A Letter Home

ロック・シーンにおける孤高のレジェンド、ニール・ヤング。今なお精力的に活動を続ける彼から、ライヴ・アーカイヴ・シリーズ最新作となった『ライヴ・アット・セラー・ドア』発売から約5ヶ月というタイミングで早くも新作音源を発表する! 今回の作品は、ホワイト・ストライプスの、という言葉はもう必要ないくらいの存在感を放ち、現代の「天才」と称されるジャック・ホワイトとの共同作品だ。ナッシュヴィルにあるジャック・ホワイトが所有するThird Man Studioにある、Voice-O-Graph(ヴォイソグラフ、小さなレコーディング・ブースから直接レコード盤のカッティングを行うという年代物のスタジオ)でレコーディングされた今作は、その昔ながらのぬくもりに満ちたサウンドと共に、ニール・ヤングという鬼才が愛した数々の楽曲たちをカヴァーした作品だ。彼がカヴァーしたのは、ボブ・ディランやブルース・スプリングスティーン、ウィリー・ネルソンやバート・ヤンシュ、といった名曲達ばかり。ジャック・ホワイトも、プロデュースだけではなく、実際に2曲でその歌声も披露している。世代を超えた天才たちによる、自らのルーツに最大限の敬意を表して制作された、とてつもなくハートウォーミングな作品が完成したのだ…!

During the 2014 promo campaign for Pono, his high-end digital audio device, Neil Young called his forthcoming album A Letter Home "an art project," which is an appropriate term for this curious collection of covers from his contemporaries. It's not so much that the choice of songs is unusual -- nearly all of them are from the '60s and '70s, years when Young was also active, but a handful ("Crazy," "Since I Met You Baby," "I Wonder If I Care as Much") date from the late '50s or early '60s -- but the recording method. Young headed down to Jack White's Third Man Records in Nashville where Jack installed a refurbished Voice-O-Graph booth, a device designed to allow a user to "Make Your Own Record" by cutting a song or message directly to vinyl. These contraptions were designed in 1947 and were once a common sight in arcades and fairs but they died away in the '70s, turning into an artifact of a weird old Americana beloved by both Young and White. Neil decided to use the Voice-O-Graph to record a full album, an experiment that's strictly about the method of recording, not the music itself. By design, the Voice-O-Graph allows for no overdubs -- it captures everything that happens in the booth and nothing more -- so the performances are intimate and sometimes rushed, qualities that are alternately enhanced and undercut by the thin, crackly recording. This aural affectation can be affecting -- in particular, his readings of Gordon Lightfoot's "Early Morning Rain" and "If You Can Read My Mind" are quite sweet, as is Bob Dylan's "Girl from the North Country," while there's a genuine pang of pathos lying in Bert Jansch's "Needle of Death" -- but the trebly, wavy audio can also seem cacophonous, whether it's capturing Neil alone (Bruce Springsteen's "My Hometown") or in tandem with White (a version of Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again" that always seems just on the verge of falling apart, which could be perceived as a compliment depending on your view). Usually, the flaws of A Letter Home can be pegged on the archaic recording technology -- only a couple of performances feel shambolic -- but Young is also having fun with what the Voice-O-Graph meant, opening the album with a wry, winding spoken letter to his departed mother and then addressing another missive to her later on the record. These words are simultaneously sentimental and impish, a wink to the audience that Young is in on the joke but also doesn't quite consider A Letter Home a joke. Sure, there's artifice and humor here, but there's also heart, and this blend of emotions is what makes A Letter Home one of Neil Young's quintessential, endearingly odd records. [A CD version added two bonus tracks, "My Hometown" and "I Wonder if I Care as Much."] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine|

ジャック・ホワイト所有のヴォイス・オ・グラフ(電話ボックス大のレコーディング・ブース)を用いて録音されたカヴァー集だ。アコギとハーモニカを持って密室に入り、ボブ・ディランやブルース・スプリングスティーンらの曲をシンプルに弾き語っていく御大。全編貧弱極まりない音質だが、くすんだ音色に浮かぶ何とも言えない愁いが胸を打つ。聴くたびにさまざまなイメージが重なっていき、味を増していく不思議な一枚。
bounce (C)桑原吏朗