Mark Kozelek
(Caldo Verde)
Temporary Red House Painters retiree/sometime Sun Kil Moon melancholia maestro Mark Kozelek is a master re-arranger. And not just by virtue of his now-iconic cover albums and constant creative interpretations of his own material. Even the man's many guises are swapped, abandoned and re-adopted with mysterious intent. Lost Verses-Live is released under his given name, even though all but two of its tracks were originally recorded as Sun Kil Moon. Which calls into question the essentialness of Kozelek's nom de songwriters, and risks distorting his fan base's rabid relationship to their downbeat San Franciscan hero. Which also might explain the impulse for his sporadically emergent performance documents (including 2001's White Christmas and 2006's Little Drummer Boy). Characteristically stripped bare and almost uncomfortably dramatic, a Kozelek concert tends to obliterate the semantics surrounding his persona and practically dares his audience to engage in something unusually intimate.
Lost Verses is no exception, and complements its aforementioned predecessors comprehensively (this album was, in fact, intended to serve as a bookend to a trilogy of sorts). Meatier than Christmas but less exhaustive than Drummer Boy, the 14-song set on Live-culled from tour stops in Brooklyn, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Portland-is, in part, a display case for his unrivaled ability to infer and articulate several readings of his own compositions.
RHP classic "Katy Song," which closes out the set, is particularly touching in its elegantly mournful re-working. Kozelek's phrasing is resistant, as if he's reconciling the meaning of his words while they're uttered, group-sharing reflections about a former muse who tragically passed.
The lone additional non-SKM offering is Kozelek's poignant re-imagining of Stephen Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns," which is a good deal more gripping amidst this carefully collaged set list than when interspersed between odds-and-ends on The Finally LP.
The remaining dozen songs, however, are primarily-and satisfyingly-faithful to their SKM originals, save the expected-but-telling de-emphasis or extra lingering over certain syllables and sentiments. (His voice doesn't always indulge its fractured lilt during the choruses of "Carry Me Ohio.") Yet, despite the sense of inclusion during more personal moments, it's the broader whimsy of lines like "Saltwater taffy/New Jersey shore/Blue like the fingernails she wore" during "Moorestown" that really take you somewhere special with Kozelek as a storyteller.
And that's all any of his fans really desire when seeking out the experience of his emotionally taxing-and at times challengingly histrionic-live reveals. That's evidenced by their overly excited laughter in response to chance moments of mundane between-song banter (although it does elicit knowing giggles when he denies an audience member's request to remove his shirt).
So when all is said and sung regarding Kozelek's many moods and not-quite-alter egos, the point he seems to be making with Live, and its similarly eponymous sister albums, is that his post-Red House Painters musical purpose has been as elusive to him as his fans. But that these 14 songs are one-third of a self-portrait he's developed in the last nine years, in collaboration with his audiences, and while it's not always pretty or perfect, it's unmistakably genuine.
Standout Tracks: "Katy Song," "Moorestown" KENNY HERZOG
