Blue Corpse
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| Blue Corpse | ||
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| Studio album by Jandek | ||
| Released | 1987 | |
| Recorded | unknown | |
| Genre | Outsider Music / Folk music | |
| Length | 43:27 | |
| Label | Corwood Industries | |
| Producer(s) | Corwood Industries | |
| Professional reviews | ||
|---|---|---|
| Jandek chronology | ||
| Modern Dances (1987) |
Blue Corpse (1987) |
You Walk Alone (1988) |
Blue Corpse is the fifteenth album by Jandek, and his second for 1987. Essentially a duet album with "Eddie," it addresses heartbreak and is considered by many to be the easiest point of entry into the Corwood catalog.
Contents |
[edit] Overview
Blue Corpse is the album considered the best starting point for people new to Jandek. Inevitably, this causes a bit of backlash - it's too "straight;" it doesn't sound like "Jandek" - but it's certainly true that listeners more accustomed to the likes of Will Oldham or Jason Molina will find this an easier transition than most of the catalog.
And no matter how you slice it, this is an impassioned album. Maybe it's about a breakup, and maybe it's not but regardless this is a dark folk album in which "Eddie" and the Corwood Rep come to an understanding and create some very felt music. It's "Eddie's" vocals and guitar that will throw most of the older fans, as a smoother, slightly deeper voice sings "I passed by the building/you were working in...I wanted to lie in your arms again...I wanted to die." This leads to a series of trade-offs between the two, with "Eddie" seeming to play most of the guitar (you can tell when he's not)and singing most of the first three tracks and the last song. The rest are sung by a very impassioned Corwood Rep who in one song moans "go and see your other man." This leads to a few lighter numbers ("Down at the Ball Park" is both a lark and a sincere remembrance of "creamin' 'em down at the ball park.")
The original second side then began with "Harmonica," which is most certainly the Corwood Rep getting out his blues for five and a half minutes on echo-laden harmonica. "Eddie" attempts to add some guitar here and there, but he mostly stays out of the way - whatever the artist was feeling at the time, it comes out all over here. This leads to a genuine curiosity - the only cover song in Jandek history. That would be "House of the Rising Sun," though you're forgiven if you don't recognize it. Many of the lyrics are twisted around, and there was an argument at one point that it might be an original using that name. Nope, it's the traditional folk song with a drastically changed pace (and Eddie seems to be playing an entirely different song, for what it's worth - The Corwood Rep finishes the song singing it in the more "standard" version).
The album ends with the ten and a half minute blues-tinged exorcism of "Only Lover" which takes us, again, "down the river to Madrid," and contains the strangest batch of lyrics on the album (he shares a tent with a cantaloupe at one point, and other lyrics include, "Like a kangaroo I’m only half doing what I do/Jesus stares at me from the wall/and I think I like your bosom/aw gone floatin’ down a river to Madrid"), yet it all culminates into a recognizable whole, and it's one of loss, building to a drum that sounds like a heart stopping. Then we get two quickies ("The Quinn Boys" would get a reprise on the next album), including manic drums on "One Minute" that thrash away while the vocals tell the listener to "follow the music." Ultimately, what else can you do?
[edit] Track listing
- I Passed by the Building – 3:44
- C F – 2:13
- Variant – 1:52
- Part II – 1:54
- Your Other Man – 5:26
- Long Way – 1:01
- Down at the Ball Park – 2:31
- Harmonica – 5:32
- House of the Rising Sun – 4:34
- Only Lover – 10:25
- Quinn Boys – 2:03
- One Minute – 1:15
[edit] Album cover description
Possibly shirtless Jandek walks by a brick building. (Lyrics to first song: "I passed by the building you were working in...") Photo is black and white, blurry with motion: a Futurist portrait of the dynamism of Jandek in front of a wall. -- Seth Tisue
Jandek is most definitely shirtless... and wearing the same pants and belt as he was on Modern Dances.
He appears to be smiling, very blurred. The length of his stride indicates either very quick motion, or very bad posing.
[edit] Reviews
This newer album contains more folk sounds and less of the dissonance Jandek is so well known for... Jandek’s angst-ridden vocals... filled with trials and tribulations... -- Art Black Away From the Pulsebeat
