TOM BROSSEAU
Perfect Abandon
Crossbill 030

www.crossbillrecords.com
 

The press sheet sent to reviewers for Tom Brosseau’s quite intrepid latest solo project quotes the transfixing yet eerily intimate indie folk singer and deft songwriter on the album’s title: It comes from a page in the Delmore Brothers autobiography, Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction, where Alton writes about J.L. “Joe” Frank (one of the first big-time country music promoters and managers in Nashville) and, specifically how he always wore his hat ‘with a perfect abandon.’

A quite ingenious syllogism and indicative of all ten Brosseau originals proffered here – from the harrowing (hopefully non-autobiographical ) opening tale of a “Hard Luck Boy” to the set-closing, imagistic narrative “The Wholesome Pillars.” Produced, engineered and recorded in Bristol, England by the talented team of Ali Chant and John Parish (PJ Harvey, Sparklehorse, Peggy Sue), who also occasionally adds plaintive organ asides to affairs, the plucky, fingerstyle whiz Brosseau is abetted variously by electric guitarist Ben Reynolds, the emphatic double bass work of Joy Carvell and drummer David Butler on a series of nostalgia-soaked songs that probably could only have been written by a refugee from the wilds of Grand Forks, North Dakota. Other showstoppers include a freewheeling “Roll Along With Me,” the ruminative confessional “Tell Me Lord,” a harmonica-laced “Goodbye Empire Builder” (preceded by the brief guitar instrumental “Empire Builder”) and the Donovan-influenced “Island In The Prairie Sea.”

To quote Brosseau once again: “In the Delmore book there are no photos of Joe and his hat, so you must use your imagination. Me? I envision the crown of the hat to be pushed back on the head, so that the peak of the hat is up beyond the hairline, exposing the forehead and facial features, like James Dean in Giant. While the hat may appear to be getting away, it never falls. A person in this fashion could be perceived to be without restraint.” Much like Brosseau’s perfectly abandoned music.

— Gary Von Tersch