Red House Painters

Many of the songs on this Red House Painters collection are just as breezy and captivating as the San Francisco waterfront from which the LP takes its name. The band was enjoying a creative and popular high point, and tunes like "Summer Dress" and "Over My Head" speak to Mark Kozelek's command of the simple, sentimental elements of classic pop music.

With a lone piano, muted strings or abstract jazz guitar, these San Franciscans achieve a
beauty rare, disturbing and resonant. Their landscape is one Tim Hardin, Nick Drake and
Tim Buckley sketched – an emotional plane charged with ambivalent, hurt grace. Chief
Painter Mark Kozelek is, without embarrassment, a poet – he phrases his words with care
and ingenuity – and he's capable both of the indelible image ("The wetness of y... More >