Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 10/20/2009
While
Jeff Tweedy and
Jay Farrar have had their share of differences since the acrimonious breakup of
Uncle Tupelo, at least they now have one rather remarkable thing in common -- they've both had the opportunity to collaborate with a noted American writer who happened to be dead. In 1998,
Tweedy's group
Wilco joined forces with
Billy Bragg on the album
Mermaid Avenue, in which they set a handful of newly discovered poems by
Woody Guthrie to music, and now
Farrar and
Benjamin Gibbard of
Death Cab for Cutie have released
One Fast Move or I'm Gone, a collection of songs created for a
documentary film about the fabled Beat-era writer
Jack Kerouac and the troubling circumstances that inspired his 1962 novel
Big Sur. For
One Fast Move or I'm Gone,
Farrar has taken passages from
Kerouac's book and, with a bit of editing and paraphrasing, set them to original melodies, with
Farrar and
Gibbard trading off on the lead vocals. Though only a few of the songs actually appear in the movie,
Farrar has included twelve tunes on the album, and while they don't quite tell the whole tale of alcoholic excess and spiritual despair
Kerouac set down in
Big Sur, the songs honor the spirit of the author, if not quite the letter of his original source. Musically, this material follows the same moody, lonesome, and expansive sound that's been
Farrar's melodic trademark in his work with
Son Volt, and on his solo recordings, and if it hardly matches the swinging
be-bop jazz usually associated with the Beats (one lyric cites digging
Stan Getz on the hi-fi), the bluesy undertow of this music is a good match for
Kerouac's long, unblinking look into the emotional void. But while
Farrar's voice is keyed well to the melodies,
Gibbard's lighter and more playful tone captures the restless meter of
Kerouac's writings much more comfortably than
Farrar, who somehow manages to make the words of one of the most distinct literary voices of the 20th century sound like outtakes from
Wide Swing Tremolo -- not bad, mind you, but not all that different from his usual work.
One Fast Move or I'm Gone might have evoked
Jack Kerouac more vividly with other vocalists besides
Farrar, but as a composer and producer he's done right by his lyricist, and the results are modest but rewarding. [
One Fast Move or I'm Gone was released as a stand-alone album and in a package that paired it with the DVD version of
Curt Worden's
documentary,
One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Kerouac's Big Sur. The DVD includes bonus footage of
Farrar and
Gibbard at work in the studio, and both musicians briefly appear in the feature film, but while the soundtrack seems to have been made a major selling point of the picture, the music and the musicians play a supporting role on screen while interview subjects
Tom Waits and
Patti Smith are given significantly more screen time. Fans of
Farrar and
Gibbard may well be interested in having both the film and the music, but the movie will appeal most to folks interested in
Kerouac and how his tumultuous life informed his work.]
~Mark Deming, All Music Guide
;)
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