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Daniel Johnston - Is and Always Was
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| Pitchfork |
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A lot of Daniel Johnston's most vital music was recorded alone, and in strange ways. On a weight bench, most famously, in his brother's garage, with a chord organ and a boombox microphone. This was back before his bipolar disorder really exploded on him, well and truly seized into his life. A lot of that music is hard to separate from the way you hear it-- the tape hiss and the vulnerable voice, the excitement of hearing into someone else's strange, pretty world, straight from boombox to boombox. And then a lot of his most vital music has also been recorded by other people entirely: a whole raft of covers by musicians who listened to those spare weight-bench sketches, heard a ton going on inside them, and wanted to play them big-- wanted to take the sketch and turn it into a big painting or a full-color animation. In between, well, it's been dicey: Attempts to make Johnston himself mesh with collaborators and backing bands and expensive studios haven't always gone well. How do you make the big colorful painting when the private sketch is right in the center of the canvas? Often they both lose out. The biggest, greatest news about Is and Always Was is that it does it right, beautifully and unawkwardly-- something that, if I were producer/musician Jason Falkner, I might be prouder of than having played with Paul McCartney. The record avoids the old mistake of thinking that Johnston is a "weird" musician and therefore needs a weird backing, or that he's a "raw" musician and needs a scrappy one: Johnston writes pop songs and loves the Beatles, and on this record he gets the rich Beatlesque pop arrangements that are surely in his head. They even find a sweet spot between forcing too much personality into the instruments (and having them overwhelm Johnston) and not putting in enough (so that he sounds like he's singing karaoke); sometimes a little bland or obvious, but in a good spot. This is as much as I've ever heard Johnston sound not like an individual, not like someone who's being supported, but like the lead singer of an actual band, one he's really part of-- a great, strange, and ambitious psychedelic band. Even amid the grand, triumphant rock pomp of the closing number, Johnston sounds like he's really, genuinely in it....full text |
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| Theendofirony |
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It's hard to ignore the fact that Daniel Johnston suffers from bipolar disorder. On the first track of Is and Always Was he confesses that he's "...just a psycho..." The music surrounding these words pure folk rock genius, and is actually surprisingly well-produced (a contrast to Johnston's very early work recorded on a $60 boombox, I'm sure). However, it's Johnston's actual vocal delivery that keep this record real. They are beautifully unique with an unimitable lisp or slur. It gives the recording an instantly lovable innocent feel, even when Johnston's lyrics are sad....full text |
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| Tinymixtapes |
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While many parallels have been drawn between Daniel Johnston and Brian Wilson, the comparison is only truly valid on the surface, chiefly in the struggle between balancing mental illness with musical genius. Deeper analysis, however, identifies profound differences between the two men and their work. For example, where hiatuses into seclusion (his bedroom) made Wilson lethargic and unprolific, such isolation allows Johnston to creatively thrive. Where Wilson required a lyrical foil to compose much of his best work (Tony Asher, Van Dyke Parks), Johnston does his best work alone. Where lush arrangements and production brought Wilson’s music to life, sparseness and bareness always defined Johnston’s masterpieces. But it’s in this last respect where the fundamental problem with his latest full-length offering, Is and Always Was, presents itself. Like his acclaimed drawings, Johnston’s music was startling in its superhuman simplicity. Seldom did he use any adornment other than a single accompanying instrument, which ranged from acoustic guitar to piano to chord organ (and sometimes none at all). His vocals exuded childlike wanderlust and woe over their subject matter, whether it was unrequited love, fulfilled dreams, pet cows, jelly beans, King Kong, or Casper the Friendly Ghost. But in the late 90s, he started playing with garage-rockers Danny and the Nightmares, which with mixed results lent a thorny edge to his music, at different times drowning and bolstering his strength of voice. Then, in 2003, with Sparklehorse’s Mark Linkous producing, Johnston’s Fear Yourself, with its hazy instrumentation, represented a grand return to form....full text |
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Daniel Johnston lyrics