(Eternal Yip Eye)

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Daniel Johnston's songs have always been an interesting mix of Beatle-pop brilliance and unsettling instability, bits of very accomplished melody peeping out between bouts of piano banging, child-like lyrics, stalker narratives and barely contained psychosis. For me, it took 2004's Discovered Uncovered to uncover the skill under Johnston's art. Only after listening to his songs filtered through more conventional pop voices could I go back and hear the genius in the originals.

But that's me; you're probably much smarter. You probably don't need Jason Falkner, musician, producer and detail man extraordinaire, to clean up Daniel Johnston's latest batch for you.

Still you might want him anyway, because if Johnston is the mad genius throwing tunes everywhere, Falkner is just the guy to pick them up and set them in order. He is steeped in the same psychedelic pop tradition as Johnston, though in a far more disciplined, knob-twiddling, studio-aware way. His Author Unknown was one of the 1990s best (and least appreciated) pop albums, every detail razor sharp, planned to the nth degree, and yet as fluid and inevitable as melodic pop can be. His work with Brendan Benson (One Mississippi and Lapalco) had the same lapidary yet living quality, its art preserved in 1960s amber, yet nonetheless able to swim around and even do the occasional backflip. And his under-the-radar Bedtime With The Beatles, a two-volume series of instrumental lullaby interpretations of the Fab Four, has an understated charm for parents and toddlers alike.

 Falkner brings out the Beatle in Johnston, structuring his songs, adding fillips of guitar and keyboard (even slipping a lick from "You Say It's Your Birthday" into "Fake Records of Rock and Roll"), all without in the least distracting from Johnston's unfiltered urgency. Our hero is still entangled with unattainable females ("Mind Movies" "Without You"), still endearingly child-like ("Queenie the Dog"), still demonstrably eccentric ("I Had Lost My Mind"). "I'm just a psycho trying to write a song, Johnston sings in "Mind Movies," and, yes, he is still fundamentally a little off. He just sounds so much better, channeled through regular, full-arrangements, with the reassuring symmetry of good pop. Arrangements are never overwhelming, but often include small doses of lots of different textures.  The single "Freedom," for instance, is mostly strummed guitar and vocals. Yet it's filled out beautifully with drums, bass, a little slide, some keyboard and call and response vocals.

If the record were going to tip over into excess, it would do so during the final cut, "Light of Day," an extended, mildly hallucinatory track, that builds gradually via blossoming synths, slow piano chords and fuzzy guitar tones, into a "Day in the Life" overload. It could tip, but it doesn't, it just grows and grows until it is too big to go on anymore. Then it ends. Everyone stays on board, in key, in control for six and a half minutes. Amazing.

The bottom line:  this is the most accessible, least squirm inducing Daniel Johnston record ever. That will undoubtedly be a problem for the folks who turn up primarily for the peep show, but if you come for the music, listen up. Jason Falkner has run Daniel Johnston's vision through a focus lens. The subject matter is still pretty odd, but you can see it better than ever.

Standout Tracks: "Freedom", "Light of Day" "I Had Lost My Mind" JENNIFER KELLY