EELS, HAYDEN, AND JIM JAMES

DIFFERENT DUDES

The skewed sounds of Eels, Hayden, and My Morning Jacket's Jim James

By Matt Ashare |    

Posted February 8, 2013

Demos, home recordings, and rough-cut outtakes have been an integral part of the secret history of rock since, well, reel-to-reel machines made it possible for artists to commit sound to tape. The so-called "Basement Tapes," a collection of dozens tracks Bob Dylan recorded with the Band in and around Woodstock in 1967, is perhaps the most legendary treasure trove of such material, which was officially mined for Dylan's 1975 album The Basements Tapes, although well over 100 other recordings from the sessions have since appeared on compilations and bootlegs. The appeal of such gems from the mythical vault is that they carry the promise of capturing an artist in an unguarded moment, outside of the sterile walls of a pro-audio studio, unselfconsciously engaged in the process of creation, maybe even veering off script in revealing ways.
    Of course, the immediacy of the digital world, coupled with technological advances that have made it increasingly easy for artists to record and release material without submitting it to major-label gatekeepers for revue, has, over the past two decades, blurred the lines between what constitutes a demo/outtake, and a finished product. And we've got three new albums by three very different dudes that illustrate that point, each in its own unique way. There's Regions of Light and Sound of God, the full-length solo debut by Jim James, best known as the frontman in the trippy, Kentucky-bred, roots band My Morning Jacket; Us Alone, the seventh studio album by the quiet Canadian singer-songwriter Hayden (a/k/a Paul Hayden Dresser); and Wonderful, Glorious, the latest installment of idiosyncratic pop from Eels, a project built around the skewed sensibilities of multi-instrumentalist Mark Oliver Everett, who also goes by just plain "E."
    Hayden and Everett were two of the more notable young upstarts signed to big-budget major-label deals in the wake of Beck's big "Loser" breakthrough in the mid-’90s. Both were the object of bidding wars, and neither panned out particularly well, although Eels were eccentrically nerdy enough to gain a cult following for Everett (the only permanent member of the "group"), and Hayden's nascent grunge-folk seemed like it might grow into something beyond Beckian. Indeed, Everett has become something of an underground hero, as he's guided Eels through various incarnations, from perky modern-rock trio to quirky indie-pop orchestra. And, after a pair of early albums on Geffen, Hayden has continued to find comfortable homes for his brand of hushed and moody blues, including the Portland, Oregon boutique label Badman and, most recently, the Toronto-based indie powerhouse Arts & Crafts.
    James' trajectory with My Morning Jacket — an actual band, rather than a shapeshifting entity like Eels — has been more of a slow yet steady build that began with a pair of discs, in 1999 and 2001, on the small label Darla. By 2003, the band had signed with Dave Matthews' RCA imprint, ATO, and they were making a name for themselves as something of an alt-country jam band with a distinct indie-rock sensibility and a penchant for murky psychedelia. He's ventured beyond the MMJ fold several times in recent years, releasing an EP of George Harrison covers in 2009 as Yim Yames, partnering that same year with Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst in Monsters of Folk, and then teaming with alt-county blueblood Jay Farrar last year to commemorate the centennial of Woodie Guthrie's birth on New Multitudes.
    But, Regions of Light and Sound of God is James' first real solo album, in the sense that he wrote the songs, played most of the instruments (except drums on a couple tracks and the string arrangements), produced and engineered the sessions, and put his actual name on the cover. And, as mercurial as James can be, it's not a wholesale departure from the MMJ script, so much as it's a minimalist extrapolation from the sort of art-damaged roots experiments that have always been part of the his aesthetic.
    A simple, deliberate, vaguely soulful piano vamp is all that supports James etherial, reverb-drenched voice as "Regions" comes into hazy focus with "State of the Art (A.E.I.O.U.)," a ruminative tune that quotes a nursery rhyme ("When the dawn breaks/The cradle will fall/Down will come baby/Cradle and all") and features an eerily fragile recitation of the vowels in its title. "I use state-of-the-art technology," James croons wearily, as a solid backbeat emerges to support the two piano chords he's riding, "Supposed to make for better living/But are we better human beings?"
