Lou Barlow - Goodnight Unknown

(Muso's Guide October 20, 2009)

Album Review

Lou Barlow may sound like he’s giving lo-fi a crack at a mid-Western open mic night, but make no mistake, friend - he is the granddaddy of them all.

As the brains and heart of behind Dinosaur Jr, Sebadoh and Folk Implosion, Ohio native Barlow was Gen X before Gen Why-O-Y came on the scene, all too cool for school and heavy on the effects pedals. He’s had more collaborative recordings that you’ve had hot dinners, and yet carries the same detached, world-weary WTF air that he sported all the way back when he played bass on Dinosaur in 1985.

Through his work - songwriting and multi-instrumentalism - Barlow has influenced every lo-fi band since the dawn of time, buddying up with members of the unfeasibly legendary Slint and generally being there when ‘there’ was the place to be.

His mucky sonic fingerprints are all over Ben Kweller, Moldy Peaches and so much more modern anti-folk, and the fact that he can make this, his second solo record, so listenable and notable is frankly a testament to the great man’s skill and nonchalant cool.

This is important to know - not because his classic tunes and maturity make him any more pertinent in the musical realm than whichever rowdy teeny teens Zane Lowe is currently crushing, but because it’s a measure of how far we’ve come - like listening to The Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows and wondering how 33 years later we’re still having to put up with The Kooks.

So what’s so good? On the opening ‘Sharing’ there’s a great Phantom Planet drum thrust underpinned by Barlow’s resonant melodic baritone. The song has ‘pogo-a-go-go’ all over it, with a catchy refrain and characteristically fuzzy production.

Title track ‘Goodnight Unknown’ is a less strident beast, with the thumping drum keeping a slow pace. The music is shot through with Folk Implosion-style guitar flourishes, and it leads nicely into the ‘Cannonball’-style (Damien Rice, not The Breeders) ‘Too Much Freedom’, a lo-fi lullaby.

Barlow’s archetypal neo-folk may not seem cutting edge now, but he did help spearhead the whole thing back in the day. The moving thing about this album is 14 songs with a spellbinding quality - the slow, soft hymnal of ‘Faith In Your Heartbeat’, the dropbeat slacker cool of ‘Gravitate’ - at 43, Barlow is still rocking them out. And with 75% of these tracks coming in at under three minutes, he’s every MTV-er’s ADHD dream.

With the weight of history behind it, and the gift of incredible talent chiming through every note, Goodnight Unknown is well on its way to classic status - and deservedly so.