It’s worth quoting Malkmus’s lyrics at length, in part because they are puzzles that move away from you as quickly as they move toward you. It’s probably an understatement to say that Malkmus loves language and the tricks it can do if trained. But it’s also important to remember that he’s not writing poetry—or, rather, that if he is writing poetry he’s also setting it to music. The songs on Wig Out at Jagbags don’t hesitate to crib from rock, soul, alt-country, fusion, prog, and anything else that catches the Jicks’s fancy. Malkmus himself is still playing plenty of guitar, and playing it without diminished energy or creativity—there’s great economy and feeling in the lines of “Independence Street.” There are horns, which lean toward seventies-rock brassiness on “Chartjunk” (which Malkmus says is about the tensions between the former Milwaukee Bucks point guard Brandon Jennings and his coach, Scott Skiles), and woozy soft rock on “J Smoov” (which is almost a straightforward tortured-love love ballad)
Posted on: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 04:33:01 +0000
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