Papa M - Highway Songs

The Quietus

Before screeching into focus with a flurry of feedback on instant doom metal curveball 'Flatliners', the cover artwork for Highway Songs by David Pajo AKA Papa M offers stark subtext of the virtue of hard-won atonement. Framed by a near fatal suicide attempt in February last year and a serious bike accident in L.A. back in April, it presents less the idea of "light at the end of the tunnel" than it does an abyss slain by that forever unknowable defiant inner source that usually can only pinpoint the light switch when its back is firmly against the wall. In the much-admired case of Pajo, if the "highway" in question here winds through his recent past, this new album - the Slint guitarist's first solo effort in over seven years and his first original album as Papa M since 2001's Whatever Mortal - serves as a madly assembled journal tracing the quite literal journey he has had to take in order to talk, walk and live once again.

Whilst his labyrinthine career both stems from and has often veered into darker pockets and weightier territories, Pajo’s work as Papa M has always been an outlet for more delicate lo-fi ruminations. From minimalist folk odes to heartsick instrumentalism in the vein of Ry Cooder, the moniker (kickstarted in 1999 with the fifth installment of Temporary Residence EP series Travel in Constants) has offered several nigh on voyeuristic propositions for the listener over the years, none more vital than the nine tracks that comprise Highway Songs. But on this outing, quietude – and the desire for easily digestible cohesion – has been set to one side in favour of forging a genre-warping, twenty-eight-minute purge that puts catharsis and the mere act of being a musician firmly centre-stage. For an artist who told this writer he "rarely touched a guitar" a month following his suicide attempt early last year, Highway Songs sees Pajo proudly – and often quite brilliantly – raise a middle finger to the forces that all but conspired to reduce him to an ex-musician.

And nowhere is that middle digit more perpendicular than on 'Flatliners', an opening masterstroke that immediately confirms that shit has well and truly been changed. Forging a Eyehategod-esque sludge blitz with a crawling prog-doom passage harking back to Red-era King Crimson, it expires with a perfectly shrill pinch harmonic tipping its evil hat to early Slint. As it segues into 'The Love Particle' – a glitchy burst of break-beat electronica and sampled vocals featuring Pajo’s daughter – it’s clear that linearity is not a huge priority here. In fact, with ‘Coda’ offering some ambient respite and 'Adore, A Jar' weaving homespun beats with guitar arpeggios treading a thin line between malevolent and maudlin (a classic Papa M amalgam of yore), Pajo presents a release that is almost compilation-like in its fluctuating temper and tone. But bearing in mind the naturally episodic nature of his return to creation, the variation on offer slowly starts to feel less of a distraction and more of a showpiece.

Where the hopeful and wonderfully-crafted guitar shapes of 'Dlvd' and lead single 'Walking on Coronado' conjure the friendly ghost of much less tempestuous times – proving, no less, the album’s sweetest peaks – there’s something fundamentally critical about ‘Green Holler’ and ‘Bloom’, a twain of wonderfully no-fucks-given metal throwdowns evoking Pajo’s work with Louisville heavy metal supergroup-of-sorts, Dead Child. A one-legged, one-man-band with nothing to prove to anyone – an artist that has traversed countless realms of deeply songwriting for over 30 years – Pajo cuts loose here with the pure (and purely legitimate) desire to rock out. While some might well listen on with a curious ear, quietly questioning the almost crude and, at first, seemingly purposeless scuzz of these two tracks, they – along with ‘Flatliners’ at the very beginning – serve to offer a vehement, fist-clenched inverse of the inner realm that houses the worries, loves, glories and losses that merged to birth the likes of ‘High Lonesome Moan’, ‘Washer’, ‘Arundel’ and many more besides.

With Highway Songs petering out with the album’s only non-instrumental track, ‘Little Girl’ – a sentimental, guitar-solo heavy ode to recovery, his children and the brightening of his own dark night of the soul – it would perhaps be a feat of the imagination to consider this Pajo’s finest work to date; something that he himself is likely to admit, if not now then with the luxury of hindsight. But rather than waiting years to consign his recent experiences to a document that would lack the immediacy, intimacy and – yes – blatant irregularity of this “story told in fragments”, Pajo achieves just that by putting enjoyment and carefree experimentation first. For an artist who hasn’t as much been through the mill than one that has been given the full tour on a few occasions, Highway Songs is David Pajo’s protracted gasp for breath, his slammed fist on the table and his most resounding act of defiance. As we await certain brilliance, it will serve as a very fitting departure in the meantime.

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Pitchfork 74

Pretty much every project David Pajo has participated in—the pioneering post-rock of Slint and Tortoise, his winding instrumentals and downbeat folk as Papa M and Pajo, the blunt heavy metal of Dead Child—has made a virtue of stylistic consistency. Once you’ve heard the few first notes of a Pajo album, you know what you’re in for, and that commitment to cohesion has always been a strength.

All of which makes Highway Songs a risky record. For the first time, Pajo has relaxed his directorial control—“I just would let the songs go on tangents and run wherever they want,” he said recently—and mixed styles rather than picking one. He opens with a lumbering metal jam, switches to an Autechre-like electronic collage, then shifts to soundtrack-worthy guitar accompanied by a sharp drum-machine beat. The rest of the ride on Highway Songs is just as enjoyably bumpy, as contrasting styles continually butt up against each other with little in the way of smoothed-out segues.

What makes it all work is Pajo’s patience in constructing a song. Everything here truly unfolds, gradually moving from an initial idea—a riff, a beat, a simple melody—into a multi-layered composition. You can almost hear him working through the tunes as he’s making them, which gives them an intimate feel. Lots of Pajo’s best music—particularly Papa M’s Whatever, Mortal, and his self-titled Pajo LP—bears this kind of private, homemade aura, enhanced by a voice that’s always on the verge of a whisper.

