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Rating: 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.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Medicine Bottle (09:49)
giving into love and sharing my time
letting someone into my misery
i told it all step by step
how i landed on the island
and how i swam across the sea
and it crosses my mind
that i may wake to a knife in me
no more breath in my hair
or ladies' underwear
tossed up over the alarm clock
blood dripping from the bed
to a neatly written poem
a heartfelt last line reading
there is no more mystery
it it going to happen my love
it's all in your head she said
morning after nightmare
you're building a wall she said
higher than the both of us
so try living life
instead of hiding in the bedroom
show me a smile
and i'll promise not to leave you
it happened under a rainy cloud
passing through the dark south
we went into a big house
and slept in a small bed
i didn't know you then
as well as you of me
we talked of our sad lives
and we went off separately
i found your overseas souvenirs
holiday greeting cards
and some long forgotten high school fears
it's all in my head i said
banging a piano
i've not been so alone i thought
since kicking in the womb
i drank so much tea
i wrote my letters in kanji
around the block i walked and walked
pretending you were with me
not wanting to die out here
without you
the hurting never ends
like birthdays and old friends
we forget what is flesh blood and bone is human
turning phone lines to airlines
unwilling to face
the love is found on the inside not the outside
and like a medicine bottle
in the cabinet i'll keep you
and like a medicine bottle
in my hand i will hold you
and swallow you slowly
as to last me a lifetime
without holding too tight
i do not want to lose
the thrill that it gives me
to look out from my window
and scowl at the houses
from my world in the bedroom
it's all in my head she read
in her girlfriend's self-help book
it's all his own making
a war with himself
like two sides of a wall
that separates two countries
he shuts out the world
and wants only to love you
not wanting to die out here
without you
06 Michael (05:21)
michael, where are you now?
somehow in my excitement the last time you called,
it slipped again to ask your hidden whereabouts
i got a lead from your old triple ex-girlfriend, she said
"i heard he lost his mind again"
"again?" i said
i didn't know that you ever did
michael, where are you now?
sleeping through the morning in flannel impaired
getting high in southern air
shoeless, sandy eveing down the unfamiliar
last whiff of salt-water freedom
skipping shells in the dead zone
with the ghost on your side
of the state borderline
whispering
"take it. . ."
do you remember our first subway ride?
our first heavy metal haircuts?
our last swim on the east coast?
and me with my ridiculous looking pierced nose?
i remember your warm smile in the sun
the daydreaming boy without a shirt on
the birmingham barfly father
left the mother of three sons
you're the oldest juvenile delinquent bum
my best friend
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Other reviews
By my bloody syndicate1
This album tells the story of a man irreparably scarred by drugs, loneliness, and depression—a man who cannot even scream, spit, or get angry.
Down Colorful Hill marks the stride of a new artistic dimension forgotten since the days of Nick Drake.
By pana
"Mark Kozelek wouldn’t downsize music; he offers humility and well-done music... Down Colorful Hill represents this."
"The album speaks for itself, with a fluid stream of consciousness that lives within the listener well beyond the last note."
