Glasgow Sunday

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Glasgow Sunday
Studio album by Jandek
Released	April, 2005
Recorded	October 17, 2004
Length	61:47
Label	Corwood Industries
Producer(s)	Jandek
Jandek chronology
When I Took That Train (2005)	Glasgow Sunday (2005)	Raining Down Diamonds (2005)

Glasgow Sunday is the second of four albums released in 2005 by musician Jandek on Corwood Industries, as (0779). His 41st overall, it was recorded live on October 17th 2004 at The Arches, Glasgow, as part of the Instal festival. This was the first known live appearance of Jandek, who played unannounced with backing from Richard Youngs on bass and Alex Neilson on drums.

A DVD of this same performance was released on June 15, 2006. (See the entry on the Glasgow Sunday DVD for details.

[edit] Overview

This album carries an unusual amount of baggage, even for a Jandek disc. When recorded, the audience gathered knew only that a "special guest" was slated to play a late afternoon/early evening set at the 2004 Instal festival in Glasgow, Scotland. There was no prior announcement of the appearance, and it's quite probable that had the show not been working, the artist would have simply left the stage and faded back into anonymity.

But it does work, and a curious synergy occurs between the band (composed of Richard Youngs on bass and Alex Neilson on drums) and the audience, curious because the band only met a few hours earlier and had less than an hour of rehearsal, and the audience had no reason to believe anything special was going on. Jandek's obvious tension is more easily observed on the DVD of the show, where one can observe him unravel from a nervous, near terrified man into one who has relaxed into his stage duties and seems pleased with what's occurring.

And with good reason. Because of the anonymity factor, there's little chance this would've been an "emperor's new clothes" show, where the audience would adore even the most feeble performance simply because of who it was. Here the show must stand or fall on its content, and stand it does. Musically, the sound is unusually tight for this artist, and though they just met the connection between the trio is already in evidence. Youngs uses a variety of expert, lyrical runs to hold up the angular, uniquely tuned electric guitar lines. Neilson, by comparison, has an arsenal of percussive ideas, and on the DVD one sees him often holding a mallet in his mouth as makes eerie, squeaking sounds across the top of a cymbal or adds a sprinkling of bells onto a section.

The songs themselves aren't that removed, ultimately, from some of what this artist had been doing on recent albums. Unhurried, fractured guitar lines set up ragged vocals that speak of adjusting to life alone. "I feel light as a feather/since you’re gone," he sings on "Where I Stay," seeming to have come to terms with what may be the intense relationship detailed between The End of It All and When I Took That Train. "I hide from windows/ I don’t want to know/what’s really out there," he later sings, and the curious thing about these words is that they're being directly shared, rather than recorded solo in some secluded place. And though he never directly acknowledges the audience (no "thank you's" though you can see him smile on the DVD), he's obviously touched.

But still, these are the songs of a hermit, of a person who's decided to stay in reclusion, whether that's good for him or not. The audience yells out when he says "I made the decision to get real wild," but, ironically, "Real Wild" starts "I stayed home and did the wash/what else could I do?" From there we go through three songs about loss, the events that seem to have brought about this isolation, concluding in "The Other Side" with, "I’m gotta tell you a story/’bout a little girl/she broke my heart/when I was five/I've got so old now/where's the other half of my heart?" Perhaps he's finding that intimacy around him? At the end of the show, when the artist, saying nothing, packs up to go sounds of "Jandek! Jandek!" can be heard coming from the audience. It's a new relationship for this artist, and one that has continued into the end of 2006.

[edit] Track listing

1. Not Even Water – 10:24
2. Where I Stay – 7:29
3. Darkness You Give – 9:37
4. Sea Of Red – 7:50
5. Real Wild – 6:25
6. Don't Want To Be – 5:55
7. Blue Blue World – 6:42
8. The Other Side – 6:48

[edit] Album Cover Description

An anonymous, almost certainly American street in the autumn of a year quite some time before this concert. In fitting with the "Sunday" theme, a church can be seen at the end of the road.

Also of note, the back cover, for the first time, reveals a recording date and location.