DAMIEN JURADO - And Now That I’m In Your Shadow

Among the key traits that allow a modern songwriter's artistic path to validly carry on through the years, alongside developing a distinctive voice in writing and performance, is without doubt the ability to express one's style in different forms, questioning oneself in order to avoid endlessly repeating formulas that, however pleasant to listen to, have become crystallised. It happens, then, especially to the most sensitive songwriters, to feel at times the need to retreat into an intimate isolation, in which to strip away any superstructure in order to be left facing only their own inspiration and its translation into sounds and words.

A creative condition very close to the one just described underpins the premise of this "And Now That I'm In Your Shadow", Damien Jurado's seventh album, which, after two mostly "electric" works largely traceable to alt-country canons, returns him to hushed acoustic atmospheres, not without hints of more complex and refined writing.

True to its title, "And Now That I'm In Your Shadow" holds thirteen songs written and performed in half-light, marked by blurred tones and a relative harmonic minimalism that, as in the author's established style, never spills over into solipsistic extremes but instead finds fitting expression within the harmonic framework and the gentle calm of a mature, hushed songwriting style, by now stripped of any ostentatious emotional peaks yet no less charged with pathos for that. Although the artistic isolation expressed here by Jurado is easily likened to that of the acoustic, solo Molina, its manifestation turns out more melodic and understated, though no less intense: whereas, as most recently on "Let Me Go Let Me Go Let Me Go", Molina lays bare the raw despair of his soul, Jurado finds in solitude and in the acoustic dimension comfort for a latent spleen, a quiet resignation, gently emphasised by lush string arrangements, by the emotion carried by a handful of piano notes, and by the pleasing interplay with the excellent Jenna Conrad's voice.

The album unfolds gently from the faintly country-tinged little guitar line underpinned by the delicacy of a romantic string bed on "Hoquiam", then winds its way through limpid ballads of voice, guitar and piano ("Denton, TX") in which echoes of the unease of the previous "On My Way To Absence" ("There Goes Your Man") alternate with serene, classically folk songwriting pieces ("Shannon Rhodes", "I Am Still Here"), so simple as to reinforce the sense that, in describing feelings, Jurado favours a placid maturity over any artificial or self-serving impulse. And yet the songs on "And Now That I'm In Your Shadow" are no less striking for that: just listen closely to "I Had No Intentions", which, with its hushed vocals and intense piano melody, comes close to the levels of the Seattle songwriter's finest work, "The Ghost Of David". And then, even on this album, there's no shortage of moments where Jurado builds even more intricate sonic settings, first sketched out in the arrangement of the nocturnal title track and then fully developed above all in the spectral, stretched-out backdrops of "Gasoline Drinks" and "Montesano", in the abstraction of the almost entirely piano-based instrumental "Survived By Her Husband", and in the creaking, sampled beat of "What Were The Chances", which confirms the author's taste for pushing an otherwise classic sound into new territory.

Damien Jurado has never been one of those artists who enjoys the spotlight, nor is his music the kind to spark the sort of debate that might draw the attention of an audience beyond the devotees of intimate, delicate singer-songwriter fare: and so, "And Now That I'm In Your Shadow" is nothing less than a further, excellent confirmation of the sensitivity of his songwriting and of the refined development of a deeply personal musical style, one that finds its fullest expression precisely in these shadowy acoustic songs.

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08/10/2006