One of the things that occurred around the time of reanimating this blog was the publication of an article by a music journalist I’ve met and respect. A decade since I last encountered his writing and what struck me was how sincere it had become. It was now so raw it shocked me. This is someone who is able to marry expansive cultural knowledge with in-depth engagement. And sometime to achieve that, in a professional manner. It takes a little critical distance in the tone of voice and sentence.
At some point in a critic’s career elegant and artistic writing seems the professional choice. And as someone who heavily respects the objectivity of art, the indisputable creative actions and decisions that take place in the work, regardless of any ambiguity or divergence with an audience. So it seemed appropriate, at least to me, that the register in which I wrote should elevate itself to the austere reverence demanded in the art (even if I was giving the work a panning).
Reading the collection of interviews between Alan Licht and Bonnie Prince Billie they immediately croach on the topic of ‘character’ in BPBs work. Specifically that whether the work is by any one of Will Oldham’s monikers that include: Palace, Palace Music, Palace Brothers, Superwolf, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billie, etc. Will remarks about his distance from the work, and that he writes songs as if they were a film script. Parts that are handed out to the musicians to perform.
When an artist, musicians especially, base their work on their lived experience their albums end up following this personal narrative that exists outside the work. For better or worse this can leave the artist with records that connect to many people due to the passage their lives went through at the time or production, and as their lives become less interesting and stable the work moves into a dramatic new realm that may be outside of the interests of the audience.
With Oldham no such problem exists because of its departure from the individual.
Had I not read that he wasn’t internally reflecting to produce the work… I never would have known. Yes his music speaks to the profound and the abstract. And he definitely indulges in the romantic, the feudal and the corporeal. He even writes light, unexplored ditties that speak of love, even death, with a breezy resignation. Never unencumbered by reality.
But I don’t know. Maybe I just bought into the idea of the artist, this lonely isolated, frightened actor, whelping in desperate sorrow.
It seems crazy to attempt to write with deep sincerity about Will Oldham’s music when he’s adamant it’s so constructed.
When I broke away from writing, the first job I took required a car and a commute. Loading up with the full Will Oldham discography I spent two months listening to nothing but his music. As it travels the various incantations of his songs, replayed in various ensembles with novel approaches showed an artist is greater control of time and movement through his work. There’s a consistency that exists inside the work, and that feels like it adds meaning.
Tracks that reappear: Pushkin (palace music, 1995)
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