Master & Everyone

The winter I turned 19 my band had just split up, and having no other prospects I sat hatching the fire bracketed by my father and my mother. For near six weeks I did not wash nor shave nor utter much of consequence at all. I barely stirred except to bring in logs and kindling from the pile of lumber out back of the shed. I ate thick slabs of bread toasted over the flames and drank mugs of tea. There might’ve been stew. Once or twice I walked the couple of miles into town to get drunk. The rest of my hours were spent biding in a sort of waking catatonic state. I never thought to do ought else. It was time out from time, a time out of time.

Master & Everyone returned me to that period directly. It is not a morose recording; it is merely immobile. Throughout, Will Oldham barely raises his voice, but we hear every breath, every speck of sound.

These songs have titles such as ‘Joy And Jubilee’, ‘Maundering’ and ‘Lessons From What’s Poor’. Will, or Billy, sings lines like “Let your unloved parts get loved/And I will be your man” – the mutterings of loneliness, of schizophrenics and exiles and whiskey priests. His compositions have this remarkable unfinished air, as if he is in possession of painterly instincts telling him exactly when to stop, an interior alarm mechanism warning him that one more stroke might reduce a great piece of work to a failure. Bene ascolta chi la nota – well heeded is well heard.

There are ten songs in all on Master & Everyone, and the record lasts little over half an hour. But for that duration, everything stops. That’s all.