Love Lives Forever (BBC Sessions 2003-2011)

D.I.Y.アーティストの代名詞とも言えるダニエル・ジョンストン。テキサス州オースティンでマクドナルドのアルバイトをしながらカセットテープを販売し、キャリアをスタートさせたレジェンドのBBCラジオ・セッション音源集がCD / LPリリース!

2003年から2011年の約8年間に行われたセッションからの音源を収録。長年ブートレグが流通していたものの今回、エグゼクティブ・プロデューサーにROB DA BANK、MARC RILEY を迎え、BBCからライセンスを取得。ダニエルの遺族、マネジメント、慈善団体からの承認、そしてビートルズのファンだったダニエルも喜ぶであろうロンドン・アビーロード・スタジオでフランク・アークロフトによって丁寧にマスタリング & カッティングが施され満を持してのリリースとなります。

Daniel Johnston’s songs transcended any setting. His early home-recorded cassette albums were extremely low fidelity, but even their hissy production couldn’t obscure the cleverness, naive joy, and heartbreaking beauty of the songwriting. Later in his career, albums made in proper studios and live shows performed with proficient backing bands brought Johnston’s idiosyncrasies closer to the surface of his music. Love Lives Forever highlights this wonderful element of his artistry, gathering live tracks from five separate live sessions made with the BBC between 2003 and 2011. Each session has a different configuration and direction: some solo, some with accompanists, some performed in front of an audience in live broadcasts, and some clearly tracked in a studio setting. Regardless of these variables, despite Johnston’s creaky singing voice being miles away from that of the traditional rock star, and however far from their album versions these BBC renditions stray, the main takeaway from Love Lives Forever is how Johnston’s songs exist in a gentle universe of their own that isn’t affected by such earthly concerns. More than half of this collection is taken from a 2008 session for BBC DJ Rob da Bank’s show and finds Johnston joined by Jad Fair, Scout Niblett, Kristian Goddard, Yo La Tengo’s James McNew on bass, and Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse on keys. This band is ramshackle but wonderfully complementary to the songs, giving some energetic bounce and guitar crunch to “Mountain Top,” adding subtle instrumental flare to nervous chord organ songs like “Walking the Cow” or “Casper the Friendly Ghost,” and letting Niblett shine while singing sweet harmonies on tunes like “Hey Joe.” Johnston asks his band “Wanna try to put some music to it?” before launching into his sometimes-a cappella song “Devil Town,” suggesting the entire affair is loose and minimally practiced. More stripped-down acoustic songs from a 2009 session capture Johnston’s sadder side, with this version of “Life in Vain” feeling particularly emotionally raw. A 2011 take on “Speeding Motorcycle” (one of several songs that appears more than once on Love Lives Forever) gets the full rock & roll treatment, with a prominent organ, drums, clanging tambourines, and even horn lines making the song blast off. The collection ends with four tracks from a 2003 session, songs that find Johnston alone with the piano or an acoustic guitar. Hearing this solitary approach on “True Love Will Find You in the End” wraps up Love Lives Forever perfectly. This particular song appears three times on the album, each with a slightly different presentation, but the heartache, curiosity, and hope intrinsic to Johnston’s songwriting have more of a presence than any other factor on each of the various reframings of the work. This is true throughout the sessions collected on Love Lives Forever, and this beautiful constant is what makes this feel more special than the average rarities compilation and more intimate than the run-of-the-mill live album. ~ Fred Thomas