James Vincent McMorrow - Post Tropical

James Vincent McMorrow’s folky 2010 debut, Early In The Morning, took a while to do the business. Far from being an overnight sensation, the Dubliner’s melancholic musings seeped rather than surged into the public consciousness. He’s now able to sell-out big venues on the strength of that Choice-nominated album, but he was sometimes pidgeon-holed as just another hirsute, guitar-slinging, singer-songwriter. Wrong.

Had he become a star too soon, McMorrow might well have burnt himself out, or succumbed to commercial pressures and produced a mediocre follow-up. Instead, he’s taken his time and made a huge leap forward artistically – so much so that he’s barely recognisable. Selfproduced and recorded in Sonic Ranch Studios, situated in the middle of a Texan pecan farm close to the Mexican border, Post Tropical sounds like the work of a totally different artist. Tellingly, not a single one of these ten songs was written on guitar.

The Texan setting led to textured song-writing and undoubtedly inspired such titles as ‘Red Dust’ and ‘Gold’. A lifelong fan of R&B and hip hop, McMorrow – who played almost all the instruments – meticulously crafted these songs from hundreds of sound files and lyric pages. That it’s a very different kind of record is obvious from shimmering album opener, ‘Cavalier’. He sings in falsetto over a slow build of hushed keys and handclaps: “Speak until the dust settles in the same specific place/ Light refused to go/ Drink it from a cast and iron plate.”

I don’t know if McMorrow is a fan of William S. Burroughs, but his surreal lyrics seem to have been written using the ‘cut-up’ method. While these songs are often impenetrable, throughout this soulful and sonically sumptuous album there are many memorable sounds, harmonies and melodies: 808s on the haunting ‘Red Dust ’ (“I will not cave under you/for my heart is an unending tomb”); looped piano on ‘Looking
Out’ (“Out, with a guarded resolve and a love of the coast/ Now, tether doorway to rug, so the good is not lost ”); and 50 mandolins made to sound like a waterfall on ‘The Lakes’ (“Stolen away from the restful dream/ abduct the light, abhorrent seed”).

As lyrically oblique as these songs may be, it’s really about the way they sound – amidst all the horns, harps, pianos and drum machines, his tremulous voice is the most impressive instrument of all. After multiple plays, this listener still can’t figure out what he’s on about half the time. But then, maybe that’s McMorrow’s intention. It’s only January, but this wonderfully warm, soulful, R&B influenced collection is a strong
contender for 2014’s ‘Album of the Year’.