In the case of Highway Songs, the music is literally homemade, recorded while Pajo was cooped up in his Los Angeles apartment recovering from a motorcycle accident that almost cost him a leg. It’s been a rough past few years for him: in early 2015 he attempted suicide, which he’s been forthcoming about since. You can hear some of that pain and struggle in Highway Songs—take the somber, cautious strains of the acoustic guitar essay “DLVD”—but it would be unfair to say this album is more emotional than any of his others. He’s always infused his music with a wistful, poignant tone, and he’s still great at that.

Besides, Highway Songs ultimately feels hopeful rather than weary, upbeat rather than defeated. There’s optimism in the sunny strums of “Walking On Coronado,” the chugging riffs of “Green Holler,” and the nursery rhyme of closer “Little Girl,” the only song on which Pajo sings. The lyrics are taken from a songbook Pajo found, but they could’ve easily been custom-written for Highway Songs: “Little girl, teach me to laugh again...to wonder why again.” At this point in his well-travelled career Pajo doesn’t need to learn anything new, but it’s great to hear that he still wants to anyway.

The Guardian 60

(Drag City)

It isn’t a huge leap into pop psychology to posit that the key song on former Slint guitarist David Pajo’s first album in seven years is the closing Little Girl. The only non-instrumental among these nine songs, it’s seemingly about his daughter and an uncharacteristically straightforward foray into gentle singer-songwriter territory. Significantly, with its beatific air and simple, unvarnished positivity (“teach me to laugh again”), it suggests the near-fatal bout of depression he suffered last year might be behind him – here’s hoping. Elsewhere, he seems intent on tackling as many genres as he can in 28 minutes: The Love Particle is glitchy electronica, DLVD spectral folk, while there’s a metallic crunch to Green Holler. There are some sublime moments, but it doesn’t make for a cohesive whole.

Drowned In Sound 50

Not that there's really much indication of Pajo's personal struggles here. For while Highway Songs can easily be described as a 'dark' listen, but so is most of Pajo's output, long before any of his mental health issues became public knowledge. Highway Songs is largely instrumental, bar the final track - but we'll get to that - which shape-shifts between three fairly separate genres, broadly speaking.

The album opens with the sludge-rock jam 'Flatliners' which, along with 'Green Holler' and 'Bloom' later on, sound like Pajo's audition tapes for applying to be in Torche. This isn't necessarily a complaint, these tracks are unexpectedly fun - especially the speed-metal harking 'Green Holler' followed by its half-time counterpart 'Bloom' - turn from the twisted songsmith, but their generic qualities are noticeably traceable.

On the second and third tracks - there is a tendency to pair tracks together here - 'The Love Particle' and 'Adore, A Jar', Pajo rolls into Aphex Twin aping territory introducing some scattered break-beat electronics and some creepy samples. The second part of this mood piece, 'Adore, A Jar', however, introduces some of the sinister guitar work that made Pajo's most creatively successful project, Slint's Spiderland, a reality. In those fleeting moments, also seen on intermission piece 'Coda', Pajo's various experiments come together to form something rather beautiful and meaningful as well as haunting and chilling.

Highway Songs' third mode is acoustic folk music. On tracks like 'Dvld' and single 'Walking on Coronado' Pajo lets his gorgeous guitar playing do the talking. On the former, a single echoed guitar sweeps through a beautiful arrangement while on the latter, Pajo layers electronic beats and an electric lead guitar part over the top of an altogether more cheery guitar line, even if that 'cheeriness' is most likely quite tongue-in-cheek.

Still, while there are lots of intriguing moments on Highway Songs, for the large part, as an album it feels like some underdeveloped ideas put out as a finished product. Pajo is a clearly talented musician, he's been proving that for 25 years now, and his skewed view of how music works is truly singular and notable. Although initially a bit jarring, it is an interesting concept to listen to a record that attempts to meld metal, electronica and folk music all into one cohesive piece and at times, such as the aforementioned 'Adore, A Jar', Pajo even succeeds.

However, for the most part, these three strands don't really come together enough to form a whole. Other 'Flatliners' all the tracks here sit around the two-and-a-half minute mark, and while a couple of these can be seen as two-part tracks to form longer pieces, there still doesn't feel like enough time has really gone into properly exploring this well-formed but half-baked idea.

And then there's the album closer 'Little Girl'. As I mentioned earlier, 'Little Girl' is the album's only non-instrumental track and it features a particularly creepy turn from Pajo. If one is willing to read between the lines, it is possible this is Pajo's semi-ironic personal joke on his devastating relationship trauma now that he appears to be out on the other side of it. While I don't wish to project on a serious matter, it's difficult not to take notice of the song's main refrain "Little Girl/Teach me how to love again." over the top of a Guns 'n' Roses-esque heavy rock ballad, featuring strummed acoustic, cheesy, OTT guitar solo and rock-steady drum beat. As if this record wasn't jarring enough with its myriad of genres, nothing can really prepare you for this track, much akin to Bon Iver's 'Beth/Rest'.

So while it is encouraging to see Pajo active again, a fact that is perhaps more important than this album's quality, Highway Songs feels both like an underwhelming experiment with moments of greatness, as well as a highly personal piece which is almost impossible to penetrate. Though at it's best it sounds like an ode to the OST of Suda51's mind-warping video game Killer 7 at worst it sounds like a, possibly intentional, private joke that we the listener are not privy to.