Red House Painters
Down Colorful Hill

THE REVIEW

Formed at the end of the '80s in San Francisco, the Red House Painters express in music the tormented soul of their leader Mark Kozelek. A complex and introverted character, a former drug addict, Kozelek pours all his existential pain into his chords and lyrics. A poet of great stature, he uses a subdued tone, introverted, filled with a moving intimacy. His style is gentle, his singing flows slowly and apathetically, his words are delicate whispers.

In the early '90s, 4AD of the great Ivo Watt Russel (how many wonders have passed through his label...) signed them. Thus, in '92, their debut album, Down Colorful Hill, was released. The cover doesn’t bode well, and indeed inside we find the same desolate atmosphere. There are only six tracks, but they are very elongated. It begins with "24". A guitar emits anemic whimpers before the singing takes center stage. The rhythm is initially absent, then a faint drum begins to make its voice heard, giving time to Kozelek's prayers. Everything is infinitely slowed down, the arrangement is stripped to the bone, but there is no slightest sensation of repetitiveness. The class is remarkable, the group's skill lies in creating subtle sound weaves that cradle like a swing, enveloping the listener in a climate of wonderful relaxation.

"Medicine Bottle" is perhaps the best track of the lot. Ten minutes of splendid dreaminess, of elegant rarefaction, the nocturnal landscape drawn by the instruments hypnotizes and seduces from the first listen. The hinted march of the title track gives us a Kozelek less detached from the world, his voice reveals a glimmer of hope, a moving breath of emotion, while the guitar embroiders notes that seem like faint colored lights. Lights that the subsequent "Japanese to English" slowly extinguishes only to give them new vitality in its development, marked by a continuous alternation of light and shadow.
The sunniest episode of the record is represented by "Lord Kill The Pain", a beautiful folk-rock tune, simple but not trivial, which breaks the tension at the right moment. The curtain falls with the sweet elegy of "Michael", a lost friend never forgotten. This time Kozelek betrays emotion, but his is a pain not pervaded by funerary despair, his words recall the friend when he was alive, his smile, the moments shared together, with the awareness that a person so dear always remains a bit with us.

An apparently easy album, in reality, it needs numerous listens before being fully appreciated. Once its taste is fully savored, one realizes what a masterpiece it is.