g. the intro to “New Dimension”, but it’s not “good”, it’s just a little different. And in fact it’s quite sloppy and sounds like the stuff I play when I’m bored and I just feel like randomly making noise on my electric guitar. 

5.5/10

Essential album?: No, just listen to Khartoum. 

Jandek - Raining Down Diamonds - Review

https://corwoodindustries.com/product/0780/

Jandek goes back to singing with only a bass guitar and nothing else. I wasn’t really looking forward to hearing more of it, but I was pleasantly surprised with the first few tracks on Raining Down Diamonds. The sound of the bass is so deep, dark, and rich, and strummed/picked a lot more sparsely and abstractly than I remember on the previous 2 bass albums. I kind of freaked out when I heard it, and immediately joked to my friends, “Jandek has gone dark ambient”, because the bass really does sound like dark ambient. It doesn’t have the same type of ambience throughout the whole album, because there are some differently textured picking “solos” such as the one on “Take My Will”, but the atmosphere still remains. 

The vocal delivery isn’t super interesting. It’s very toned down and lethargic; there’s really no howling or screaming, which honestly made the most interesting moments on the past few albums. There is still a lot of genuine emotion, though. That emotion is mostly exhausted and depressed, though.

“What Things Are”, the most atmospheric track on the album, describes being in a dark cave and not knowing where things are, but suddenly it starts raining down diamonds and there is an amazing blinding dazzle of light. The musical style fits the imagery perfectly. The similar “I Stared” is simple and profound. The singer has forgotten everything and spends his time staring and not moving for hours, presumably because of depression, but he says he might get to know where he is and become satisfied if he knows “where you are”.

“You Ancient” is silly. He thanks the “ancients of the food god” for gifting him the privilege of knowing which things you can eat and still stay alive. “Take My Will” is very repetitive with the line “Jesus take my will / Take mine and make it yours”. The singer leaves his home to get on a train with a pack on his back and knows he’s going the right way. It reminds me of “Sticks in the Marsh” from A Kingdom He Likes, which was about choosing to abandon society and stay in a decrepit house, which is an interesting comparison because that song had the line “There is no God, God is everything / It’s all a picture we’re painting on the street”.

“New Rendezvous” has some of the most encouraging and refreshing lyrics I have ever heard from Jandek. “You’re only as young as your heart” is the key line and the song is about focusing on your heart and your thankfulness when you feel lonely or heavy in order to find true happiness and fulfillment. This is probably one of the most beautiful things Jandek ever wrote. “Your Visitor” doesn’t have an easily followable theme, but the main idea I take away is to value time spent with a loved one. 

There are some pretty great lyrics on this album, but not on every song. I really like the atmosphere of the bass and the calm vocals, but it’s also quite repetitive. I really enjoyed this album but I would not say it was great or that it impressed me. 

7/10

Essential album?: Maybe. Out of the 4 “Jandek plus bass guitar” albums, this would be my pick, so listen to this if you’re interested in that type of music. 

Essential songs:

What Things Are

New Rendezvous

Jandek - Glasgow Sunday - Review

https://corwoodindustries.com/product/0779/

We’re finally at the live album era. I’m excited for this because Jandek’s live shows aren’t just any live shows. Each performance features entirely new music and lyrics, and different musical styles and guest musicians. I will be listening to all of these along with the rest of the studio albums. I have already heard a few of these because I was curious and I peeked ahead, so I have an idea of the amount of variety and experimentation that will come on these live records. Jandek live albums are always titled with the location of the show and the day of the week it happened (and occasionally the year), which will clue you in that the following review will be of a live Jandek album. 

Glasgow Sunday is a recording of Jandek’s first ever live performance at an experimental musical festival in Scotland. His appearance was unannounced, making his unveiling to the public eye a complete surprise. The lineup features Jandek on electric guitar, similarly tuned and played to the 00s studio albums, Richard Youngs on bass, and Alex Neilson on drums. 

I find the album to sound like an interesting mix of styles I’ve heard on past Jandek albums. The guitar style and vocal delivery is similar to the post-spoken word-era albums. The vocals can get really intense and powerful, most similar to I Threw You Away. I also find them much easier to follow than on a typical Jandek record because there are a lot of memorable lines, some repeated parts, and the vocal delivery is constantly changing in the same way the instrumentals are.

The combination of the electric guitar with the bass and the drums reminds me of early noise rock era Jandek somewhat, but the musicianship is more professional here. Youngs’ bass is very abstract and constantly rumbling and buzzing. It fits pretty perfectly with the guitar, considering both are improvised and chaotic. The bass is definitely one of the most interesting aspects, although there are a lot of interesting things about this performance in general. I could say the same thing about the drums. I find Neilson’s drums consistently engaging too. They sometimes get buried in the thick layers of sound from the guitar and bass, but usually their changing rhythms come through and give the songs some more direction. The drums are certainly less primitive than earlier Jandek records, sounding a bit lighter and in tune.

“Where I Stay” has very beautiful lyrics that I think are about dissociation. They describe not feeling, thinking, or seeing anything, and sitting in a room. “Darkness You Give” is a very dark love poem that has a couplet lyrical style. It describes the singer’s desire to be with who he loves, even if he has to be punished for what he’s done. I’m stunned at the beauty of it all.

“Sea of Red” has more lyrics that are shockingly depressing once you read through them. It describes a drowning scenario where the singer is begging for the redness that is drowning him to end his life already. The chaotic tone of the music gives these lyrics a different perspective than if we were to hear them on any other album. The following, more lighthearted, iconic “Real Wild” depicts the singer washing his clothes on an ordinary day, and deciding to “get real wild” because there’s nobody around. I love this concept.

Continuing the symbol of colors, “Blue Blue World” is sadly too relatable. The singer talks about a type of heavy, unavoidable depression that has nothing to do with his lover and causes him to not even think about her anymore. Very memorable song. The closer “The Other Side” is a pretty great story. “I’m gonna tell you a story / about a little girl / She broke my heart / When I was five / I’ve got so old now / Where’s the other half of my heart / I just can’t find it, the other side”.

