TOM BROSSEAU – empty houses are lonely
(CD, Fat Cat)
Loneliness is more than a state of mind. It is the
feeling you get, when you sense decay or danger imminent and look around
and there is no one to help you. It is the feeling you get, when your
loved one starts to pack her things into an old suitcase and you know that
this time it is for real, maybe even better for both of you, but the
nearing emptiness taking her / his place is looming in the background.
Therefore loneliness is something you can grow on by experience and
learning, or something that might break you in two halfes. Loneliness has
little to do with the amount of people around you; lucky are those who are
never alone when they are with themselves.
No one has ever put this feeling better into words and
notes than songwriters throughout the ages, from the earliest troubadours
to the postmodern poets. A lot of them have been broken by the loneliness,
others have grown wise old men. For Tom Brosseau the road has just started
and like everyone of those bards that have gone on before him, he sets out
as if it were a really long way he has to go. All of the good ones do,
even if they only ever manage a few miles, stop their career or die after
their third record, the picture of the old, worn songwriter is always
before them. Though usually they really don’t know where they are going,
they have an image in their heads and a memory of the people that went on
before them, so they know whatever awaits them at the end is worthwhile.
And just as big are the issues they set out to tackle, including god and
religion, love and destruction, and so on. If they are able to find an
authentic voice, the experience is mesmerizing.
“I’m fragile, I never knew how fragile I am”
sings Brosseau right there on the first track and by doing so not only
states his own youth and inexperience but also raises these themes in a
sharp contrast to the age-old musical echoes reverberating in his songs.
Images arise of all the great folk singers that so sadly dies too young
(the trinit of Nick Drake, Gram Parsons and Jeff Buckley) or were burned
out by the evil graps of the music industry.
These songs are sparsely accompanied, at times a drum
and a harp form a basic prarie music atmosphere (“dark garage”), at
other times there are swirling little synthie loops filling the gaps
(“hurt to try”), at other times a lonely cello adds its droney, warm
sound to the track, but most often the holes and gaps are left open for
everyone to look in. The accoustic guitar is a solid yet frail
accompainement for the wavering and languishly stumbling voice of
Brosseau. Sometimes he uses a compley folk rhythm, at other times he walks
a straight country tone and at other times he picks some jazz chords with
in the straighter ones. And at times he does all of that at ones, e.g. on
“The broken ukulele”. This last song has some fine double singing that
could either be a woman or Brosseau himself as the other voice as well.
Then again he sounds as basic, traditional and old-time you wouldn’t
believe it is the same person you are listening to. The closer “bars”
for instance is a nice mix of Marc Ribot and Ricky Nelson. Brosseau
himself attributes the changing colours and tonalities of his songs to
various places he has inhabited in the past years. Maybe so, the record
still sounds very much as if done in one big writing session.
