So, what does everyone think of Silver Jews' Tanglewood Numbers?

yeah, "Punks in the Beerlight" is a good track. I ALWAYS LOVED YOU TO THE MAX!

I've been waiting for the new album since the last one. It's strange that Bright Flight seems to be the point of comparison for this one. When that one came out, the general consensus seemed to be that it was a disappointment in comparison with The Natural Bridge or American Water. I think I initially shared in that disappointment but after a few months I came to accept its genius. So maybe this one is a grower too.

by what standard, painful?

i am surprised how tepid these responses are.

the record is a lot more complex and urgent
than your feedback would indicate.

I wish I could see the liner notes for this album - lots of guests, and I'd like to sort out who is doing what.

Haven't listened to it today, but I'll give it another go'round tomorrow. Actually, maybe it'd be fun to have a Sliver Jewy Afternoony and just throw'em all together and see how The Silver Jew Era sounds (this is supposed to be the last album, right?).

Most of the adjectives Marybeth used for TNumbers I would use for Bright Flight, although I can't say much about the mix b/c I haven't listened to it with either headphones or at full-blast on speakers.

And the more I think about it, the less I think of this album as "lush," "beautiful," or "gorgeous." The sound is more straight-forward rock to me. Doesn't bode well that I've listened to this album maybe 8 times so far and can only remember a couple songs. I think I might just spend some time reading the lyrics.

Palp - there are a couple "signature" Malkmus guitar lines in there. I'd find them, but I'm in my bedroom w/ a sleeping girlfriend, so it'll have to wait until tomorrow.

are you english by any chance?

I'm crushed by it. It leaves everything else I've
heard this year in the (federal) dust.

Are you listening to an mp3?
This is produced really well. You might have to listen
to it as it was intended to be heard.

I'd argue now, but A) got cover letters to write, and B) I think that your (Glad and Marybeth) rhetorics kind of speak for themselves. Really this album sounds like another good album, but it doesn't have that exceptional feeling that Bright Flight had. I like the album, but it isn't the Second Coming that you all are making it out to be.

PS I don't necessarily think that "K-Hole" is 'about' a ketamine addiction ... seems more like an extended metaphor about lost love.

Sunset Tree:All Hail West Texas

as

Tanglewood Numbers:Bright Flight

And again, about the Ketamine thing ... I've heard lingering stories about Berman and possible drug addiciton, but I've never heard of anyone being addicted to Ketamine. But if you take it as a metaphor (don't know if you've ever done ketamine), it makes a lot of sense. In a 'K-hole' you feel like you're sinking into a massive hole in the gound, sinking away from everything, with a kind of disassociative feeling.

How about the first fucking line:

"Where's the paper bag that holds the liquor
Just in case I feel the need to puke?
If we'd known what it's take to get here
Would we have chosen to?"

Oh and every line after that.
Not to mention that it's the most musically sublime
SJ record to date.

Yeah just another record.

And it seems kind of lame to see a drug reference in a song and immediately limit it to an artist's drug problems.

i don't know what to make of tanglewood numbers - i've listened a few times and it doesn't click with me like earlier jews records. for one, the production reminds me of big country or something; additionally, the lyrics just seem uninspired. i didn't really care for "bright flight" either, though.

from the sound of the interview in pitchfork today, Berman's poetry sells a bit, but I don't think he's "one of the best selling."

From horse's mouth: "Actual Air brings in $1,000 a year nowadays. I get a dollar a copy, and they've sold a goodly number."

Yeah, their last interview w/ Berman was good, too, from a couple years ago I think.

Turns out that Malkmus and Gate Pratt co-wrote "The Farmer's Hotel," Cassie co-wrote "The Poor, the Fair, and the Good" and Michael Fellows co-wrote "K-Hole."

ILM to thread.

i'll be listening to this in 20, 30, 50 years...

The first four records seemed to be rooted in the very precious atmospheres of the world-famous Slacker Nineties that of course Pavement was such a big advocate of and helped to cast the Silver Jews in the image they would come to be known as. But this record, for the first time, is truly different in that the music, the attitude, the approach, everything involved with making the record short of a completely new band is totally different.

