When I lived in Bloomington, Indiana, Secretly Canadian had just signed Damien Jurado. What I'm saying is, I've liked this guy since before he was so cool, and so I'm cool. He came to town and played shows in Bloomington houses, which is to say, houses with porches and gravel driveways and people hanging around outside with a dog or two. At one of those shows, someone had one of those lights you clip to something while you're working under a car. And it made an enormous shadow of Jurado on the wall. I'll always love And Now That I'm in Your Shadow because of that. "Hoquiam," "Denton, TX," "I Am Still Here." So many solid songs. Jurado has an incredible range. His falsetto in songs like "Cloudy Shoes" and "Arkansas," is so tender. But his tenor dominates. This new album is the third in a trilogy of albums (including Maraqopa and Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Sun). In all of these, Jurado is telling a sort of magical story. I imagine there's a lot of fog and mist in the story. It's certainly eerie. It's an odyssey. This installment has a lot more synth play than before. But as usual, Jurado focusses on place--being in a place, and moving on--trying to get to a new place. Even though a lot of these 17 songs seem sad, you could totally do the two-step to them. This album will improve your mood: it will get you where you're going.
Bloomington, IN