Jelly Road by Blake Mills, an inspired record I chanced upon skimming through new album releases from last Friday. Mills is an immediately extraordinary journeyman and team player who has played his part as a musician and co-producer on records by Dylan, Alabama Shakes, Fiona Apple, Perfume Genius, Lana Del Rey, Laura Marling, Cass McCombs and numerous other remarkable artists in recent years.
That's some CV, and a cursory listen to Jelly Road tells you exactly why these people want to work with him. Because they know he will enhance and elevate their music. It's a record apart. Immediately its own thing while reminding me of the way the likes that Eno. John Cale, Arthur Russell, Randy Newman, Dylan himself, The Band, Prince or Tom Waits work. With an artists eye, a musician's touch and a digressive approach that's full of wonder and open to influence.
Mills is a texturalist, ,a Grammy winner, who knows roots music intimately, testified to by how many great artists seek him out. With a silky, layered voice that reminded me for some reason of Scritti's Green, this is music that's operating at a very enlightened level, uses high level production values, but in a good not exclusive or elitist way It's the kind of thing that often leaves me cold if it inclines towards the clinica,l but instead left me with a very warm glow indeed. Simply because it's so clearly an expression of the human heart first and foremost.
'Experimental yet accessible' as the Mojo review puts it, this isn't exactly an immediately coherent statement.. It casts its net too wide. But it is consistently excellent. In many ways it's a masterclass to set yourself adrift in. A special record.
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