J.P. McGill
“Against the Sea”
J.P. McGill
(Pipeline
Music)
J-P McGill is a singer-songwriter from the
NYC area who makes music for himself.
McGill says his songwriting and performing
"are uncontaminated" and his music often falls outside established
genres, leading reviewers to describe his work as "outsider music",
suitable for example as background for a Charles Bukowski rant. McGill's gravelly voice overlays eclectic
styles, drawing from industrial rock, Afro-Cuban, sea shanties, Latin, and
roadhouse blues, unconventionally using instruments such as 17 note kalimba,
resophonic guitar, shamisen, and djembe.
McGill came of age on Chicago's north side, a haven for
blues and folk music. At one point,
McGill split his time between the American Conservatory of Music and the No
Exit Café near Loyola University. At the No Exit, McGill befriended the blues
guitarist Blind Jim Brewer, spending time at Jim's south side home to learn the
difference between music and musician.
Since, McGill's music has been shaped by travels ranging from ceilidhs
in Cape Breton to rebetiko while living in Greece.
REVIEW
BY BUZZ MCCLAIN
This
way madness lies.
On the roiling surface of this
infinitely amusing 15-tune collection is a disjointed, chaotic and possibly
intentionally off-putting brand of harshly recorded ballads that nearly qualifies
as “outsider” music. Think Oregon’s Tom Heinl but without the
subversive humor (although the final cut, “The Baby Tree,” is pretty funny).
Is it a joke? Is it a test? At first
blush it feels like both.
But under the surface is an astonishing
set of imaginatively arranged songs that use the metaphor of the sea as an
obstacle to life’s goals, but with never the same imagery twice, and with
hardly any choruses, at least in the traditional manner. And never with the
same instrumentation – or the same instruments – performed in the same way.
And there’s that voice. Flat to
rising to sing-song; gravelly to gravellier. Certainly at some point in his
music career, someone somewhere told singer-songwriter J-P McGill that he was,
um, not very, er, commercial. Obviously he ignored the comments because the New York transplant-by-way-of-Chicago
has honed his gifts – he plays everything from piano to kalimba to shamisen to
resonator guitar – and produced this product of his passion.
Let’s get the Tom Waits comparison out of
the way; clearly influenced by the remarkable Waits, McGill includes two Waits
covers back to back, “Shiver Me Timbers” and “Fish and Bird,” two cuts that
happen to support the aquatic theme. The odd thing is, in a disc full of odd
things, he makes the uncoverable sound like his own.
There are some great images here.
“Keep you sleeve out the winch if the longline goes slack, take it from me an
arm never grows back,” from “Fathers in Gloucester.” “When you sink down down
down the drink, ‘till you don’t wanna move and you just can’t think,” from “One
Note Float” works because it’s encased in a double-beat of kalimba (by guest
Joe Lowe) and reverby guitar.
“Ken and Catherine,” the one cut with
a traditional blues structure, not to mention a very credible twangy slide
guitar, seems out of place, but upon further review, since every other rule is
broken why not the exception that proves it?
The highlight, though, is “Psycho Sub
Samba,” an organized chaos of a foot-tapper about a submarine captain who loses
it and, if we have it right, launches a nuclear missile.
Can you put “Against the Sea” on the
CD changer during a party of Chardonnay sipping urbanites discussing the
interiors of their new hybrids? No. Nor can you put it on during a beer blast
with a bunch of lumberjacks, or during happy hour at any place (unless Charles
Bukowski is holding court).
In other words, you can’t play J-P
McGill for ANYBODY unless you draw attention to the music beforehand, because
this is the kind of music that needs a little anticipation and foreknowledge –
you don’t want to surprise anybody with a cut like “Moby Told Me” when they
might be expecting something less abrasive and disturbing. But be prepared for
either a quick exit by your companion or losing them in conversation as they
devote the next hour absorbing the briny froth of McGill’s water borne musings.