Kurt Vile
Wakin On A Pretty Daze

The wall behind Kurt Vile on the cover was painted for the occasion in his Philadelphia.

It summarized a bit of the album's contents: travels, titles and scattered phrases, suitcases, the hard case of his guitar with don't know why I Ever Go Away written on it, stoner sunglasses, a couch enclosed in a heart and theres a place for my friends.

A local philanthropist decided, this summer, that those graffiti should no longer exist. Decision made, it seems, against the wall owner's will. Graffiti make a mess, attract crime, other vandals, and mishaps. The jerk thought it necessary to give it two coats of white paint.

Despite all the philanthropists and jerks in the world, Wakin On A Pretty Daze will endure. Kurt Vile's painting, his technique made of fingerstyle and tangible coolness, is too material to be spoiled by the patina of time, too imbued with epos to be assaulted by the buckets of paint that current musical trends will throw at it, decade after decade; the modest and majestic folk of Too Hard - eight minutes - inserts itself so explicitly into the tradition that it dispels any reasonable doubt. The tradition I refer to is obviously that immortal, institutional one of classic North American songwriting. This album was born classic and cannot fade away.

Take, for example, this year's album by War On Drugs, his old group: the songs latch onto the teats of Grandpa Bob, Uncle Bruce, and Uncle Neil, mediating all with youthful reverbs and applause from everyone for the masterpiece; although Suffering is a great ballad, I think doing so is too easy. In Kurt Vile, there is something immediate and spontaneous in approaching the tradition, and to stay on the subject of Wurlitzer piano, our man's Shame Chamber completely outdoes all the sought-after-classic freshness of the War On Drugs, without the slightest apparent effort. Thus, the seven-minute electroacoustic tour de force of Was All Talk exudes singer-songwriter epos while unfolding on an electronic percussive base, without the slightest embarrassment; a trip, as someone from my part would say; even synth can be heard in Air Bud. Certain nights, the radio playing Kurt Vile seems to understand who you are, and the enchanting ten minutes of Goldentone close the album in Harvest territory, in the spirit of the most classic classic, with a female voice and an electric zen finale that's nothing short of miraculous. If it wasn't clear what I mean by epos in rock, then, take KV Crimes' solo. Nothing is clichéd; everything is inspired and it seems like drugs have nothing to do with it – Kurt is a straightforward guy, ten years married and a family man – but judging by some of his jaw-dropping interviews, certain eloquent glances into the void, and the ragged Pure Pain, probably from that old-school mane still emanate mystical scents.

Wakin On A Pretty Daze is a perfect, mature record, out of any logic just as it is out of any logic to open the show with a nine and a half minute dinosaur that at a certain point enters the electric one and becomes Zuma.

Aware of not doing Kurt Vile justice in making comparisons, I would still say to those who do not know him that his singing particularly recalls the more apathetic Lou Reed and the most chill J Mascis - that is, the J Mascis we have always known. The intrinsic vocal laziness plays a fundamental role in stripping rhetoric and cloyingness from his prolix, redundant and vaguely megalomaniac ballads: like Lou Reed's The Kids, in Berlin; we're there, but with fewer pretensions.

The graffiti, however, will return: they have decided to repaint them. A clear sign that what is destined to stay, will stay.