Songs For A Blue Guitar

Today's post is all about Mark Kozelek who's best known for recording under the name Red House Painters but has also recorded under his own name and more recently as part of Sun Kill Moon(who recently released "Tiny Cities" featuring covers of eleven Modest Mouse songs). I won't pretend to know much about him but I was inspired to post about him after coming across several Mark Kozelek related weblinks last week. His vocals, as is his quiter acoustic guitar instrumentation, are reminiscent of Nick Drake in my opinion. While I like Nick Drake's music, thankfully Mr. Kozelek never exclusively remains in that folky mode and isn't afraid to turn up the volume on the guitars. Even when he turns up the volume on the guitars or throws in some country-ish guitar sounds there's still something very innocent about his songs. My introduction to this talented gentleman was around seven or eight years ago when I purchased used Red House Painters' Island Records-released CD "Songs For A Blue Guitar". It's a lovely melancholic album containing quiet, introspective songs above love and loss. It's lead-off track "Have You Forgotten" is achingly beautiful. Although I've subsequently purchased(used) some of Red House Painters' earlier releases on 4AD, I've somehow let them slip to the bottom of my collection without ever really listening to them thoroughly. (I could have never lived without used CD's or bargain bins but on the other hand, I've managed to accumulate ALOT of CD's.) I was surprised though when I came across a re-recorded(and somewhat glossy) version of "Have You Forgotten" which was included on the "Vanilla Sky" soundtrack. At that point, I would have figured the big-time was just around the corner for Mr. Kozelek, but he still seems to remain in obscurity. Whether that's good or bad depends on your perspective I guess. Recently, I've been in an introspective mood, and I'd rather not get into personal details, but Mr. Kozelek's music seems like the perfect soundtrack.

a soundtrack for everyone has a song-by-song commentary on Sun Kill Moon's recently released album, "Tiny Cities". He also has some related mp3/review links.

There's some Sun Kill Moon mp3 links over at False 45th.

And finally, Pimps of Gore has promised that within the month of November he will post 60 songs within the 30 days. He's started off the month with some Kozelek-related mp3's. Get to it.

Just FYI, Mark is currently on a solo tour in Europe and has a couple of US dates lined up for San Francisco and Los Angeles in January '06. Hopefully, a full North American tour will pan out.