FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1997. All Rights Reserved.
JIM WHITE
The Mysterious Tale of How I Shouted Wrong-Eyed Jesus
Luaka Bop / Warner· In Robyn Hitchcock-style, CD inlay includes a 15-page true story.
· David Byrne is listed as an executive producer and guest musicians include Joe Henry and Victoria Williams.
The Mysterious Tale of How I Shouted Wrong-Eyed Jesus is a 15-page "true" short story that accompanies the CD which shares its name. Substituting dope for moonshine, White reads like a modern day Flannery O'Conner with his tale of backwoods rapists and divine intervention. The unusual title is explained when White writes that: "Even portraits by so-called famous artists now seem to me to be completely wrong-eyed and I begin to wonder what sort of human effort could possibly truly represent those objects in Jesus' head which view the world in accepting silence as some are saved and sent off to heaven while others are swept away to the supposed infernal fires of hell."
While it would be too much of a stretch to compare White's music to the allusive mystery of Christ's eyes, there's certainly enough of a haunting quality present to qualify it as other-worldly. The CD echoes the story with songs laced in Southern Gothic overtones (titles like "Book of Angels," "Angel-Land" and "When Jesus Gets a Brand New Name" clearly indicate the tone of the album). However, just like those holy peepers, the ethereal whisper of the music makes it pretty hard to describe, but try to imagine Tom Waits' Bone Machine cranked down and filtered through the hush of Palace Songs.
It's a safe bet that this CD will never get any attention from country radio (or any radio, for that matter) even though White has more in common with the tortured souls of Hank and Patsy than any of the big-haired beefcakes currently in favor. Weird, dark, surreal and beautiful - this is the kind of music that the kid from Deliverance probably smoked weed to in his basement at night.
4 / 5
Zoltan Varadi
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