There are new dimension in Berman's singing voice all over this record that started in Bright Flight but just now are becoming truly realized. The first time I heard "Time Will Break The World" on BF I was kind of taken aback at the grizzly, mush-mouthed, uncomfortable drawl of Berman's on some of the lines in that song (especially "sun-shattered... HAIR") that sounded to me like pretty solid evidence that the song was recorded on the floor of the studio with Berman splayed out, fiending, vomit in his hair, twitching a little maybe. Just a real wreck. But of course on side two there was hints of something a bit more uplifting, ie "Let's Not and Say We Did." Basically there started to be more modes of expression than just the same old detatched monotone of all the first couple records. David began to let his freak flag fly a little bit, it seemed.

And then on Tanglewood Numbers it seems like now he's moved from being not ashamed of it to being proud of it and what it represents about himself and all the wastoid garbage he took himself through. It sounds to me like he's gotten out of it and is now on the right "path" (whatever you want to make of that) with priorities besides being an impressive genius who must hold himself back with stunting drug abuse and a continual four-year kegger at the crack house or however he'd best describe it.

And of course there's all the music on the album, too, and what all that sounds like. "K-Hole" sounds like a entirely different band, a modern rock one with outer spacescapes and genuine "bite" (sharp angles where clumsy weathered edges would have appeared in records previous) in the context of the Silver Jews slow country blues history. TN is different; what it sounds like to me is Berman no longer hanging his head and feeling sorry for himself. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I mean before this record I for once certainly didn't think there was anything wrong with it. The previous formula is/was seriously sonic manna to self-defeating indie hipsters who LOVE to wallow in the angst to music that doesn't try as hard as it could.

But listening to this record a few dozen times proves that David has a new perspective on this record. He has wrangled his inner contempt and finally, finally, for the benefit of himself and all his admirers, directed it away from the self and onto external forces, be they political, cultural, whatever. He's standing up for himself. It's all over the lyrics, too:

"We've got no good will, no good will to give
to those who try to take away what we need to live"

"I saw God's shadow on this world
I could not love the world entire
There grew a desert in my mind
I took a hammer to it all"

I hope it gets you! It's a good one.

"What kind of animal needs to smoke a cigarette
Cows in the ballroom, chickens in the farmer's corvette"

Listen to Dylan's "Clothes Line Saga" and come back to me.

It's one of those albums that feels to me like it could use one more "big" song, maybe halfway through... but no complaints.

I also want to put in a word for the booklet artwork. That photo-collage aesthetic... I must have 1994 in my blood.

non-ilxor guitarist in my band has more developed opinions than me on it: 1 2

From what people are saying, maybe I need to give the rest of the album more time.

I have this strange urge to go to synagogue with DB now that he's into Judaism.

i don't think he sounds angry at all. his voice is a lot different from other joos albums, and it's not just the level of them in the mix.

i like cassie's voice, too. i don't think she's any more amateurish than any other indie singer, probably less so, actually. and given that the sj's are whatever db wants them to be, i don't have any problem accepting her vocals along with his. nobody cried when malkmus warbled over sj songs!

DRAG CITY and Marvin Bunch Management is pleased to announce:
The Silver Jews: Love With The Lights On / Ballroom J Tour/ 2006

For the very first time the Silver Jews will be bringing their dumbfounding psyche-theistic humanist hawk rock to the streets of specially selected "Power Cities" nationwide this March.

Each tour stop will include:
- A fiery oratorical performance, as Bob Nastanovich reads his challenge "Address To the Men of This Town"

- "Professional style" multimedia stageshow
- Country Comedy by Kevin Guthrie and Corny Crow
- Show co-hosted by the lovely Cassie Berman
- Along with all the love songs, parables, and slang you expect from Crook and Chase -- I mean the Silver Jews!

Like a terrific looking galaxy cooling off in deep space, the Silver Jews have often seemed remote over their fifteen years of not touring. Even to themselves. Wars have been fought, generations have been born, cities ravaged and governments overthrown in the wake of the "Dime Map of the Reef" 7" inch.

With that in mind, David Berman cautions all potential ticket buyers "don't expect the Blizzard of the Masterminds this March. Think more along the lines of the Theatre of the Nephew."

Bob, the confident road veteran, cuts him off. "We're going to show the experts how it's done."

"Buyer beware," whispers David and the phone goes dead.

Charisma, folks! Have ya seen any lately?

Your buddy on Music Row,

Marvin Bunch

"let marv say it for you!"

It does say LOVE SONGS?