830 Tom Waits - Mule Variations (1999)

Studio Album - Experimental Blues

About the Act:

Tom Waits is an American Blues/Jazz/Experimental singer/songwriter/musician. 

He started out as Jazz and morphed into more blues/folk with some decided "experimental" elements. He has created a kind of hobo/beat poet persona. He has been incredibly successful worldwide. He has also worked as an actor. Since his first album in 1973, he has had 16 more.

About the Album:

This was Tom's thirteenth studio album. 

My History with this Album:

None

Review:

So I've been looking forward to getting into some Tom Waits in these albums. I have probably heard Tom Waits tracks before, but mostly I know of him from reputation. This is quite an odd album in many ways. A lot of the stuff written about it seem to be firmly rooted in the context of his previous few albums, but I haven't heard those, so my thoughts are in isolation.

Let's start with the voice. Tom has a bass, gravelly voice. It reminds me of Mark Knopfler at times, and that's at the smooth end of Tom's spectrum. He gets more and more gravelly from there, possibly the most gravelly voice I know of. At times he sounds utterly broken and destitute. He can actually sing quite well.

Musically, this is a mixture of Americana stuff, from almost Country, through Blues and into what might be best described as old-timey American folk - the sort of thing that was in the film O Brother Where Art Thou. Musically it's mostly pretty simple, but evocative stuff. There is a lot of slow song-ness and not a huge amount of percussion, sometimes just a shaker, for example, or a brushed snare. In keeping with the style, a lot of this sounds quite lo-fi, especially the voice might sound like its recorded with a broken microphone, or in a very old studio. There's quite a bit of warm distortion, again on voice, harmonica and guitars. Instruments, blues guitars, some of which might be like cigar-box guitars, there's banjos, harmonica and all of that sort of thing. Occasional violin and brass thrown in. And noises. Sometimes there are industrial-type percussive noises. And sometimes the recordings sound like they are made in living rooms rather than studios.

The whole thing is designed to sound much older than it actually is, but this is all designed for effect, and it's good effect. Yes, there is some "programming" on some tracks, but you would never confuse this with electronica.  The end effect is warm, gritty, earthy, like a hobo gumbo on a railroad siding. Musically, the style is one I love, infectious and bluesy. It's is deceptive, doing slow music this well is actually quite hard. Lyrically, well, again there is definitely a large influence of blues, and country, but with a certain edginess at times, like "Chocolate Jesus" and "Come On Up To The House". 

And then in the middle there is "What is he building?" - a curious track with a spoken monologue and a backing of Avant Garde sound effects.

I loved it. It's unusual, accomplished and evocative.

8.5/10

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/7cAcex6xw4fP67ltgn1gm3

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSthFO1xMVh8eOSnrjpwKaVRHaQM-gwmi

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule_Variations