Swell
For All The Beautiful People

Let's play a game together. The game is called "create the lo-fi monster too, it's easy," which actually means nothing, but many things in this review mean nothing. Let's begin.

First, take that depressed lunatic Mark Linkous from Sparklehorse, and treat him badly, him and his damn horses: tell him – I dunno – that you are currently listening to "A horse with no name" by America, it'll kill him. If by chance he offers you a song, you reply: "Homecoming queen," thanks, it's beautiful.
Take that unlucky country lad Jason Lytle from Grandaddy, and insult him: tell him – I dunno – that whether he's got a beard or not, there's no point in him always whining in every song, women can't give it to him. It's against nature. If by chance he offers you a song, you reply: "Hewlett's daughter," thanks, it's beautiful.
Take that madman fit for an asylum Daniel Johnston, and make him feel like crap (if he can't manage it himself): tell him – I dunno – that if this is "low fidelity" then what are the blues recordings of cotton growing from the '30s, merely "fidelity"? If by chance he offers you a song, you reply: half of "Fear yourself," thanks, they're beautiful.
Then take that conceited dandy Stephen Malkmus, and make him depressed; tell him – I dunno – that you fell in love with the "Preston school of industry" and that in fact, the Pig Libs are a bunch of wimps (well, in fact, they really are). If he offers you a song, you reply: "Major leagues," thanks, it's beautiful.
There we go, we've created the monster: David Freel.

The first time I stumbled upon Freel, it was because he made me laugh. When someone makes me laugh the first time, I become their ruination: I cling to them like a limpet to a rock.
Needless to say, that was the first and last time Freel made me laugh.
The album in question was "For all the beautiful people" (what an idiotic title, I thought), the graphics, however, were the gaudiest I had ever seen, all in just three pages. On the cover, a horrid fluorescent white writing on a black background, gothic style; on the back, instead, an old man with a shitty Johnny Cash face unceremoniously tells me to get fucked (maximum respect for uncle Johnny, he knows what I mean, but that face is it). On the last page, finally, under the umpteenth damn sunset already seen on other billions of occasions (they are all the same, these sunsets) there was a writing translatable more or less like this: "I don't give a damn about copyright laws and blah blah blah, the truth is this: you copy this disc and sooner or later I'll catch you." Needless to say, it was love at first sight. When I meet someone so idiotically irresistible, I become their ruination: I cling to them like a damn sunset on a postcard.

The music, now. Immersed in a depressive and ruinous atmosphere, crooked songs with titles like "I hate Christmas," "Pink Rain," and "Black Milk," "Tonight" and "Today" (and that's all there is, De Filippo would conclude). Night moods and whining guitars brushing the dark shores of the Black Heart Procession. Circular and oppressive basses (the initial "Today"), seemingly light refrains but supported by ingenious interweavings of wobbly drums and detached singing ("Make up your mind"). Something recalls the most oblique Low ("Oh, my my"), where instead, the guitar becomes dirtier and drier, Go-betweens memories come alive ("Off in my head," "Swill 9"). "Everything is good," with its jagged melody, recalls something of the early Dylan; "Tonight" the restlessness of a Bill Callahan on acid.

If ever an album should receive the label of lo-fi (apart from the cotton field recordings of the '30s), it would definitely be an "Swell" album, and it doesn't matter if it's the best of the lot, "41," or "For all the beautiful people," or any other work in an ever-growing discography (now counting 7). The "Swell" are simply the most chaotic, ingenious, and quirky one-man band of recent years.
And I don't care if that old man with the shitty face on the back was prejudiced against me from the start: every time I play that CD, I like it more and more. And maybe he's even right: sometimes it's really nice to go get screwed with the "Swell" in your ears.