DANIELSON - Trying Hartz

“Trying Hartz” is a double CD containing twenty-eight songs that form a collection of musical snapshots made by Danielson during the period 1994-2004, before the release of “Ships”, which marked almost a new beginning for the career of Mr. Daniel Smith's most successful creation.

A handful of excerpts from the band's first six records, a smattering of live performances and a couple of unreleased tracks (the very brief “Now Try” and “Cheer Hart”, placed respectively at the beginning and the end of the selection) make up the offerings of this small anthology box set, all arranged in a thoroughly non-chronological order.

This retrospective, loaded with memorabilia, is the perfect guide for getting acquainted with the artist's musical world, a world that could prove rather forbidding for newcomers.

It's described as “proto-minimalist Christian alternative pop-folk”, sung almost always in falsetto, and judged by many music critics to be among the finest examples of contemporary gospel.

The record suffers from the exclusion of excerpts from “Ships”, without doubt Mister Smith's best work to date, but it does open up to the wider public some lesser-known gems (at least “Good News For The Pus Pickers”, “Smooth Death”, “Rubbernucker” and “Jersey Loverboy” deserve a mention) along with a series of key collaborations, among which Steve Albini's visit to the production booth and Sufjan Stevens's banjo on “Daughters Will Tune You” stand out.

Among other things, Stevens is no stranger to these religious forays, having in the past lent himself to making Christmas-themed records and more recently having made an absolutely decisive contribution to the debut album by Welcome Wagon, an excellent duo made up of a Presbyterian pastor and his wife.

Overall, Danielson show some interesting ways of putting religious-themed material to music, as well as some of the most creative christian ballads currently in circulation.

Bizarre and at times childlike, often surreal, the band's approach is certainly similar to that of the finest musical outsiders in history, among whom Captain Beefheart is the first name that reasonably springs to mind. Steeped in above-average creativity, unusual even in its vocal approach, but ultimately guilty of standing still on a set of ideas that are unlikely to ever widen the small circle of fans who follow it today.

The charming microcosm of one of the world's most original and ridiculous bands.

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20/01/2009