Jeffrey Novak
Baron In The Trees

Fuzz-Tone! Distortions! Drone! These and other equally juicy items are included in the delirious and colorful Christmas package of the last five years of rock in California!

The names are now famous: Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, White Fence, but along with them, hundreds of more or less known bands orbit at a proper distance. The more we talk about a fragmented rock scene, the more the psychedelic-garage-drone drift becomes an imperative. From the free jazz fusions of Squadra Omega to the sometimes kosmic-flavored garage of In Zaire in our country too, this trend has created wonderful monsters, outlining a still very thin thread (because it is not yet supported by historical-critical vision that will arrive in a few years) between Europe and America in the way they pick up certain sixties styles and synthesize them in contemporary chaos.

Well, Jeffrey Novak has little to do with all of this.

Novak is from Nashville, proud capital of Tennessee, land of country rather than psychedelic humus. And it is no coincidence that his reworking of Californian inputs is far from the lacerating feedback of Segall's "Slaughterhouse" (2012), the moderate psychedelia of The Mallard and White Fence, and obviously far from the restless genius of John Dwyer and his Thee Oh Sees.

Novak is a small pop shard within contemporary psychedelia, capable of picking up the thread of the Beatles mixing it with Syd Barrett without any abrasion due to contact.

This year "Lemon" by good Novak was released, but since my reserves have been dry more or less forever, I settled for buying his album from last year, namely: "Baron In The Trees" (the title is the famous English translation of Calvino's "Il Barone Rampante").

In Baron, the acidity of Barrett reigns supreme (present especially in the vocal performance), but the music is very pop even before being rock. Yet in its packaging embellished with strings (Parlor Tricks), with exaggerated Floydian references, with pieces artfully wrapped (Watch Yourself Go), with catchy hits (Here Comes Snakeman), what remains is little but well-organized.

In the constant search for catchy melody, Novak always hits the mark, condensing in half an hour (yes, it's a rather short album) small pop gems of excellent craftsmanship. As far as I'm concerned, considering he started with an unpleasant fusion of garage and glam with his Cheap Time, and considering a White Fence already redundant with the unconvincing "Cyclops Reap" and the acoustic drift that, although well-packaged, puts you to sleep by the third minute of Mikal Cronin's "MCII", I believe Novak should be re-evaluated among the second lines, positing that the bench is the place that suits him.