The most misused word in current journalism is the easy-to-apply, but always used superficially, concept, “deconstruction.” The word should apply to the philosophical undertaking of undermining the status quo by freeing the subject from the subject’s objective world, by calling into question the past, and by inverting aesthetic models from the inside out. Danny Cohen, in his wondrous and wonderful 2004 work, Dannyland, does all this and more: with humor, intense lyricism, with various voices, many emanating from the primordial ooze of his playfulness, Cohen has persisted successfully in his creative and revolutionary attack on songwriting laziness, MTV re-productions, and ignorant or apathetic listening to pop songs. A hybrid of various sources—jazz, spoken word, Rodgers and Hart, the Beatles, smoldering New Orleans voices from the grave—Dannyland is the most interesting album of the year.
By decomstruction I mean this: instead of bemoaning loss of pop song meaning, Cohen revels in the child-like play of surfaces, and in these curious interplays between surfaces. Within each distinct song, as well, Cohen explores whimsically dense studio effects: tape loops; modulated voices, electronic orchestration. Baroque and trippy, pleading and tenuous, these unusual art songs benefit from a series of producers who allow Cohen’s vast imagination to negotiate difficult turns of phrase. It does not hurt that the players share Cohen’s enthusiasm for the difficult and dense, and are able to seamlessly portray his world of random, miniaturized soundscapes that hearken back to nursery rhymes, cowboys riding the range, and the weird border areas of Chinatown, the Alamo, John Lennon’s death, Redd Foxx, dating Catherine Deneuve at the Louvre, and Siberia. A couple of Chico pals, John Lapado and Dave Hurst, handle the bulk of the keys and strings, and on 2 cuts, multi-whiz Ralph Carney produces and adds musical sounds that should be played at simultaneous celebrations of a wedding and funeral.
Expert bassist Mike Howe and Hurst handle the bulk of the production and they smartly allow Cohen’s addled vocals to ring clearly, like a warning siren from the Northern Cali coast. The percussive restlessness sounds like a Soft Machine rehearsal; the songs’ structures often dip into the land of Tom Waits—closed lately due to boredom—but with a higher sheen of beauty; the vocalizations signal Daniel Johnston, but with greater certitude and variety. If Van Dyke Parks arranged the mid-period of Captain Beefheart and had Limey eccentric Ivor Cutler handle the production, then maybe you get the idea, but, hell, the past ain’t important. This is music of the now: we all should move to Dannyland. It’s open 24 hours a day, but just not always consecutively. |