I’m just as impressed with this album’s lyrics as I am with the music. I think this is truly one of Jandek’s greatest, and I will continue to listen to it to discover more of what each individual song holds. I think each track has some very great moments to offer. 

8/10

Essential album?: Yes

Essential songs:

Darkness You Give

Sea of Red

Real Wild*

The Other Side

Jandek - When I Took That Train - Review

https://corwoodindustries.com/product/0778/

I find When I Took That Train to be one of the most interesting Jandek albums in a while. The musical style is essentially the exact same as the previous few albums from Jandek, so I don’t really need to discuss it at all (assuming you've read my previous Jandek reviews). The lyrics and vocal delivery are what make it interesting, and also disturbing. 

First of all, I found the lyrics very easy to follow even while I was focusing on drawing, which was honestly a first for Jandek considering how poetically dense his lyricism usually is. The album revolves around one concept that is similar to a lot of the ideas about love/romance and infatuation that The End of It All and The Door Behind focus on, but it amplifies them to an extreme, ironic level. The lyrics revolve around the singer’s unhealthy obsession with his object of love, or maybe I should say object of “like”. Continuing the theme from The Door Behind, the singer is obsessed with being “liked” by this woman and keeps repeating some variation of “I like you” or “and then you’ll like me”. There are also a lot of references to physical and sexual attraction between them, which can get quite uncomfortable, and at some points it sounds like Jandek is straight up flirting with the audience. 

The vocal delivery is more spoken than sung. It reminds me a bit of old school blues. He even puts on a “flirty” tone to add to the lyrics, which gets uncomfortable, but adds to the whole ironic concept. The last few songs diverge from the theme of the rest of the album and change the tone, but still have some connections with the rest of it. The theme of the album reminds me of the super long songs from the spoken word era because they push an ironic, exaggerated concept for so long, that you’re not even sure if it’s ironic anymore. Yeah, late era Jandek isn’t exactly the artist you’re most willing to hear with this type of attitude. But I will say that this is one of the most fascinating and shocking and even disturbing Jandek albums I have heard in a while. 

I have already summarized the majority of the lyrical content, so I will just go on with a few highlights. “Wouldn’t You Agree” has a memorable moment where he sings “because it’s all about” and you expect the next word to be “you”, but it’s actually “God”, which I think is intended to be ironic because of how the singer worships his woman in all the other songs. The song also mentions what sounds like some pretty unhealthy relationship aspects. Jandek insists that he is a rock that will not change, but immediately after, he talks about how he will change for her, and how they both have to change to meet each other’s standards.

“Angel Moves” has another one of these shocking moments, starting with the lyric “I think the goal of life is / Make a man feel like a god”. He describes someone getting into an accident on the road, and their angel saving them. There is one part with a very intense, memorable vocal howl. 

On “Thing Called Me” the singer talks about his life in “the corner of your existence” for “six million years”. The only thing I can think is that it feels like an unfiltered declaration of self. 

The final song “My Escape” is a journey of a song. It starts with the singer being trapped by a spider, and begging to be set free to get back to his house, but all he needs is the door. He also speaks of the addressee dying for him. The song ends on a very depressing note that sounds like he regrets what he said on all the previous songs.

“I don’t know what I’m becoming 

I can’t see past my eyes, it seems 

But I’ll take the green blood 

Turn it red inside of me 

I’ll take your hand inside my body 

Reach in your heart 

Take it out for food 

Eat my heart out 

Take the rest of me inside of you”

I can understand why someone would think this album is annoying, but I do think a lot of the lyricism is worthwhile despite being a little repetitive or uncomfortable. It certainly shows that Jandek has always been a very unique artist who hasn’t run out of ideas. 

7/10

Essential album?: Yes

Essential songs: 

Angel Moves

Jandek - A Kingdom He Likes - Review

https://corwoodindustries.com/product/0777/

A Kingdom He Likes is Jandek’s lowest rated album on rateyourmusic.com right now, which is honestly quite an achievement considering the amount of albums he has. However, I didn’t think it was that bad at all, and I don’t think that’s just me having sympathy for this under-appreciated album (as I tend to do with a lot of other artists). It’s a similar type of album to I Threw You Away and The Humility of Pain with repetitive atonal acoustic strumming and howling vocals. I would say it’s not as good as those, but it had a few moments that shocked me or that I thought were pretty funny. 

The guitar technique had decent variation at times, but only ended up being slightly interesting. The lyrics remind me of the Staring at the Cellophane-Living in a Moon so Blue duo because of the random moments that stood out to me. The vocals are pretty decent. They’re very painful, although still nothing lives up to the voice from “Blues Turned Black” or the vocal style from the earlier Jandek albums. 

I don’t really follow “I Gave My Eternity”, but there’s a few lines I can pick out that I like. 

“I gave my eternity

Gave it away

And you can find it under your sway

Whoever calls it night is not serious enough

At night I’ve gone back to where I came from

I see my journey in a thousand ways

Take off your mask now

Reveal yourself

Come out and show me

You beautiful thing

I’ll just be me here in the space around me”

“Real Afternoons” starts with an ironic description of the refrigerator as an altar. The moment he sings “Straight and erect” has me thinking he’s listening to “Vertebrae by Vertebrae” by Bjork, but, well, this album came 3 years before Volta. “Skank, you skank” was one of the funny moments of the album and completely changes the subject of the song to telling someone to bug off.

“A Windy Time” feels like a random little ditty about a business meeting, of all things. I like the lyric “I don’t need a smoke alarm to tell me there’s a fire / And I still have the sense of smell and heat and cold”.

“Your Own Little World” was another one of the moments that stood out to me on my first listen. It describes a grotesque situation where Jandek’s house is infested with spiders and different types of mold, and how the spiders are so powerful that they practically own the house now and Jandek just submits to them. Gross, but symbolic.

