To Jandek, With Love
I was cleaning out my desk, like I do once every 3 years or so, and I came across some albums I’d received to review right before the magazine that had sent them went belly up. Needless to say, I never reviewed them, and I’d completely forgotten they were there. Among the unearthed recordings was Down In A Mirror: A Second Tribute To Jandek, which, if you’re even remotely interested in Jandek, I highly recommend.
The contributers, who include Jeff Tweedy of Wilco and the Mountain Goats, manage to make some of Jandek’s primitive blues sound almost poppy. This isn’t to say they’ve gone strictly commercial, but, the tracks on the tribute album definitely demonstrate why Jandek is so influential. The songs are really tightly written, which is something I’d never noticed buried under his trademark wail.