Alias of Sam Jones (half of the indie duo Crescent), the Balky Mule takes its name from a Blind Lemon Jefferson song called “Balky Mule Blues.” But The Length of the Rail is anything but a blues album, preferring the pluck of an acoustic guitar washed over with keyboards, synthesizers, drum machines and whatever other electronics Jones can get his hands on. He purchased the equipment second-hand for cheap, ensuring that the rusty tones he works out of them never sound as processed or clinical as the genre trends towards. Instead, the noise can be jarring and unstable, percolating nervously along faintly bending lines. And yet Jones doesn’t aim to create abrasion and discomfort—no matter how quirky or distressed the rhythms can be, they’re also serendipitously soothing, like ambience with a rattle fetish.
Jones himself has vocals that are faintly deadpan, faintly passive, and always thin but clever—at times, he can sound astonishingly similar to Ray Davies, even though the music rarely reminisces of the Kinks. The songwriting tends to vary between downbeat Pavement noodling and Syd Barrett loopiness, but rarely as dyspeptic or freakish as either tended to push. The Balky Mule doesn’t seem interested in crossing boundaries and striving for arty triumph, nor does he elevate the material towards some inestimable goal beyond the reach of his admittedly small audience. The sonic palette is rough but muted, never falling into the predictable and tough-to-resist trap of polishing away all the rough spots, making for a bland middle ground that sounds manufactured.
While there’s no denying that the songs can lurch at times in tempo and style, what’s a true marvel here is that everything flows crisply from one segment to the next. The album is composed of tracks recorded (but never officially released) over the last decade, but no one would ever guess that the tunes didn’t come from the same sessions. Even the more noticeable transitions feel organically arranged—“Wireless” is inviting Pram-lite, but goes on towards the eccentric and distressed “Chalk,” that whirls like a circus nightmare (cue Barrett), like the sweetest dreams being interrupted by a tyrannical alarm clock that leaves your mind staggering from its lull. Coincidentally, “Jisabone” playfully addresses that feeling more concretely.
Jones’ grasp of sound collages can be exemplary. “Dust Bath Birds” begins with chirping and then glides along on a deep, plodding bass croak, faint drum machine taps that beat like wings and a distorted guitar that burns the forest down. Following that is “Before Too Long,” which connects to the previous song with a rhythmic clop that sounds like more generous animal mayhem. But the moog blips in the background establish a new frontier. Later, “A Moth Like a Woodchip” is a surprisingly stirring folktronica gambit, a campfire environment punctured by tweaked keys that both twinkle and grind against trestles. Without Jones’ plaintive performance and the twang of the guitar, it could have been a noisy mess, but with an earthy foundation, the electric noises just build gracefully until they end up sounding like crickets surrounding the glow.
Instrumentals like “Blinking” don’t simply fill in spaces but are structured as wordless walks through the glitch-crusted wilderness. “Instead” has a flitting strum that envisions the natural, but the rapid clatter of the percussion is like a machine burning into overdrive. The brief title track is half electro-clips, seeping out of the vacuum that refuses to hiss, and then is joined by the folk tones that fill the black in with filtered light. Choice cut “Wireless” has warped echoes vibrating in the background while a stark acoustic line propels us forward (when his voice aches up and down the scale, he sounds exactly like Davies running through a downbeat ballad). This trade-off between the breathing folk texture and the dispassionate process of electronic music is what gives this album its true verve—it turns machines into wild, woolly beasts and makes nature appear like a mathematical theorem, daring us to try and find a hole in the elegantly structured formula.
But Jones even survives detours into firmer purist routines. “Illuminated Numbers” has the busiest (and most overwhelming) synth swipes on the entire album, looping a space age tone again and again. “Paper Crane” follows it and continues to veer into the machine; even the vocals are given a hissing digital echo. To save it from flying off the rails, Jones spares nothing on the home stretch. The light jazz lounge swing of “We Sometimes Write” brings us in from the cold; “Glass Boat” sounds like an underwater dirge, rarely bubbling, and swimming like a pale-faced cripple trying to free himself from limb weights. Then it closes on the most organic song of the album, a luxuriant but dusty midnight lullaby called “Tell Me Something Sweet.”
Sidestepping slips into the opposing traps of the maudlin and the soulless, Jones has found a remarkably wide and open path to follow to keep the ideals sounding inspired. There’s doubtlessly some curiosity over what he could do with an actual pop song (the closest to which he comes is the lo-fi gem, “Range”), but there’s never a nagging thought that these tracks are incomplete or indulgent. The songs engage polar points into the sort of cooperative communion that’s impossible to explain; each piece fits together like a perfectly cut jigsaw even if the picture you see in frame doesn’t look right. By sheer inspiration and a deft, casual touch, the Balky Mule has delivered one of the most astonishing and quietly profound records you’re likely to hear this year.
"The Length of the Rail" is on sale March 24, 2009 from FatCat.