“Sticks in the Marsh” is about the singer sleeping overnight in an old abandoned house and having a Thoreau moment, rejecting society to instead travel among nature. He seeks guidance from the “man sun God”, and then ends the song with a bold statement: “There is no God, God is everything / It’s all a picture we’re painting on the street”.

“No One Knows Your Name” starts with a personal commitment to getting some bad thing out of himself that’s causing him pain. The middle of the song quickly changes the subject and maybe somewhat connects to the topic but mostly looks like random imagery. I like the last line “I got my demons strangled by the throat”. Weird song. 

“It Rang Eleven Times” starts with Jandek describing having programmed his own organs to have full control over them. Then it suddenly changes to daring someone to jump off a cliff without looking down and laughing all they want. But he sings “I’ll never go with you / I’m the one that’s there”. More confusion.

Well, the lyrics aren’t that great. There are some very wacky ideas and a few profound moments scattered throughout the album, and a lot of mishmash subject matters. There definitely isn’t an overarching theme like the last 2 albums, which focused on relationships. I still think this is better than the mediocre 90s acoustic albums such as Glad to Get Away and White Box Requiem, however, just because of the general musical style of this new era. 

6/10

Essential album?: No

Essential songs:

Your Own Little World

Some 90s Jandek Album Reviews

 Hey, I just remembered I had this blog and I never finished posting the Jandek album reviews that I wrote, like, years ago. Here are some more. They are not that great but I don't have much time to refine them, especially since it will probably be a long time until I get back around to listening to these albums again. 

Jandek - Twelfth Apostle

A very creepy and simply bone chilling album. I believe all the albums from this point on are merely solo guitar and vocals, so I'm going to miss the band, but there’s still some interesting aspects here. I just found everything about it very haunting and reminiscent of mental illness. There’s also less of a childlike innocence that permeated the early acoustic records; this era is perhaps more mature. The guitar technique has only improved slightly. The only new aspect this album introduces is a heavy use of an echo effect on some tracks in the second half, particularly on “Could Be Anyone”, the most haunting track. “Whiskers” is similar, which is a more spiteful and disturbing track. 

The lyrics are really good; there are some great lines, but they seem to be a lot more abstract with a lot of random references to objects and characters that come and go without any solid circumstances. While there is interesting imagery and a few particularly strange or funny moments, I couldn’t personally relate to any of the lyrics. I think it’s better than the earliest Jandek solo acoustic records, but not enough to warrant a good score. 

6/10

Essential album?: No

Essential songs:

Could Be Anyone

Whiskers

Jandek - Graven Image

I'm happy with how this one turned out. I expected it to be the same type of album as Twelfth Apostle, but it’s quite different and a little bit more exciting. It actually starts out with the same kind of haunting music as the previous album, and I like “Ghost Town by the Sea”. “A Real Number” manages to finally introduce a new instrument we have not heard with Jandek, which is the accordion. Surprisingly, the accordion sounds nothing like Jandek’s harmonica or guitar playing. The song is really melodic, and was quite pleasant, except for a slightly dissonant ending. 

The rest of the album is a little bit more intense and humorous. “Janky” is a short, funny song with Jandek going ham on the harmonica and seemingly singing about himself. Starting with “Phillip Was Mentioned”, a dense and intense song with more accordion, the songs are noticeably more lo-fi. The guitar technique also starts to resemble traditional blues a bit more, despite still being very strange. 

The lyrics seem to mostly make a little bit more sense on this album. “Nothing You Lack” is definitely nonsense, but the rest of the songs have very beautiful stories with great lines. I see a theme of the protagonist being perceived as a ghost by those around him. Not a “great” album by any means but one of the more solid “solo” albums.

7/10

Essential album?: No

Essential songs:

A Real Number

Janky

Phillip Was Mentioned

Jandek - Glad to Get Away

 I don’t know… Glad to Get Away is just boring, boring, boring. It’s similar to Twelfth Apostle, but not even as interesting. All the songs sound the same, and there’s not even anything going on with the strumming. A lot of the songs have single-string-picked notes that sound really lazy. The only really worthwhile song here is “Van Ness Mission”, which is more intense, uses a lot of reverb, and is very haunting. 

The following song, “Anticipation”, is similar, but sparser and quieter. I also think these tracks have the most interesting lyrics on the album, with the latter having Jandek describing the “black girl” or “dark woman” that he loves, and the song ends with “She had a look on her face / When I gave her a golden ring”. I have to wonder if the story is about his real life. I don’t really connect with the lyrics of the rest of the songs, except for a few slightly deep or funny lines. There are the common lyrical themes of depression and loneliness, but I feel like other Jandek albums portray that more vividly. “Nancy Knows” has an interesting title, but is a lazy instrumental with string plucking again. “Plenty” introduces a harmonica, but is unmemorable. Overall, this was a sub-par Jandek album with one or two interesting moments. 

5/10

Essential album?: No

Essential songs:

Van Ness Mission

A Response to Criticism of Jandek Fans

I was writing a short review of San Francisco Friday by Jandek, and I was distracted by this incredibly ignorant and rude review on the RateYourMusic page for that particular album. Over the months I've spent looking for Jandek content in the depths of the Internet, I've found that a fair amount of people write criticisms of Jandek's cult following - about as many people write about this as there are Jandek fans themselves, it seems. They tend to be ridiculously trollish and wordy and focus on the fact that Jandek can't play guitar and seem to ignore any other aspect of his music. They criticize Jandek for the amount of albums he has and how his fans continue to buy them and go to his shows, giving him more money to continue making music and playing live more. 

My actual review of San Francisco Friday, a surprisingly bluesy Jandek live performance, was quite short, and I'll post it later. But I quickly went into a rebuttal to these horrible criticisms of Jandek fans because I was so angered by their tremendous ignorance and rudeness, so here is what I wrote. This writing is kind of very messy and clunky but I just really wanted to get my thoughts out. But I honestly hope the person who wrote that review doesn't find this because I'm not really ready to get into a fight with someone over the Internet again (those give me anxiety). 

