Quinn Walker - "Laughter's An Asshole / Lion Land"

Quinn Walker - Smile for Me (Voodoo-Eros 2008)

Quinn Walker - Laughter's An Asshole / Lion Land / Voodoo-Eros

A few weeks ago, Michael remarked to me candidly that he was getting back to his "country roots" - not so much the part about dipping Skoal and fishin' on the river and drinking Southern Comfort on the river all day, but more the part about Willie Nelson and Shooter Jennings and outlaw country from across the South. Good thing, too, because I don't think we could've stayed on speaking terms for the, um, "revival" without me rolling my eyes at him in public over and over.

For most of these past few weeks, I've been playing Eurotrash Ibiza fetishizer to his Good Ol' Boy bubba. But Quinn Walker led me to an unexpected place and got me out of the minimalist rut that I'd dug myself in since the beginning of December. With a massive two-disc compilation of wholeheartedly organic psych-folk, Mr. Walker's debut cracks 2008 open with an expansive scope copping all sorts of sweeping gestures and infusing grandiosity to songs begging to be taken to the big-time.

It is interesting to note, then, that with an iconic Southern drawl on tracks like "Chicken Wire," Quinn in fact hails from Brooklyn. And initially you don't see it. You wait to hear for all the weirdo hipster bedroom fucking around that could only come with a Brooklyn ZIP code. The body of instruments is massive in the grand traditions of Sufjan Stevens or Architecture in Helsinki to the point that the drums, the tambourines, the maracas, whatever the hell else is stuffed in there feels just a little too cluttered. Somehow, through all of that, crystalline melodies appear and you find yourself pushing repeat. Which is weird, because if you've only made it three songs in to the first disc, you haven't got a clue about what's going on here.

For what discussion there's been of Walker's double-disc debut, most seems to revolve around the pastiche of instruments that work their way into otherwise innocuous tracks. There's definitely a glut of sound recalling everybody from TV on the Radio's Siteknics to The Dirty Projectors' erratic melodies no one will ever really duplicate to Andrew Douglas Rothbard's steamy bayou folk-after-dark to Ariel Pink, end sentence. And I mean these in the best possible way: There are so many reference points that it no longer becomes functional to simply namedrop. That's the very definition of a good album. We are most fortunate to have received two at once.

But even though the numerous studio tricks don't seem forced or even excessive (Pacing is everything, and a perfect balance between orchestral opulence and plucked isolation has been struck here), what they do is take away from a very critical part of the success of this album: the innate greatness of the songwriting. Beneath the layers of choral swooning and Casios and whatever else Walker could find in his closet lies a collection of songs that could work as well in a concert hall as in an old money frat house. This adaptability makes for a universal enjoyment that even the most staunch country conservative would find acceptable and, dare I say, enjoyable... Just beware Lion Land. It functions as the quieter nocturnal moonlight werewolf to Laughter's An Asshole's brimming brightness.

Look, we can't all be Panda Bear and write Person Pitch and let the media take over. Some guys have to take those same oddball psych influences and twist them into something new, creative, original and make their own reward. Quinn Walker is one of them. Don't be fooled by all of the Brooklyn references you've gotten in this particular review (not to mention the handful of others); Walker is writing some very alternative country, and it sounds great. Throw back some more Jim Beam, sing along to any number of these songs, and you'll see what I mean - "When you get wasted, you still walk a perfectly straight line," he sings on "Rita Lolita." That's what this record is about. It's intoxicated with psychedelia and yet still manages to walk a perfectly straight line South, back to the sticks, back to the roots, back to the dusty trails of the Appalachians. Quinn Walker may live in Brooklyn, but his musical heart lives elsewhere. Ours too, maybe.