I Have Nothing To Say To The Mayor Of L.A.＜限定盤＞

ギャラクシー500 / LUNAのディーン・ウェアハムが2014年以来となる7年ぶり新作をリリース!!

GALAXIE 500、LUNAの中心人物DEAN WAREHAMが2014年作『DEAN WAREHAM』以来、7年ぶりとなるニューアルバムをリリース。2020年11月にサンフランシスコの北にあるスティンソン・ビーチのスタジオでレコーディングされた作品。SCOTT WALKER"DUCHESS"カヴァーや、オブスキュア・60'Sガレージ・バンドLASY SMOKE"UNDER SKYS"カヴァーを収録した全11曲。プロデュースはJASON QUEVER(BEACH HOUSE, CASS MCCOMBS)によるもの。

After a seven-year songwriting drought punctuated by soundtrack work and a Luna reunion, Dean Wareham decided to get back to penning more archly witty, offhandedly trenchant tunes. Booking studio time in advance so hed have a deadline, he came up with enough good ones to team with Papercuts Jason Quever and longtime musical foil Britta Phillips to lay them down on tape. I Have Nothing to Say to the Mayor of L.A. is the resulting album, and its prime Wareham from top to bottom. The songs, sound, and performances all come together with the lyrical simplicity of Luna, the echoing melancholy of Galaxie 500, and the cinematic sweep of Dean & Britta to form something familiar, yet still vibrant. Quevers production is a welcome change from the glossy sheen of Warehams previous solo album; instead, there is an uncluttered, organic feel to the music that suits it well. Wareham is in fine voice, having given away none of the tremulous wonder he has always transmitted, now with a little more aged wisdom around the edges. The instrumentation is subtle, with the occasional cheapo drum machine or woody organ bubbling around the edges and Warehams guitar wrangling occasionally taking center stage. These factors provide a perfect landing spot for the songs. Not only has Wareham not lost his knack for a sneaky melody and a bookishly funny couplet, nearly every song has a hook thats hard to detangle or a line that brings a knowing chuckle. Robin & Richard definitely has both of those; The Past Is Our Plaything does too. The latter also quietly slips in some deeply emotional lyrical content, one of Warehams favorite tricks. Other songs pull off the same balancing act, delivering exactly what fans of his work would want. A few tunes take little side trips from the established Wareham template. The Suicide-influenced Red Hollywood and The Last Word are character sketches of real people, blacklisted actor John Garfield and Karl Marxs daughter Eleanor, respectively, and Why Are We in Vietnam? tackles politics in a suitably opaque manner. Along with all the originals, Wareham and his band of collaborators recorded two covers -- the lost psychedelic classic Under Skys by Lazy Smoke and Duchess by Scott Walker -- and they each fit perfectly with the rest of the album, perched somewhere between the direct approach of Luna and the opaqueness of Galaxie 500. The entire album sits comfortably in that spot, much more so than Warehams first solo album. This is where he should be and where he sounds best. Hes had a long career, dotted with highlights that rank among the best music of his contemporaries. I Have Nothing to Say to the Mayor of L.A. is another one. ~ Tim Sendra