    A funky guitar riff slithers into the mix around the three-minute mark. But, James mostly downplays the instrument he's known best for in favor of using keyboards and strings to ethereal effect on "Regions." There's some acoustic strumming on "A New Life," a simple, almost upbeat ditty that betrays James' fondness for George Harrison. And a a buzzing guitar figure intrudes noisily into the groovy, Eastern-tinged undulations of "Actress," one of several overtly spiritual excursions on an introspective disc that at least succeeds in revealing another side of the elusive character who fronts My Morning Jacket.
    Like James, Hayden handles just about everything on his new album. But that's is nothing new for him. Like Beck back in his early days, Hayden's a fully DIY dude, and Us Alone was recorded mostly alone at his home in Ontario. As he details in the autobiographical "Almost Everything," a rootsy folk-rocker built around spare piano chords, a lo-fi drum-machine backbeat, and some honking harmonica, "I'm recording once again/While my kid is upstairs in bed. . ." It's a song that begins back in 1994, when the music was "everything," and works it's way to the present day, with Hayden coyly conceding, "The music is still everything, well, almost everything."   
    There's an invitingly ramshackle quality to Us Alone. A guitar hums ominously as fingers steer a few organ notes toward the right chord, and, slowly, the pieces of a programmed rhythm track settle into place on "Motel," a ruminative track that seems to begin in the middle of a conversation. "I agree, we should leave, here in an hour, or better right now. . .," Hayden half-sings, his voice trailing off unsteadily at the end of each sentence fragment. The effect is at once unsettling and alluring: it's as if, by listening closely, you may eventually be privy to some dark truth. But Hayden's not your typical confessional singer-songwriter. While he can be blunt, as he is in the over 11-minute "Instructions," a funereal mood piece in which he matter-of-factly explains how he'd like his ashes spread after his death, more often his lyrics trace an elliptical path. "Just Give Me A Name," the disc's only straightforwardly folky acoustic strummer, offers one side of a conversation with a partner who's cheated, delivering details of the situation sparingly. And "Blurry Nights," a rocky duet with Lou Canon (Hayden's sister-in-law), alludes only to fragments of an illicit romantic encounter, yet still manages to convey in simple words a complex mix of emotions.
    If Hayden's from the less-is-more school of home recording, Eels leader Mark Everett tends toward the other end of the spectrum, where you might just hear a close-mic'd loop of the kitchen sink. His new Eels concoction, Wonderful, Glorious, was recorded at his house, but his is a place in LA that's wired for sound from basement to attic. And, if the crashing drums, noise guitars, and distorted synths on a track like garage-rocky "Peach Blossom" are any indication, there probably weren't any kids sleeping upstairs.
    Wonderful Glorious was produced somewhat organically with a band of multi-instrumentalists Everett put together to tour behind a trio of Eels albums he released in 2009/2010, and it has the feel of the kind of freewheeling, anything goes jam session the typically detail obsessed, and often brutally confessional Everett has rarely attempted. There's the Gorillaz-style retro-futurist jumble of "Bombs Away," a slithering glitch-rock ode to exacting revenge of some sort; the meandering atmospherics of "Accident Prone," an airy reflection on, well, happy accidents; and the relatively straightforward guitar churn of "New Alphabet," a gritty anthem about overcoming personal demons that brings to mind a less bluesy Tom Waits.
    All of which is well and good, except Everett doesn't seem to be particularly invested in any of the songs on Wonderful, Glorious. At least, it doesn't have the force of conviction, the same dark intensity, that Hayden and James bring to their latest projects. Wonderful, Glorious is a bit more fun, but only fleetingly so. The moods that Hayden and James evoke linger like an intoxicating scent, or perhaps a sublime secret.