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┌────────┐
────┤ Info ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
└────────┘
Artist | Willis Earl Beal
Title | Acousmatic Sorcery
Genre | Alternative Format | Album
Source | CDDA Time | 45:00
Label | XL Recordings Store | 2012
Catalog | XLCD564 Rip | 2016
Bitrate | 211 kbps Size | 72.06 MB
Freq | 44.1 kHz Encoder | Lame 3.98.4
┌────────┐
────┤ Tracks ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
└────────┘
01. Nepenenoyka 1:48
02. Take Me Away 2:55
03. Cosmic Queries 5:33
04. Evening's Kiss 3:18
05. Sambo Joe From The Rainbow 4:22
06. Ghost Robot 3:38
07. Swing On Low 3:24
08. Monotony 3:57
09. Bright Copper'noon 3:35
10. Away My Silent Lover 4:13
11. Angel Chorus 8:17
┌────────┐
────┤ Notes ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
└────────┘
Chicago outsider Willis Earl Beal's back-story is a blogger's delight, full
of the kind of outlandish bullet points that make it easy to caricature new
artists. He lives at his grandma's house. He wrote all these songs when he
was working as a hotel night porter. He was 'discovered' by Found Magazine
through one of the hand-drawn flyers he distributed, much like ones he
posted throughout Chicago that said 'Give me a call, I'll sing you a song'.
All true, and all very much factors in the progression of events leading up
to "Acousmatic Sorcery", Beal's much-hyped 11-song debut. Without a doubt,
Beal is a weirdo. His songs run a jagged gambit from updated blues to
oblivious bedroom raps about being a heartbroken robot. His live shows see
him accompanied only by a reel-to-reel backing up his soulful wails,
wavering between tuneful and tortured. He casually mentions oatmeal in more
songs than Weird Al. All of his eccentricities could point to another
sensationalized drop in the bucket, but such is not the case. With or
without the press release, "Acousmatic Sorcery" is a gorgeously raw
collection of genuinely unique sounds.
Beal's songs paint a picture of an artist untouched by the world around him
while paradoxically devouring every part of it, folding his experiences
back into his music through his own fractured lens. Recorded at home
between 2007 and 2009, the songs are lo-fi out of necessity rather than
design. Much like Daniel Johnston's early recordings made on answering
machines, Beal crafted these sounds with the dodgy analog recording gear he
had access to, and the sonics take on the muted hues of a black-and-white
photograph. The guttural blues howl of "Take Me Away" gives way to
stream-of-consciousness proto-rap and soul croons on "Swing on Low" and
late-night loner lounge on "Sambo Joe From The Rainbow".
The songs are raucous and otherworldly, fantastic in a comic book way while
retaining a very human feel. Beal's solemnly hushed tunes offer a soft
counterpoint to the wild-sided numbers. "Evening's Kiss" is an anthem of
lonely teenaged blues as strong as any of Elliott Smith or Modest Mouse's
despair-filled weepers in the same vein. It's a flagship of rainy-day
sentiments that soar silently, dodging any emo trappings with nakedly
beautiful lyrics like 'Ask me who I'm with and I'll tell you I'm without'.
By the middle of destroyed ballad "Away My Silent Lover", Beal sounds like
he's barely holding it together, choking back tears in a way that rarely
makes it to tape.
Instead of an emotional manipulative move that's clearly phony (like, say,
MJ's perfectly placed silent weeping at the end of his Disney-esque
tearjerker 'Childhood'), it's actually uncomfortably real. Like strangers
arguing in public or a weary couple who went out to dinner just to break up
loudly in the restaurant, "Acousmatic Sorcery" offers a similar, sometimes
unbearably honest look into a very personal world.
Issued in a high-format digipak in a slipcase, and including a 48 page
fanzine called 'Principles Of A Protagonist (A Novel Actually About
Something)'.
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────┤ Group ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
└────────┘