I don’t know why a person on RYM chose this particular album (San Francisco Friday) to write a headass review where they talk about how Jandek keeps making sh*tty music and his fans eat it up, because this is definitely one of his most musical and most artistically valuable live albums. It’s okay not to like his music but it doesn’t make sense to say it doesn’t have artistic value and that his fans are wasting their time. It’s honestly rude and quite pathetic that someone could be that pissed about people simply enjoying the work of a musical artist and wanting to support them. 

The amount of creativity that goes into his lyrics and the variety of the instrumentation among the live shows is obviously enough to demonstrate the appeal of his music. On his live albums, he does everything from noisy rock to ambient spoken word to experimental acoustic folk to avant-garde jazz to accessible chamber folk to bluesy rock like this. Even if it’s mostly other musicians doing the work for his music, Jandek still shows a lot of creativity by assembling those musicians, writing the lyrics and making the foundation for the show, and allowing them to improvise and bring their own personality to his music. Jandek also writes about extremely personal subjects like depression, loneliness, and broken heartedness, and it would be ignorant to disregard that fans might seek solace in his artistic expressions regarding those topics. 

Obviously it’s subjective and you don’t have to say you enjoy any of it, but you can’t criticize his fans for going to his shows, buying his albums, and analyzing his music. The Jandek project is one of the most unique musical experiences in general because of his idiosyncratic musical and lyrical style and the evolution of his genres, and that’s pretty hard to doubt - are there any artists that truly sound like Jandek? Could you ever call anything a “Jandek copy”? And it’s pretty hard not to see any appeal at all to the depths of his live albums, especially when they include accessible bluesy gems like San Francisco Friday, and they include other hidden greatnesses like all those genres I just mentioned, and his lyrics. To boil down the content of Jandek’s music to “he can’t play guitar and no one told him to stop” is incredibly ignorant all those creative qualities/sources of appeal that I just mentioned, and shows that you just want to criticize people for enjoying something that you’re too lazy to look any deeper into. 

Jandek - The Door Behind - Review

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The Door Behind consists of more electric guitar songs; it’s more interesting than acoustic or bass so I’m pleased. The playing sounds really improvised and the notes constantly changed unexpectedly throughout each song. The instrumentation was somewhat engaging. I think I prefer it over the previous album. I actually really enjoyed the vocal delivery. It was very depressive and could be described as howling or wailing, and ranks above some of the previous few albums. Sometimes I have to stop and forget that every Jandek album essentially sounds the same, because when taken out of the context of the rest of the albums that sound just like this, The Door Behind is actually quite beautiful and heartbreaking on its own.

The lyrical content is very similar to The End of it All, with a major focus on relationships. “Do You Want Me” is simple and connects to the last song from the last album. “I’m in your world / And you’re in mine / You got one side / I got the other”. “Gate Strikes One” is about what I assume to be a recollection of Jandek’s first romantic experience. Another connection to the previous album is the constant use of the word “like” instead of “love”, which has a childlike connotation, because when you’re a kid in school you “like” your classmate, you don’t “have feelings” for them. The whole situation of the song is described in a simple, straightforward way that really sounds like the way a kid would describe that type of experience. I like the irony of it all.

“I’m Not That Good” is about the “desert calling me” and his fear surrounding what could be there. OK lyrics. “The Slow Burn” is confusing. It starts with what sounds like census questions or something about whether he’s married or not. He describes how he wants to be alone because someone has burned down his house. He says that when they’re gone, he’ll live in a new house, but he also slips in the line “You can be my princess”. There’s also the amusing line “I need to kill those squirrels running around in the top of my head” stuck in the middle, which aptly describes my confusion around this song. I like how indecisive and cranky it is, though.

“It’s Only You” and “Every Sentence” are both love songs, but something is very off-putting about them, including his musical performance. The former song features rapid, ominous guitar. The singer is quite obsessive about the woman he loves and quite literally worships the ground she walks on and the air she breathes, but it doesn’t sound like the love is returned (“And love me, I love you”). The individual lyrics are very romantic, but they just make me worry that something is amiss behind the scene. 

I like that the lyrics continue the story from the last album. It’s very similar to it too, but slightly better (not “great” by any means, though). I also just really like the depressing musical style in general, even if it’s pretty much the same thing on every album.

6.8/10

Essential album?: No

Essential songs: 

The Slow Burn

Jandek - The End of It All - Review

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The bass phase was short-lived (or so it appears). The End of It All opens with a gentle electric guitar strum (haven’t heard that in about 16 albums, actually), and is similar in style to the solo acoustic albums, but with slightly different playing. I can’t quite put my finger on what’s different about it, but it might be that there’s slightly less rhythm and more abstraction, and the mixing feels more intimate (it reminds me of my own home recordings on my electric, and I actually have never felt that with an artist before - I’m convinced I’m playing the electric wrong or something). I can’t help but wish he would make another “European Jewel” instead of these meandering guitar solos, though. The vocal delivery sounds kind of exhausted and uncomfortable rather than depressed or crazy - not his best - although a few moments are more manic.

The 20 minute opening track “One of Those Moments” is about a relationship, but I find it very hard to follow. However, there are a few lines that you can pick out and relate to, which I find fascinating because Jandek lyrics are typically more about the bigger picture than the moments. I like how it ends. 

“You told everybody you liked me

You made me say I liked you

All right so you had to pull me out of me

I was so deeply buried

I needed your air

And now I feel so alive

I don’t see anything different

It must be you, I accept that

We’ll see where it leads to

If you want to touch me I wouldn’t mind

It doesn’t happen too often, this kind of thing”

“I Hadn’t Been There Before” sounds like it’s about the same relationship and it involves a very anxious description about how dangerous entering the relationship was and how it messed up his head, despite how he’s happy (or maybe it’s the woman who’s happy). Haunting song. 

“They Don’t Matter at All” continues many of the same themes and describes the singer not knowing what his lover really thinks and if she really wants to be with him deep down, because he’s the one who does most of the talking. That strikes me because, in these lyrics, we truly don’t get to see the other side of the story. 

