Damien Jurado :: Maraqopa

 

Damien Jurado

Maraqopa

Secretly Canadian; 2012

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The narrative is all wrong. The conclusion doesn’t fit the facts. 2 plus 2 does not equal 5.

If you’ve been following the reviews for Maraqopa, you know the story goes something like this: for 13 years Jurado was making steady if unspectacular neo-folkie music. Due to their consistency, there was nothing wrong with them. But there was nothing great either. He was caught in a rut of making the same sounding album ad nausea. But then he met producer Richard Swift.

He and Swift holed up in an Oregon studio for a week and came up with 2010’s Saint Bartlett. The response was overwhelming. Many sources called it his best work to date and a major step forward in sound. They appealed to the potent combination of Swift’s Tin Pan Alley approach to production with Jurado’s power as a teller of tales and writer of memorable songs. For most Saint Bartlett was a radical step forward. I disagree. I think the opening two tracks, “Cloudy Shoes” and “Arkansas”, were a bold new sound. They certainly were the greatest departure from Jurado’s past minimalist efforts. They certainly wore the fingerprints of Swift’s 50’s pilfering. However, due to their sequencing they clouded the collective judgments of listeners. In many regards, Saint Bartlett was Jurado’s most typical work yet. It comes closest to capturing the essence of Jurado’s broad output.

Truthfully, Jurado’s always been something of a shape shifter. For example, Ghost of David was claustrophobic minimalism touched by flourishes of atonality. Where Shall You Take Me was his americana album. Caught in Trees was a return to the full-band Crazy Horse-esque sound of I Break Chairs. Saint Bartlett was mostly Jurado in singer-songwriter form. But, to be honest, it’s a good look for him. He’s always been a guy, a guitar, and a story. He’s just done it in different ways.

Truthfully, rather than Saint Bartlett/Maraqopa (as we’ll see) being some major step forward (which also raises the question if perceived change is necessarily a good thing. That’s a moral judgment I’m not willing to make.), for most of his 15 years as a recording artist, he was the wrong guy, making the wrong music, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. He started as a pop-folky unfavorably compared to Elliot Smith and playing on a label—Sub Pop—in a city—Seattle—that was still experiencing the post-grunge come down. By the time the label started actively expanding their sound, Sam Beam’s Nome de plum Iron and Wine was the hot thing. That’s simply bad luck. (Jurado himself has alluded to this incorrect narrative in Caught in the Trees “Predictive Living” and Maraqopa’s “Working Titles”.

With that new back story in place, I can safely say that Maraqopa is not a giant change in terms of his overall MO. It is an expansion of his partnership with Swift. If Saint Bartlett touched on what they were capable of as a duo, Maraqopa is its full realization. The two are simply magical. And once again, Jurado shows himself to be a capable chameleon.

Opening track “Nothing is the News” is like nothing he’s done before. Gone is the gentle acoustic strum. In its place is a 5 ½ minute druggy jab filled with blues riffs and psychedelia. For old fans it was a “huh?” moment indeed. “Life Away from the Garden” features Jurado trading lyrics with an echoing children’s choir over a steady snare drum, strings, and an organ. The contrast between the two is sharp. And it’s a contrast that continues throughout. “Everyone a Star” is a dark, slow ballad dominated by a deep church organ type sound. The title itself is sung not in hope but in resignation. It’s almost an indictment of a self-esteem culture that can do no wrong. But then two tracks later, the tempo is sped up. The organ becomes a piano. The guitar is more prominent. The tone turns hopeful: “don’t let go/I need you to hang around”.

In an interview and in-studio performance on KEXP, Jurado admitted the themes behind the album came to him in a dream. Maraqopa is a fictional town in his dream. (His wife told him it needed to be spelled with a “k” or a “qu”. He told her that was how it was spelled in the dream.) The album itself is a concept album about the town. (I haven’t been able to make heads or tails of that claim yet). Further, he’s admitted that the album was deeply influenced by the Jesus Movement of the 70’s. This, I can hear. The album hangs as a slightly psychedelic folk jam full of religious and esoteric imagery. It also pushes his sharp writing lines a bit to the side to focus on a more impressionistic pastiche of people and places. The focus isn’t on the story per se, but the feelings they invoke. Without making a value judgment on what is better or worse, I have enjoyed hearing a slightly different lyrical style.

At the end of the day Maraqopa should be more than just one of a great artist’s best albums. In a perfect world, this would be recognized as one of the year’s best from a musical treasure.