DAN MICHAELSON - Memory

It might be Hackney, but perhaps more plausibly some suburb between Madison and Spokane, where the songs of Dan Michaelson resound. England's answer to Bill Callahan, with his baritone that seems produced with only the faintest vibration of the vocal cords, returns with "Memory", which closes the trilogy begun three years ago with "Blindspot". A journey narrated by the English singer-songwriter without any posturing, and even though his music lends itself to easy labels and references, it remains crystalline and evocative in substance.

The black-and-white chamber-folk of the previous "Distance" becomes cinematic and epic on "Memory", as in the opening "Tides" and in the sly recursion of "Undo", which recalls the bucolic backdrops of "Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle", as well as in the ponderous crescendo of "Missing Piece".

Partly because of the organic nature of the arrangements, partly because of the absence of any crowd-pleasing in Dan's writing (which nonetheless occasionally brushes up against convention, as in "No Other Way" and "Lost Birds"), the record has the contemplative beauty of a freeze-frame, like any one of the man-made-meets-natural landscapes on the trilogy's covers - a hyper-classicist, repetitive aesthetic, almost authoritarian in painting melancholy as an immovable state, yet so far removed from the sketchy, impulsive quality of Kozelek's recent "covers".

Compared to earlier works, the monolithic character of Michaelson and co.'s music is pushed to excess, and overall the record lacks the stylistic variety of "Distance", its greater artistic vitality. Looking at the trilogy as a whole, though, "Memory" represents the final moment, the one in which to let imperfections in, even a touch of mannerism - undoubtedly the album's weak point - for the sake of leaving a fond memory, of fixing in time the sum of experiences that led here. Overall, the trilogy still stands as a landmark in Michaelson's songwriting career.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

25/05/2016