“I Met You” is easy to follow, and I find it endearing despite the eerie soundscape. The lyrics are about the singer hoping he can figure out what to do in the relationship so they can both feel lost in each other in the same way. The lyrics’ beauty speaks for itself. Again, lots of lines that still work out of context here, which I find rare for Jandek. 

“I don’t know if there’s just the right amount

But I hope I can figure it out

And give you just the right amount so that you lose yourself

And become a part of my reality

I got a world, I found you on the periphery

Somehow I pulled you in

Now that you’re here, tell me

Is it the best place you ever know

Because I’m at the best place I ever knew

And it’s just after I met you”

I like the lyrics on this one. They’re straightforward and they connect throughout the whole album. The musicianship is ok, I’m honestly glad we’ve progressed from the bass playing to something a little bit more tasteful.

6.7/10

Essential album?: No

Essential songs:

I Met You

Jandek - Shadow of Leaves - Review

https://corwoodindustries.com/product/0774/

Besides a few exceptions from his later era, the only human being to ever appear on Jandek album covers was Sterling Smith himself. On some albums he makes this concept of self-portraiture extremely obvious, either by zooming in very close on his face so no one else can be seen (i.e. Chair Beside a Window) or obviously photoshopping out the background of the picture entirely (i.e. London Residency). Some very astute fans noticed that the trees on the cover of Shadow of Leaves repeat themselves, suggesting something was edited out of the photo. The lack of any other faces among the multitudes of covers really emphasizes the theme of loneliness in Jandek's music; but also, the album covers with his face are rather revealing for a man who's a self-proclaimed recluse and never reveals any information about himself. 

Shadow of Leaves continues the unplugged bass playing. Either the tuning of the bass or the playing technique seems to have changed, because many of the strums have a warped quality to them, which kept it slightly fresh, but not by much. The album was overall very hypnotic, and I enjoyed listening to it while on a sweltering-hot walk in the park, but it’s not necessarily that great or notable.

The 29-minute title track takes up the vast majority of the album. The vocal delivery is anxious and sometimes intense, similar to the previous acoustic period, but not as wholly so as on albums such as I Threw You Away. I was pleasantly surprised as I re-read the lyrics on this track because it’s one of the most poignant stories I’ve ever heard on a Jandek song. It describes Jandek’s experience with a dead or dying romantic partner throughout their lives. My interpretation of the beginning is that the partner has lost some ability to function and Jandek is willing to help her no matter what. It transitions to fragmented reminiscences of the times they spent together, which moves fast from images of walking together to drinking in the rain among other scenarios. He questions the permanence of what they had as he reveals his lover is dead, and he visits her grave and imagines being in heaven together. The song is so personal and specific that I genuinely feel sorry for him, and it would be hard to believe it’s not based on a true story. The constant themes of death within Jandek lyrics would lead me to believe so. Even “Down in a Mirror”, one of the most important tracks from his early era, describes being haunted by a ghost of a dead lover. My favorite aspects of the title track are Jandek’s devotion to his lover’s wellbeing, and his acknowledgements of thankfulness and hope.

Two shorter tracks make up the rest of the album. The musical technique is the same. “Find Me Again” is, to me, about Jandek describing how good he is at hide-and-seek. The song may be related to his reclusive nature and his career and how he never lets anyone know anything about him. 

“I Give You Me” sounds like Jandek giving an elevator pitch about himself to someone who’s about to break up with him to convince them not to leave him. It’s interesting, but it feels very shallow. A few lines continue a theme of weirdly sexual imagery that first appeared in the middle of “Shadow of Leaves”.

This is closer in quality to the spoken word albums. I wish there were more tracks, honestly. The title track has some of his finest poetry, but is too long to replay, and the other two tracks are just alright.

6.5/10

Essential album?: No

Jandek - The Gone Wait - Review

https://corwoodindustries.com/product/0773/

On The Gone Wait, Jandek has abandoned the acoustic guitar for an unplugged bass guitar. The strumming and picking of the bass is similar to his acoustic, but the tuning feels even more perplexing, keyless, and even less melodic than the guitar tuning. That gave this album a really unique, surreal feeling that left me a little more intrigued than the last few acoustic albums. The bass technique is mostly repetitive, but it starts to pick up a bit in the second half of the album, becoming more rhythmic/percussionist at times, particularly on one section during “I Was a King”. The vocal delivery is toned down here. It’s more similar to his spoken word era than the previous acoustic era. 

“I Went to Hell” is about not knowing if the one you love is going to hell or heaven, but wanting to be with them wherever they are. There are themes of reincarnation, with dying and being reborn in someone’s arms. “We use our bodies to describe what we feel” is a very memorable repeated line. 

“I See the Open Door” reminds me of the track “The Place”, but not as interesting. It describes hesitation surrounding entering an open door and not being able to go back.

“I Was a King” is an introspective, stream-of-consciousness song that has a common theme of a desire for power and control, and an ambiguous relationship with another during Jandek’s childhood.

“I Just Might Go Now” is very abstract and has so many themes that it’s hard to summarize in a sentence. It deals with not having a body, wanting someone else’s body, and waiting for that person to come so they can have a house together.

“I Found the Right Change” describes sitting in a front room where nobody else stays and getting to decide what passes through and what doesn’t. It’s likely a metaphor for something human. I’m noticing a big theme in recent Jandek albums of houses and rooms representing something greater and more inherent to the human experience. There are also a lot of themes of death and the loss of a body.

Very interesting lyrics on this one, but not as good or straightforward as The Place. I like the bass playing so far, but I don’t know if I can take another whole album of it. 

7/10

Essential album?: No. If you’re interested in hearing a “Jandek plus bass guitar” album, my pick would be Raining Down Diamonds.

