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Jeff Buckley & Gary Lucas | Songs To No One: 1991–1992

The most intimate insight into Buckley's geniality.
CD, Recall/Bang

Tekst: Bas Ickenroth

Publicatiedatum: 09 november 2002

Didn't you get sick of Jeff Buckley the last couple of years? I know I did. The man's been dead, but every month someone managed to find unreleased material in a forgotten corner of yet another long-lost attic. The opportunistic vultures overfilled even the most intense Buckley admirers with their stream of unreleasable, unrefined sketches. Not every fart was worthy of being exposed to the whole wide world.

I have to admit: I didn't understand Grace when it was released, but I made up for that a few years later, just before the stupid man decided to take a fatal swim in the Mississippi river. What an idiot. He had the chance to save us from all the second-rate sketches the vultures would bestow upon us, the ignorant masses. The Amazing Grace was the only complete album he wanted us to hear, and although Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk surely has its moments, the beauty of Grace was, and still is, unreachable.

Songs To No One gives it a good try, though. These are the jams and writings he made together with Gary Lucas, avant-garde guitarist extraordinaire and longtime collaborator with Captain Beefheart. On the sparse demo recordings diplayed here, we can hear they complete each other well: Buckley with his creative rhythm guitar and Lucas with his spacy guitar effects, making it something really special. The immense beauty of the first sketches of classics like 'Grace' and 'Mojo Pin'; the direct link to higher grounds that is called 'L'Hymne á l'Amour'; the suprisingly bright and sunny-sounding 'How Long Will It Take'; and 'Song To No One': All are convincing pieces of evidence that the Buckley-Lucas collaboration should have lasted longer. Not all is gold: 'Cruel' and 'Malign Fiesta' are grungy punkrocksongs. And that simply isn't Buckley's strongest side. He makes up for it completely, though, with a literally breathtaking version of the old, traditional 'Satisfied Mind,' in which he puts all his available emotion into three short minutes.

So, we have to be glad that some vultures circled long enough to find these amazing recordings. It's the most intimate insight into Buckley's geniality you'll probably can find anywhere.

http://www.kindamuzik.net/recensie/jeff-buckley-gary-lucas/songs-to-no-one-1991-8211-1992/2026/
Meer Jeff Buckley & Gary Lucas op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/jeff-buckley-gary-lucas