I figured that forthcoming H. Jon Benjamin Sub Pop
album was going to splice comedy and jazz together in such a way as to truly
redefine each genre, but I was missing the real action. Turns out that improv
trio One More Final I Need You’s We Loved
Each Other and It Was Awful is where the real laughs are. Well, if we’re
talking laughs like everybody’s so pathetic that it’s funny – think early Noah
Baumbach, maybe – then we’ve nailed the comedy part of this equation. As I
listen to Taylor Campbell, Bob Bucko Jr., and Landon Deaton mope through the
title track that opens the album for almost ten minutes, I’m struck at a deep
level just how appropriate the words “love” and “awful” go together, and how
much that makes me laugh. Am I a sadistic bastard? Have I, a family man, lost
touch with reality?
“Does Anyone Actually Ever Kill Themselves?” answers
that question with another question, or maybe it doesn’t really answer it, only
lurches through demonic swing while illustrating the highs and lows of whatever
it is that’s actually being illustrated. This is where it goes – We Loved Each Other and It Was Awful is
sweetness turned sickening, of rotting feelings and intentions wilting before
our eyes and sometimes flung at us at high velocity. But Campbell, Bucko, and
Deaton are game, ready to rip our festering hearts out and pepper them with
shrapnel from horns and guitars and drums and whatnot. (Basically those three.)
We feel good while we feel bad, and vice versa.
That’s a good trick for the music to play! Mostly I feel
good though, and as I’ve mentioned with my chuckling above, it’s because of the
naming conventions. How else are you going to approach “Erectional-Based
Disasters” or “To Hell with Their Punishments!”? (To be fair, the second half
of the titles aren’t quite as funny, and one is even uninventively called “Interlude.”)
Plus, I’m not sure something like “Eggs in an Old Box” is even possible, unless
they’re fresh eggs served, for some reason, in the titular box – otherwise they’d
stink pretty bad over time. Whatever, I’m overthinking this. One More Final I
Need You is always rapturously fascinating, and We Loved Each Other and It Was Awful is no exception. It’s probably
even more rapturously fascinating
given that title. Nice work, gents!
https://alreadydeadtapes.bandcamp.com/
Posts