Essential songs:

I Went to Hell

Jandek - The Place - Review

https://corwoodindustries.com/product/0772/

The Place is a similar album to The Humility of Pain. There’s nothing really interesting going on with the guitar, it’s a lot of the same stuff. The vocal delivery is good, although I feel like it’s starting to get old from the initial shock the new style gave on I Threw You Away. The final track “The Stumble” has the most dissonant and disorienting harmonica I've ever heard Jandek play, so it’s probably the best song on here. There aren’t many tracks, so I'll try to talk about the lyrics of each one, since that’s the only remaining feature to really discuss. 

“The Picture” is a philosophical song that questions how we move, how we communicate, how we construct time, and how everything is always moving and coming and going. It’s very abstract and full of wisdom.

“The Place” is more straightforward and easier to follow. It’s about Jandek looking for a key to a place that he’s left unchanged, and he wants everything to be exactly the way he left it, but he doesn’t actually know what’s inside. It’s a very strange metaphorical concept indeed. I think the message is that we tend to fear change, but our tendency for curiosity kills the possibility for stability. 

“The Highway” is also kind of straightforward, but very wise and abstract. The story seems to be about Jandek waking up from a near-death experience after falling in a chasm in the road and feeling physically and mentally scattered and confused. He worries about falling in the chasm again and waking up in another body or another place, or as nothing at all. I think it says a lot about how traumatic experiences affect us and change our decision making. 

I imagine “The Answer” is about a dream that includes an ancient face, a flashlight without a hand, an unknown person, and a lot of other surreal imagery that seems to just be an imaginary journey. Perhaps it means something, but it seems like nonsense to me. Edit: After reading another listener's interpretation, I think it’s more about Jandek hearing someone outside the door and having a bunch of imaginations about who it could be instead of answering the door. 

“The Stumble” has some beautiful lines, but the subject matter is hard to pinpoint. The lyrics talk of times and places shifting. The one pattern I can identify throughout the lines is how he can still accomplish what he needs, even if his legs become impaired or broken. There are many things to take away from this song, but what I get out of it is that physical ability is not a representation of the true self.

Overall, I like the lyrics and I liked interpreting them. They feel fresh and new. The music itself was decent but nothing I haven’t heard before. 

7/10

Essential album?: Maybe

Essential songs:

The Place

The Stumble

 

Jandek - The Humility of Pain - Review

The Humility of Pain is very similar to I Threw You Away, and I'm having a hard time deciding the score for this album because it’s almost as good, but I think I'll give it a score a little bit lower because it’s missing some of the things that made I Threw You Away great, and the lyrics aren’t as straightforward or relatable here. The vocals are still howling and despairing, like a cry for help, and the guitar is pretty much the same, but there’s less reverb on this one. There are no harmonica parts, but I do still feel that his vocal performance is very strong and makes this era a lot more interesting than some of the early acoustic records, partly because of how dramatic the vocals are and how certain words and phrases get more emphasis and become more memorable. 

The lyrics on this album feel less introspective and are more like a message to someone else. Jandek seems to be giving advice to someone to stay out of trouble on the title track, for instance. “I Want to Look In” is indecipherable, but it has a memorable verse: 

We’ll walk the spectrum

With lights on the walls

The floors are dead now

And that makes them alive

They love you so much

How could you turn away?

“I Can’t Leave a Clue” is a more optimistic song with Jandek hoping for a miracle and wanting to erase “what he did” in his past. “Share My Life” is straightforward and it’s about the protagonist searching for a soulmate. I like these lyrics a lot - some of the best on the album - although of course Jandek’s desperate delivery gives everything a different meaning. 

You’re missing somebody

You’re missing me

There’s nothing to weigh you down

I don’t have a past

Let’s make the clock disappear

There’s only one thing to see

You’re missing somebody

You’re missing me

“You Know You Need” seems to be “advice” again. I like the metaphor of cleaning out the house and taking out the things you don’t want as a representation of being your true self. The protagonist talks about his relationship with the addressee and how they should appreciate his presence more, but not saying that outright. Certain details, like a friend that he’d die for, are mentioned. It feels very personal; it reminds me of my lyrics in that way, in that it’s ultra specific about a person, but vague enough that someone who doesn’t know about the situation can’t exactly interpret it spot-on. It’s true that a lot of Jandek lyrics feel like something that’s too personal to be listened to. Although, I'm not sure how I feel about “the refrigerator is dead and gone” as a closing line. Maybe it’s genius?

While there are plenty of great moments on this album, it overall doesn’t measure up to its predecessor I Threw You Away in terms of lyrics, memorable moments, and musicality, but it’s certainly still a pretty great Jandek album and I guess I'm looking forward to what this era brings next. 

7/10

Essential album?: No

Essential songs:

Share My Life

Jandek - I Threw You Away - Review

Finally, a musical album again. I Threw You Away is a solo acoustic effort, but it’s unlike anything I've heard before from Jandek. The guitar playing is in an alternate tuning with not a lot of variety, but the playing is intense and rhythmic with a lot of dramatic pauses. There is also quite a lot of reverb on the guitar and the vocals, giving the whole album a very spacious vibe, as if you’re far away from Jandek in a large room. A harmonica comes in about halfway through the album, and it’s about as key-less as his guitar playing. I don’t know if it’s any more dissonant or hopeless than past Jandek harmonica playing, but it feels like that to me. 

Finally, the most notable and perhaps the best aspect of this album is Jandek’s vocals. His voice has changed A LOT from the last time we heard him sing. It’s nearly unrecognizable, but after listening to the spoken word albums, it’s believable that it’s the same person. I’ll miss his old voice, but there’s a lot to like about the new kind of vocals here too. Jandek simply HOWLS nearly every line in such a despairing tone. The repetitions of “black” on “Blues Turned Black” is the best example of this; I can’t help but think of “Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair” by Patty Waters when I hear it. 

The lyrics on this album are great too. They are starkly and unabashedly depressed, lonely, and painful. They’re difficult to read; they reference self-harm and numbness of feeling. On “Frozen Beauty”, he mourns the death of a loved one, although lines such as “I took your life / Put it in a box” suggest he has something to do with their death. “The World Stops” is less depressing and describes a trip back to familiarity, where one can finally experience quiet calmness. It’s a satisfying ending to the lyrical themes. The songs on this album are samey, but it’s overall a good experience and certainly surpasses much of his early acoustic material. 

