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"HiGH ▀ iNTELLiGeNCE tRoLLS"
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a r t i s t : Br. Danielson
t i t l e : Brother Is To Son
d a t e : 2004
l a b e l : Secretly Canadian SC66
g e n r e : Indie
r l s. d a t e : May/2004
t r a c k s : 10
b i t r a t e : 192kbps
s i z e : 64,7 MB
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This album has been a long time coming for Daniel Smith. It's
been ten years now since the first recorded Danielson album (A
Prayer for Every Hour). Danielson head chief and eldest sibling
Daniel Smith has always tried to keep the Danielson music
making fluid and therefore things have evolved. While it all
clearly started as his baby which he wrote and then directed
with the help of his siblings, the Danielson Famile of New
Jersey has naturally become more and more of a collaboration
and a group over the course of five full-lengths (the latest of
which was 2001's Fetch the Compass Kids). As the Danielson
Famile was coming together, Daniel wrote "Tri-Danielson!!!",
splitting Danielson into three sides. The idea was to honor the
Danielson Famile by continuing to collaborate more and also
give Daniel a place to write and play his other songs. Br.
Danielson ("Brother Danielson") is this place.
On this sixth Danielson release, the entire Famile (siblings
Andrew, David, Megan, and Rachel; wife Elin; friends Christian
& Melissa Palladino; daughter Lilly) as are familiar
co-conspirators (father Lenny, Sufjan Stevens, John Ringhofer
and Ted Velykis) are all here supporting Daniel.
On "Brother is to Son", all the special-ness that the full band
brought to previous Danielson albums is fully present. The
earnest vocal chirp of head Danielson himself is still there,
not to mention the empassioned and punk-inspired hard strum of
his acoustic guitar. He still leads his folk jamboree through
the familial boy-girl harmonies as the banjos, bells, piano
keys and jaw harp all teem with kinetic energy, like a
deconstructionalist jug band led by a man who follows in the
bold footsteps of Sun Ra, Don Van Vliet and Johnny Lydon as a
truly original art terrorist.
What is unique about this new window into the Danielson
brain-cage is its pervasive tenderness, most clearly manifested
in the ever-broadening vocal range of Daniel. Taking a cue from
Dylan's Bringing it All Back Home, Brother is to Son opens
confidently and intensely while slowly turning in on itself by
its second half, on which Smith brings a vulnerability
unmatched on his previous five albums. Oh so humbly does he
pose questions of the most personal sort, begging of the
listener an openness of spirit.
On "Hammers Sitting Still", we find one of the most interesting
Danielson songs to date, with lyrics that focus on his "other"
job as a carpenter and contains some fantastic Robert
Fripp-like crystalline guitar formations by Soul-Junk's Glen
Galaxy and shared vocals with wife Elin, who acts as the
guardian angel to the doubtful Daniel, re-assuring him that
it's alright to sing about such supposed personal trivialities
as the compromise one makes for the daily wage war:
"I just lost my finger, and I've dropped my hammer down. I pour
out on this poor ladder, and my work boots can't be found. I
feel held back and frustrated, insecure and I'm annoyed. All my
bubbles have been bursted, and I'm left with shoulders bruised.
Work is robbing me of living, they were right on about my
dreams."
It's when Smith merges the personal with universal that we find
him at his most magical as an artist. That's what makes the
last three tunes on Brother is to Son the most inspired 12
minutes in the Danielson body of work.
The title track "Brother: Son" is the perfect album closer,
opening with a hush and a little drummer boy's snare going
rat-a-tat-tat, and then slowly unfolding three-quarters into
the song into a chorus of angels urging the downed Smith to
"give it up and crawl on through" to which he, reinvigorated,
repeatedly sings with the angels in the most ecstatic
full-member curtain call chorus "To tell you all the truth, the
son can only do what he sees his papa do," signaling the full
circle has been traversed. It is a triumphant and monumental
closing to the most confident and fulfilling Danielson album to
date.
Released June 8th, 2004.
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01-Things Against Stuff [02:46]
02-Cookin' Mid-County [07:40]
03-Animal In Every Corner [03:43]
04-Daughters Will Tune You [05:11]
05-Our Givest [02:49]
06-Sweet Sweeps [08:27]
07-Perennial Wine [04:14]
08-Hammers Sitting Still [03:21]
09-Physician Heal Yourself [03:21]
10-Brother : Son [05:30]
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47:02 min
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