Papa M - A Broke Moon Rises
A Closer Listen
There’s something quite pretty about the image of A Broke Moon Rises, reflected by the cover art’s luscious classical frame of an expressionist painting of a curling hand, a sensation of ongoing effort whose immensity is simply that of living. The hand disappears into the background, in the same way that we see half a moon, broken (the title refers to how David Pajo’s son alluded to a half moon), and yet it is essentially complete. There are four acoustic guitars but only one player, his many aspects an ebb and flow of dissolution into tranquil pieces of various natures: from the late 90s post-rock ascension of “The Upright Path” to the lighthearted minimalist collage of “A Lighthouse Reverie” and the deeply spiritual “Spiegel im Spiegel”, itself a reminder of the self’s infinite fragmentation, a whisper towards the divine.
The intensity of the hand’s expression is a good measure of these pieces’ pathos, which nevertheless becomes traditionally framed, a restraint that serves as a focus for the quietness with which emotional intensity is usually lived. “Walt’s”, for instance, not only musically plays with the waltz form, but adds country glissandos that make the melancholic undertones shift beautifully into serenity, like visiting an old, old friend’s house, as full of history as it is of life. In “Shimmer”, the same strumming sequence leads to very different moods depending on very subtle changes in tone as well as the processed elements that swirl around it, which grant it a brightness that nevertheless breaks down by the end, emphasizing the shimmer’s ephemerality.
Papa M’s rendition of Arvo Pärt’s “Spiegel im Spiegel”, the last track, is perhaps the album’s culmination, all of it a post-rock narrative that parts from a low point in an upright path and steadily makes its way towards the heavens. The decomposition of the “Shimmer” could be none other than the powerful dissolution of expectations when reaching the mountaintop, the senses overwhelmed, intuition kicking in to pacify the heartbeat. As the mind is subjected to rest by sublimity, it starts to fold over itself, losing the particularities of experience and becoming attuned to a wider perception of itself and that which surrounds it: a mirror in the mirror. The composition is no stranger to off-kilter interpretations (there’s one with saxophone), but the ‘tintinnabular’ core always rests upon the piano. Replaced by the harmonic pull of the guitar, the bells of a powerful mystical silence are absent, and thus it all returns to a different kind of quietude, one grounded in the everyday, in a physical, personal effort that’s much easier to trace in the vibration of strings than in the perfect tones of a piano traditionally played. It is a meditation that, once upon the mountaintop, casts its eyes down instead of upward, and in the infinitely fragmented, broken, dissolving world of matter finds its wonder. (David Murrieta Flores)
Thu Aug 23 00:01:09 GMT 2018Drowned In Sound 80
David Pajo is a pretty versatile guy – an understatement up there with ‘Converge can make a bit of a racket’ and ‘Joanna Newsom has a fairly distinctive voice”’. Although Pajo is probably still best known for being the guitarist in Slint (unless you’re a Corgan super-fan and you count his contribution to Zwan), he’s been releasing music across a range of different aliases and identities for decades and mastering his craft from confessional singer-songwriter albums to post rock, ambient and metal. Although Pajo has used the Papa M name to record songs featuring his own voice (most notably on Whatever, Mortal where Bonnie “Prince” Billy himself encouraged him to step up to the mike), A Broke Moon Rises sees Pajo return to letting his guitar speak entirely for him, and very eloquent it is as well.
A Broke Moon Rises by Papa M
Across the five tracks of A Broke Moon Rises, Pajo’s guitar speaks of his quiet sense of self-comforting and survival. The past few years have not been kind to him: he’s been dealing with the aftermath of a failed suicide attempt, a horrific motorcycle accident that left him in a wheelchair and his inability to tour due to a general lack of disabled stage access. You might imagine that a solo guitar album from someone coming through all of that would be a mournful affair, all minor chords and feedback squeals wringing out the pathos, but A Broke Moon Rises takes a totally different tone and is all the better for it. The overall impression of sitting with A Broke Moon Rises is one of music being created as a comfort blanket: Pajo weaving a warm, familiar and enveloping sound world in order to soothe himself. Fortunately, it’s a generously proportioned blanket that can cover the listener too.
