The eternal Philadelphia slacker returns with a very beautiful, soothing album, where dreamy indie-folk and introspective loops contemplate the passing of time.
The title is misleading. No, 99th Song is not Kurt Vile’s 99th song, whose rich solo discography, officially launched in 2008 and continually expanding, allows him to confidently claim a lineage over more than 150 tracks (and that’s not even counting the young man’s early rough demos that must rest on a host of tapes and other hard drives).
Seventh track on Philadelphia’s Been Good To Me — and the longest title on the record — 99th Song actually refers to the final moments available on a looper, that effects pedal which allows any musician to endlessly record sound loops. Bad luck for the American, as its capacity runs out here, due to a limited storage drive and, more importantly, an end-of-life moment. “This is the 99th song on my red looper. The last track that’s possible before the software explodes. The mainframe of my memory, from my brain, but also my pedal,” he sings before adding, “It appears to be my last move.”
All it takes is a few words for that tiny electronic device to take on an existential turn. It is the poetry of the ordinary, the metaphysics dear to Kurt Vile, taking shape as the chord loops cascade and the guitars stubbornly insist on playing until the end finally rings out.
Ville Sum
The tenth full-length by the self-styled “hitmaker,” Philadelphia’s Been Good To Me, is clearly recorded as if it were the author’s last record. Dreamy and introspective, melancholic yet soothing, it strings together epic-long songs where the slackers’ nonchalance has become mischievous wisdom. It brings together the family cocoon and those precious late-night home-studio sessions (Holiday OKV), memories more or less intact (the smoky-blues of 99 BPM) and other rock’n’roll nights from the good old days (the Stones-like Chance to Bleed). And all around it, Philadelphia.
Its streets, its places and its river, whose name is “always so hard to spell,” “polluted like never.” Its souls that have never left him, those who have departed, and even the Boss and the Loner, these two heroes “who don’t come from around here” yet drew inspiration from him as well (You Don’t Know Coz It’s My Life and its nod to the Philadelphia film soundtrack, composed by Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young in 1993).
For Kurt Vile, if Philadelphia’s Been Good To Me is to be his last, then he might as well make sure that each of its songs sounds as if it would never come to an end. If not, another looper might be necessary.
Philadelphia’s Been Good To Me (Verve/Universal). Released May 29. Live shows at La Route du Rock, Saint-Malo, on August 15 and at Rock en Seine, Saint-Cloud, on the 28th.
