Jet Lag
Josiah Wolf
Score:77
Reviewer: Dan Osmolowski
Label: Anticon. (USA)
Reviewed: Mar 30th '10, Released:2010
The photograph that graces the front cover of Josiah Wolf’s debut record, Jet Lag, shows him wearing a messy beard, dressed in an ordinary hooded sweatshirt and looking just over the top of the camera’s gaze, perhaps at the photographer themselves; it’s a photo that would make lean pickings for a semiotic analysis of any real rigor. There is no connotation here, no intention behind the photographer’s choice of framing, angle or choice of lens. It is simply a photo of Josiah Wolf. A man. A man, as it turns out, whose dissolved marriage of 11 years has given him the necessary motivation to write an album about the whole unfortunate affair.
Just as the photo of Wolf doesn’t purport to symbolise anything other than the man himself, Jet Lag is an album that presents the details, both emotional and physical, of his marriage breakup in a raw, often awkward fashion. At the mere mention of an album that charts such territory - particularly one that is subjective, unguarded, direct and minute - many listeners will opt out, instead preferring a more universal approach to narrative storytelling; one that allows for several interpretations to be made of the musician’s words and phrases. Wolf, much like his younger brother Yoni (WHY?) and contemporaries David Berman (Silver Jews) and John Darnielle (The Mountain Goats), lets his thoughts spill as direct recollections of specificity that are often comical; if only through the sheer ordinariness of their detail.
“I’ve frozen my assets/Cause I’ve got nothing to give right now,” Wolf sings on ‘The Opposite Of Breathing’; the realisation that from courtship to confirmation the journey of Wolf’s marriage boils down to such a clinical, emotionally-devoid act provides us with something, because of its brutal honesty, that is rather unfashionable in the world of popular music lyricism. Where others hide behind poetic smokescreen, with much of Jet Lag, Wolf lets the situations he finds himself in speak for themselves, no matter how embarrassingly normal or, alternately, bizarre they are.
Almost as if crafted to accompany his competent voice (instead of the other way around) Wolf plays all of the instruments on this record himself, using traditional guitar-based songs as his starting point, expanding from there with all manner of percussive instruments, keys, organ and bass. It’s no surprise for anyone having witnessed Wolf’s erstwhile band WHY? perform live, that the impressive dexterity that he displays in playing the drums and vibraphone at the same time would make a seamless translation to him writing his own engaging and melodic music.
But even for fans of WHY? (who should doubtlessly embrace this record) Jet Lag can be difficult going on first listen. The immediacy of the songwriting he crafts with his brother in that band is not as apparent but, for those who persist, there are intrinsic rewards to be found here. Despite the album being a touch too long and in need of a little editing (‘Skull In The Ice’ and ‘Is The Body Hung’ are particularly ponderous) Wolf has delivered an album that reflects who he is: Josiah Wolf, son of a Cincinnati rabbi, once married but no longer. No connotation, no masked intention, just the man himself..