As is often the case with instrumental music, the track titles have to do a little extra work to convey the intention of the music and they’re chosen with care on this LP. The third track’s title, ‘A Lighthouse Reverie’, is especially appropriate, not just for the track itself, but for the album as a whole. Each of the first four tracks start off very simply with a solitary guitar, which is then joined by another: they circle around each other, growing and building with some additional touches of bass and drums as momentum builds. In each case, the connotations of a lighthouse are evoked: solitary but also rather grand and splendid; illuminating and there to provide support and guidance. ‘Reverie’ is also especially appropriate as each track clearly comes from a meditative place and communicates this reverie effectively to the listener.
The fifth and final track is Pajo’s version of Arvo Part’s composition ‘Spiegel Im Spiegel’. The stately beauty of the piano and violin interaction in the original is replaced by Pajo’s solitary guitar and a muted synth. There is an extreme sense of fragility to the unadorned treble strings of Pajo’s guitar playing the piano line: it succeeds in taking a well-known piece and showing it in a new light. Pajo has apparently been fascinated by this composition for years and here has finally decided to do something about it by playing a version of it himself. In fact, the whole of A Broke Moon Rising feels like something created by Pajo primarily for himself: to use music to create something beautiful and calming. We are very fortunate that he’s recorded and released it so that we can all take a little shelter in this lighthouse that he built.
Wed Aug 15 09:54:19 GMT 2018Tiny Mix Tapes 60
Papa M
A Broke Moon Rises
[Drag City; 2018]
Rating: 3/5
Then as now, Dave Pajo has always displayed a quietly distinct grace, with sonic ingredients on the bleeding edge of spare/blank. Originally released as a single (with his perfect cover of The Misfits’ “Last Caress” on the B-side), “Vivea” betrayed a still, delicate, patient, and infinitely tender soul, smoothly poured into the skeleton of sad folk progression. The lack of vocals also rendered the material more essential, even in the full swing of that trend in the mid 90s-mid 00s. There is a casual, conversational approach to most of Pajo’s Papa/Aerial M output. Even when vocals emerged (“Lay” is an early highlight of this), the recordings still had that room’s-width intimacy, both cluttered and carefully arranged. As illustrated by winning Papa M 2004 comp A Hole of Burning Alms, the charm of these meditative figures lies in their raw, almost incidental-seeming presentation. This homespun feel has only added to their staying power and mystique, not unlike Robert Pollard or Kim Deal at their best.
Of course, going home again is a bad idea. This has been empirically proven and re-proven, and many of us are working on the post-re-prove re-proving at this moment. However, judgments on what constitutes the phenomenon have been overzealously superlative. Sometimes an old sound is just a sound. A confluence of vision and technique that dies hard. That maybe wasn’t meant to die at all. This anxious wonder-imbued sound never really ended. It nestled in a beloved, dependable pocket of its own design and has now reemerged in 2018 with a classic 5-track, album rock format and that sneakily palpable emotional resonance intact. The only vocal present is Pajo going “fuckin’ hell” in muted exasperation at the end of seven-minute workout “A Lighthouse Reverie.” It’s unclear why, as there are no glaring mistakes apparent. Maybe it’s because the progression gave him too much of that “guy who was in Slint” (an ad-libbed vocal he used when I saw him back on the Whatever, Mortal tour) feeling?
A Broke Moon Rises by Papa M
His first newer release (2016’s Highway Songs) had shades of that old charm, but this one feels much more like a properly realized record, immersively adrift from its brittle start to its impossibly fragile Arvo Pärt-covering finish. In the folds of these careworn minor minuets, one can conjure gentle waves lapping the shore or experience it as healing. Their sadness doesn’t accost you like a bellowing Warren Ellis (nothing wrong with that, for the record) and it doesn’t glaze one over either, like your garden variety cold grey post-rock wet noodle. The minimalist stakes ratchet at every turn, unabashed melodic beauty always beaded with the sweat of intent focus and feel, grappling for balance.
