Sound bite: “Beautiful Losers: Singles and Compilation Tracks 1994-1999″
By Daily Bruin Staff
March 1, 2006 9:00 p.m.
Simon Joyner “Beautiful Losers: Singles and Compilation
Tracks 1994-1999″ Jagjaguwar Records
Below the title “Beautiful Losers: Singles and Compilation
Tracks 1994-1999″ on the latest Simon Joyner album is a
picture of a grand, effeminate bedroom in which sits a young man,
unshaven and with tousled hair. Indeed, it seems every part of this
record is built around antitheses. “Beautiful Losers”
is a collection of some of the best tracks from a folk singer who
is widely respected among his fellow musicians, but whose music few
people have ever heard before. The songs are gritty but welcoming;
stripped but with substance; and, though they epitomize the sound
of lo-fi production, they are still more impressive than most
four-track recordings from amateur musicians floating around coffee
shops these days. As many of the tracks were recorded in
Joyner’s house with a single microphone, the production is
often muted and imperfect, making him sound as scrawny as the man
on the cover looks. But within the consciously constructed guitar
lines, simple percussive additions and seemingly dissonant
melodies, Joyner more often than not manages to transform plainness
into a delicate charm that would have escaped from a studio
production. In “Hot Tears,” for example, a melancholy
love story is set up behind a guitar line that has a lullaby-like
quality, yet is more intricate than those found in the standard
folk song: It shakes and echoes as if it were being played on a
record player, only adding to the song’s intimacy. Throughout
the record, Joyner’s slurred delivery strains against the
music. The connections to Bob Dylan and Bright Eyes ““ who
covered Joyner’s “Burn Rubber” ““ are
difficult to ignore. As with those musicians, it is in the words he
warbles that Joyner displays his greatest talent as a songwriter: a
facility with rueful lyrics and a mastery of poignant storytelling.
“I guess I was out for revelations/ I was kicking out against
the darkness/ I had dew all over my body/ From sleeping in a ball
under a park bench,” he sings on “One For the Catholic
Girls,” a song that displays his downcast approach. The
record also includes several upbeat, hard-hitting songs, such as
“R is for Riot” and “Judas Blues,” in which
Joyner uses his electric guitar to scream alongside the vocal line.
Although the discordance between his voice and the instrumentation
““ which is inherent in all the songs ““ is the most
defining aspect of his music, after a certain point it can leave
listeners more restless than entertained. Joyner does have an
undeniable songwriting craft, but despite the album’s
idiosyncratic charm, it can satiate the listener’s need for
intimate folk music almost too quickly. Good songwriting
doesn’t always make for good songs. But in small doses at
least, Joyner’s album is ““ in its own bare-boned,
scrawny and washed-out way ““ rather beautiful.
“”mdash; Kiran Puri