8/10

Essential album?: Yes

Essential songs:

Blues Turned Black*

Jandek - Worthless Recluse - Review

 Another spoken word album, but Worthless Recluse is a little bit different. The tone is overall very different, both figuratively and audibly. The delivery is very serious and mostly monotone, and at times sounds like a genuine conversation or an audiobook, really, instead of the poetic, sing-songy delivery from the previous 2 albums. I’m also glad that there’s nothing like “I Need Your Life” or those half hour songs here; the songs don’t drag on at all and there’s barely any monotonous repetition (if any at all), which means they explore their topics much more concisely yet deeply. I also feel like the short stories were more snappy, realistic, and easier to follow than the ones on This Narrow Road. 

The lyrics are overall very depressing and I feel like it goes without saying that they’re lonely. “Out of the Cave”, with its imagery of the city scenery and Jandek’s story of travelling which includes having “slept in a parked bus”, makes me think Jandek has experienced being homeless before. 

“Interlude” introduces another character that the protagonist has a complicated relationship with, who doesn’t seem to want to notice him.

I love “Aimless Breeze” and its message of the fleeting nature of time, which can’t be organized in the way we do. 

“I know the sun will come and go again

The moon and stars will shine

Why should I not notice?

I don’t know

Time seems so capsulized

Drifting in an aimless breeze

Like the fallen leaves

Like wood out on the lake”

“You Wake Up Deadmen” describes the other character “collecting” dead men in a trash barrel through sex and refuses to acknowledge the protagonist. It hurts to read about. 

“Worthless Recluse” is the 17 minute centerpiece of the album and is about the protagonist trying to understand if there is happiness, if there is something worth it about going outside in the world and embracing money and material possessions. He even hates going to the supermarket to get food to eat, and having to eat feels like a “weakness”. He describes a dream that’s more interesting than life, and getting caught up with the cops whenever he goes outside. The theme of time reappears where he doesn’t want to keep up with the schedules of life: “I wanna be where no time is the wrong time”. Jandek spews self-hatred, but declares he’s not strong enough to kill himself or disappear. He’s stuck in a dream, and feels like he’s “supernatural”, despite a “human” part of him that wants money and possessions. The song ends with him describing how all he cares about is “taking the big step into God’s eye”. The song is simply a masterpiece full of profound wisdom. 

Fans gave this album the most praise out of the spoken word albums, and I have to say my expectations were about met. I think the title track especially, and most of the others, are strikingly beautiful, albeit having little replay value. I know I said something in the last review about spoken word not being enjoyable to listen to, but this one is different because Jandek is no longer doing that weird, silly, stretched-out delivery that makes me uncomfortable (for the most part; he does it a little on the last tracks here), so I think his voice was significantly more calming to listen to here. I might listen to it again because the lyrics really require your whole attention and you have to read them as you listen.

8/10

Essential album?: Yes

Essential songs:

Worthless Recluse

Jandek - This Narrow Road - Review

Another spoken word album. I don’t really want to go into that much detail because there’s a LOT to unpack with the lyrics and I don’t think I could possibly comprehend all of This Narrow Road after one passive listen. The first song “One Last Chance” is half an hour long and is basically the same pattern as PMDOTP. I feel like it also has a lot of the same themes. The song is about how badly Jandek wants to be good and he’s talking to someone who can help give him strength to defeat the bad. He doesn’t really get that into what good and bad means, and the whole thing has a sarcastic tone. While it can be interpreted as a sort of prayer that Jandek made for himself to become a better person, it also feels like a satire on the way that the world and the media perpetuate the idea that we have to be good people and destroy the bad in ourselves when everything doesn’t really have a clear-cut definition of good or bad and sometimes following the rules isn’t the right thing to do. I believe Jandek touched on this too by mentioning that the idea of good can be different from person to person. However, this song is far from perfect because the sarcasm’s effect definitely wore off after 30 times of Jandek saying some variation of “I wanna be good, I wanna defeat the bad”. 

The rest of the album has much shorter tracks, and it’s a huge improvement from the last album - the imagery is much more complex, and there is less repetition. It’s less talking and more straight up poetry, similar to Jandek’s early lyrics. As I said, I can’t possibly comprehend all this poetry, but “The Name I Had”, “Pieces of Place”, “Ten O'Clock Shadows”, and “I Knew About Them” are all highlights. However, they weren’t nearly as easy to follow as the 20+ minute songs because their stories and imagery progressed a lot faster. I don’t want to say they should be longer, because the 20+ minute songs are really hard to sit through, but perhaps they don’t explore their topics enough to digest easily. But then again, who said it has to be easy to digest; I'm just being dumb right now. I definitely need to spend some time to read through it again and pick out my favorite lines.

Jandek’s delivery throughout the album is almost always sing-songy, but not enough to sound the same as his voice when he’s actually singing. I appreciate that there’s some kind of melody sometimes, but honestly it’s a 56 minute spoken word album without accompaniment, of course it’s extremely inaccessible and difficult to sit through. I know you could argue that it’s essentially the same thing as Ready for the House and Six and Six, which I gave positive scores to, but at least those have guitar and pseudo-singing and they have a little replay value. There are things I love about the lyrics on This Narrow Road, but I can’t give it anything higher than a 6 with my whole chest because while it’s artistic, it’s simply not genuinely enjoyable to listen to. I don’t know if I'll ever listen to it all the way through again, I'm just going to read the lyrics. I think that means it’s not good music. 

6/10

Essential album?: No

Jandek - Put My Dream on This Planet - Review

Well, we finally made it here: Put My Dream on This Planet. Jandek’s music has completely deteriorated to being just spoken word, without accompaniment, and the two main tracks are over 20 minutes long. It’s really hard to come up with a rating for this because it’s hard to tell how much I actually enjoyed this. I was honestly a little bit disappointed with it, because a lot of people left really positive reviews on how enlightening, engaging, and humorous this could be, but I truly think Jandek has done better poems before. I didn’t laugh once throughout the whole thing either, or find it funny at all really. Jandek does do some really weird voices and strange inflections, but they just weird me out if anything instead of making me laugh. The themes throughout the two main songs can get extremely repetitive. 