It should go without saying, but it perhaps bears mentioning that it is a fine and reassuring notion to have Dave Pajo still with us making the world so much more worth being in. A Broke Moon Rises isn’t pastoral like Bon Iver, and it doesn’t trade in the woe, guts, and glory of an Explosions in the Sky. It’s folk rock as an aging human in all its requisite fallibility and disgrace, pushing through torrents of doubt and disillusionment to a place where their essential spirit can take wing. Not to be “above,” but among. For the basic, perfect, and evergreen thrill of glancing back while flowing forward.
Tiny Mix Tapes 60
Papa M
A Broke Moon Rises
[Drag City; 2018]
Rating: 3/5
Then as now, Dave Pajo has always displayed a quietly distinct grace, with sonic ingredients on the bleeding edge of spare/blank. Originally released as a single (with his perfect cover of The Misfits’ “Last Caress” on the B-side), “Vivea” betrayed a still, delicate, patient, and infinitely tender soul, smoothly poured into the skeleton of sad folk progression. The lack of vocals also rendered the material more essential, even in the full swing of that trend in the mid 90s-mid 00s. There is a casual, conversational approach to most of Pajo’s Papa/Aerial M output. Even when vocals emerged (“Lay” is an early highlight of this), the recordings still had that room’s-width intimacy, both cluttered and carefully arranged. As illustrated by winning Papa M 2004 comp A Hole of Burning Alms, the charm of these meditative figures lies in their raw, almost incidental-seeming presentation. This homespun feel has only added to their staying power and mystique, not unlike Robert Pollard or Kim Deal at their best.
Of course, going home again is a bad idea. This has been empirically proven and re-proven, and many of us are working on the post-re-prove re-proving at this moment. However, judgments on what constitutes the phenomenon have been overzealously superlative. Sometimes an old sound is just a sound. A confluence of vision and technique that dies hard. That maybe wasn’t meant to die at all. This anxious wonder-imbued sound never really ended. It nestled in a beloved, dependable pocket of its own design and has now reemerged in 2018 with a classic 5-track, album rock format and that sneakily palpable emotional resonance intact. The only vocal present is Pajo going “fuckin’ hell” in muted exasperation at the end of seven-minute workout “A Lighthouse Reverie.” It’s unclear why, as there are no glaring mistakes apparent. Maybe it’s because the progression gave him too much of that “guy who was in Slint” (an ad-libbed vocal he used when I saw him back on the Whatever, Mortal tour) feeling?
A Broke Moon Rises by Papa M
His first newer release (2016’s Highway Songs) had shades of that old charm, but this one feels much more like a properly realized record, immersively adrift from its brittle start to its impossibly fragile Arvo Pärt-covering finish. In the folds of these careworn minor minuets, one can conjure gentle waves lapping the shore or experience it as healing. Their sadness doesn’t accost you like a bellowing Warren Ellis (nothing wrong with that, for the record) and it doesn’t glaze one over either, like your garden variety cold grey post-rock wet noodle. The minimalist stakes ratchet at every turn, unabashed melodic beauty always beaded with the sweat of intent focus and feel, grappling for balance.
It should go without saying, but it perhaps bears mentioning that it is a fine and reassuring notion to have Dave Pajo still with us making the world so much more worth being in. A Broke Moon Rises isn’t pastoral like Bon Iver, and it doesn’t trade in the woe, guts, and glory of an Explosions in the Sky. It’s folk rock as an aging human in all its requisite fallibility and disgrace, pushing through torrents of doubt and disillusionment to a place where their essential spirit can take wing. Not to be “above,” but among. For the basic, perfect, and evergreen thrill of glancing back while flowing forward.