Mark Kozelek

He takes the stage before 8pm, and a little daylight still filters in through Biko's big windows.

It's hard to find space to sit on the floor as Mark Kozelek sits down composed, rests his guitar on his lap and launches into "Gustavo". Only a dim blue light illuminates his face, puffier and more careworn than in the usual photos circulating online, almost like one of the boxers in his songs, worn out after a fight gone badly.

He warms up with the long confession of "I Watched The Film The Song Remains The Same" before moving on to the other stories drawn from "Benji", from the more driving "Richard Ramirez Died Today Of Natural Causes" all the way to, toward the end of the show, the moving "Carissa", which definitively wins over an attentive audience, frozen in the dark hall of Milan's Arci club.

There's little self-indulgence in the mournful arpeggios that end with the click of the pedal, without so much as a final breath. Plenty of applause, then the silence of a man unhurriedly checking his tuning before opening his mouth to terrorize an audience that laughs at his merciless jabs, while wondering whether this individual's brazen rudeness belongs to the musician or the man, whether it's an ironic, graceless way of getting through a nearly two-hour show in front of a few hundred complete strangers, or the sheer, utterly honest, lack of respect of someone who wants to bare himself in life just as he does in music, flaws included.

There's something for everyone: the girl whispering in the front row, easy prey for the American demanding absolute silence to keep his concentration up; the "shitty" venues and cities of our country, evidently too provincial for someone living on the other side of the ocean; the terrible, elderly male audience of Ghent and the tour's final dates, which does little to satisfy a Kozelek who's blunt and explicit about the fairer sex. In short, if you talk or take photos, Kozelek stabs you; if you ask for the Sun Kil Moon vinyl, you're a loser and Kozelek stabs you anyway. There's no escape for bearded men, and there's no merch either, since we Italians listen to "Benji" on Spotify anyway.

What remains are the long, spare songs of his recent period, the portrait of an artist who has undeniably grown with the passing years. The interplay of "Black Kite" and "Elaine" demonstrates Kozelek's talent as a classically trained guitarist, able to shape dynamics with minimal effort: from a distance he looks motionless, his right hand still, yet his fingers move to pluck the strings with delicacy. From "Among the Leaves" there's also room for the sunnier "Sunshine in Chicago", played reluctantly since it was requested by one of the tour's organizers. The best moments, though, despite the absence of Jimmy LaValle's electronic touches, come from "Perils from the Sea": "By the Time that I Awoke" and an inspired "Caroline", yet another sorrowful autobiographical piece: Kozelek sings "Caroline, are we runnin' out of time?" without hiding a certain sadness and sense of inadequacy about his advancing age, having turned 47 this past January.

He's no longer the barely-twenty-something who sang "Lord Kill the Pain" on "Down Colorful Hill", the dark, captivating debut by Red House Painters already steeped in loneliness and pain. Even Sun Kil Moon are no longer the band of ten years ago, the ones behind "Ghost of the Great Highway" to be precise, where for a moment musicality and melody seemed to take the lead and Kozelek's own voice seemed to lighten up, giving more space, warmth and color to that album's gorgeous arrangements.

Today, the mind behind the Sun Kil Moon moniker has reclaimed, in an even more personal and pure way, the unsettling malaise of his early work, now tackled with astonishing maturity: the songs from "Benji" and from tonight's show are rivers of words flowing, sweetly or urgently, over the essential, trance-like arpeggios of a guitar now free of both rough edges and nuance. The captivating power of these songs lies entirely in Kozelek's voice and words, a singer with a one-of-a-kind timbre and an exceptional songwriter.

A shame, of course, not to hear some old Red House Painters classics, a "Carry Me Ohio" or "Salvador Sanchez", but it's also true that those very other songs — impossible to request them given the risk of being stabbed — would have been reworked to fit his current style anyway.

While it's true that we seem to grasp the beauty of Mark Kozelek's music, so intimate and real, capable of moving us with just a few empathetic notes, we must admit it's hard to think we truly know such a complex figure, a cynical, indecipherable anti-hero, just like the impenetrable Rust Cohle from "True Detective", cited by the musician himself because of his many beloved stabbing references. The satisfaction of giving in to a feel-good ending like the famous TV series' finale is something the churlish Kozelek will never grant us.

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