“I Need Your Life” is about the narrator being lonely, slipping and suffering, and begging the addressee, the object of his affections, to give him their life, and let him “win” because he’s fixated on being a good person. It’s an interesting story, and the repeated phrases have a similar rhythm, creating a “chorus” of sorts (“give me your life”, “let me up”, “let me win”), but it seriously doesn’t do much for its 28 minute run time. Of course, there are great moments, and the overall message can be powerful, but I feel like the individual moments don’t even measure up to Jandek’s greatest lines and many of the moments are just plain stupid. 

Next, “It’s Your House” is about Jandek describing his dream house in great detail, down to the materials he wants to build it with, and repeatedly stating he’s “ready for the house”. It sure was interesting to get a reference to his very first album, but I cringed almost every time he said it because he dragged every syllable out to an unnecessary degree. He declares that the addressee has the power to let him live in his house and that “it’s your house” and that even if they don’t let him, he’ll live in it with his mind. I suppose I liked this track more than the first one because it feels like he’s come full circle and he’s confidently declaring his identity. It had a lot of the same problems as the first track, though, because of its extensive length, its repetitiveness, and pointless details such as the several minutes of the song dedicated to describing the materials the house is made of. 

“Since I Went Outside” is an insignificant minute-long song about going outside in the cold, and then that’s the album. I know I was negative about the poems above, but I have to say while the content of this album was frustrating, I think the whole experience of it was worthwhile. It shows a whole new side of Jandek, one that feels more mature and self-aware, yet still extremely haunting. His voice feels empty as it always does, yet confident, and I kept comparing it to his singing voice in my head. I’ve always found his voice somewhat calming, and relatable, if a voice itself can be such a thing. The silent pauses, the lo-fi quality of the recording, and the background sounds that occasionally played (sounds like rain or construction or something) could be terrifying. No one else could make such an album because no one would write about such things or deliver it in such a way, and it manages to be authentically Jandek, yet at the same time something entirely new for him. 

5.5/10

Essential album?: Maybe

Jandek - The Beginning - Review and Project Update

Okay, I think I need a big change of plans for my Jandek review project. 

First, I'm not going to post the reviews in the order that I first listened to the albums anymore. I find that I keep having to rewrite my sloppy reviews from a year ago if I actually try to go in that order. However, I have tons and tons of actually finished reviews just sitting in the vault that I want to get over with already, so I'm just going to post a bunch of those at once even if they're not in order.

Second, I unfortunately don't think my schedule is going to allow me to review every single album anymore. I will definitely still listen to all of his albums, though, so I can make some charts/guides for new Jandek fans. Also, I'll write out the lyrics for any albums that don't have lyrics online. I will definitely prioritize finishing reviews of albums that I rate at least an 8 or albums that are just generally interesting. 

Anyway, here's my review of Jandek's album The Beginning (1999). 

The Beginning definitely freshens up the repetitive album formula that we’ve been hearing for a while now. It starts with “It’s February”, which would be unremarkable in the middle of any other album, but I think it’s a perfect opener to this one, especially if you kinda know what you’re in for. “You Standing There” is a rework of the same song from New Town, and it’s much better. It’s faster and more complex, but nothing I haven’t heard before. 

The next two are more of the rhythmic, atonal plucking similar to the other albums. “Moving Slow” has an unusually dissonant ending but I don’t see it as very significant. “Falling Down Deep” was a big surprise because it’s actually melodic fingerpicking and sounds challenging to play. This is basically what I expected when I first heard that Jandek used alternate tunings (but before I actually listened to any of the songs), before I learned that he mostly just strummed with open tunings. I like how the song hints at usual melody progressions, but defies your expectations every time. Definitely one of the best on this album, and from this 90s era in general. The lyrics are about alcoholism and falling deep into depression, and it makes me sad. 

“Lonesome Bridge” has a typical guitar part, but I really enjoyed Jandek’s passionate and off-key (do these songs have a key?) vocal performance about a man who apparently chooses to be homeless. “A Dozen Drops” sounds really lo-fi and reminds me of “Down in a Mirror”. The lyrics quote 3 older Jandek songs - “Nancy Sings” (whose lyrics have been repeated a lot throughout the discography), “You’re Not Even Alive” (from Twelfth Apostle), and “God Came Between Us). The vocal delivery was a lot quieter and more timid than the original songs they came from, and feels very meaningful. The song somehow feels like Jandek’s overview of his art and, well, his memories (he really pours his whole self out into these songs) before he goes completely insane on what follows. The song goes on for a few minutes as an instrumental, which isn’t that interesting, but a little bittersweet in that it’s the last Jandek guitar plucking we’ll hear for a while.

Finally, we get to the last song, the title track, 15 minutes long. Jandek’s 26th album (or something, I'm not keeping count, I dunno) and he is 54 years old and he finally records himself playing piano and it sounds like a toddler trying to play a piano which has not been tuned in centuries. It actually sounds like ME trying to improvise on piano (which I do sometimes, yes) and I don’t know jack about playing piano properly. While the technique sounds untrained, the emotion within the song is very genuine. I can say that while the song may have been easy to make, I don’t think anyone else in the world could or would have made it, and it’s one of the most emotionally stirring pieces in the Jandek discography so far. The high notes feel like glass or ice, and the low notes feel like the cacophonies of hell. It can get quite disturbing or shocking at times. I did have a fun time imagining a middle aged man playing the piano so passionately and intensely, yet not knowing how to play in a trained way. I could choose to hate this song, but I'm going to choose to love it instead. And I think that’s how I'm going to feel about this album too. What a concept. 

7.8/10

Essential album?: Yes

Essential songs:

Falling Down Deep*

A Dozen Drops

The Beginning*