Pitchfork

Over the last decade, Warn Defever has recruited an ever-changing assembly line of musicians to flesh out his mad, perverse fantasies under the His Name Is Alive moniker. All of his albums before 1996's Stars on ESP are out-of-print in the U.S., so it's hard to trace Defever (once Warren) back to his lo-fi goth-folk-ethnic-guitar-pop roots without paying over $20 for an import. What is available, therefore, is His Name Is Alive's evolutionary pattern over the past five years.

Stars on E.S.P. was a dreamy, occasionally psychedelic pop record, toying with everything from stripped acoustic folk-pop to a complete structural replication of "Good Vibrations"-- with a different melody and different lyrics altogether. It was also the last album to extensively feature the charmingly girlish Karin Oliver on lead vocals. 1998's Ft. Lake then subtly throttled fans with a full-on gutsy rock attack, although admittedly, it's nothing as fully straightforward as that; the entire record is peppered with synthesized oddities, not to mention a couple of trip-hop tracks to mix it up. Although Oliver made a few appearances on the record, soul vocalist Lovetta Pippen generally took the melodic reins. Then in '99, Defever had the gall to go off and release a solo record entitled I Want You to Live One Hundred Years, taking lo-fi to a new level by recording most of the old-timey yet original folk material to Edison wax cylinder.

On the latest outing, Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth, His Name Is Alive consists solely of Warn Defever and Lovetta Pippen. How do we know? Well, it's simple really; they're the only two people who have photos on resident 4AD graphic artist Vaughan Oliver's gorgeously fitting artwork, not to mention a terribly cheesy pun to cement the notion: "LOVE & WAR." The record opens with Pippen's characteristic croon, but if you weren't told this were His Name Is Alive, it would take a while to guess that this music spilled from Defever's warped mind. Three quarters of Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth consist of a time warp back to the mid-90s, when slow-jam R&B was innocent and carefree, while the rest is a mix between sparse ballads and a couple hints at traditional blues.

Go back and read that again. No, wait, you don't have to. I'll just write it again: Carefree, mid-90s slow-jam R&B... for which Warn Defever is responsible. Madness! Granted, it's not that much of a surprise that he's off doing something completely different. What is a surprise is that three years after a record of rootsy pop/rock, and only two years after a country-folk throwback, he's decided to take on Pippen for a collaboration and dive into a project of this particular genre. The curious thing is that they often succeed.

It's quite a shame, then, that not every track is up to par. Ironically enough, a song called "Nothing Special" opens the collection by squandering the album's best material in its first four minutes. Defever's sparse acoustic arrangements and drum machine beats, characteristic of most of the album's remainder, work best around a gorgeous melody such as this one. Pippen's subdued, harmonized laments in the priceless chorus come off as earnestly touching: "I've been in the storm so long/ Nothing special anymore/ Angel sings from another world/ That's all I hear anymore."

The only other success of this caliber comes later with "One Year", the previous version of which can be found in wax-cylinder folk-style on Defever's solo album. Truly funky wah-guitar, clavinet and reversed acoustic strumming are used to the track's advantage, making for a joyously indulgent breakdown in the coda. The rest of the R&B excursions are pleasant enough, but as Pippen sang herself, nothing special. The melodies become a bit samey and, by the ending title track, appear somewhat hackneyed. The only other guilty pleasure of this dominant style is on the slightly over-long, slightly trip-hop "Write My Name in the Groove", in which Pippen sings, in a melody recalling Stars on E.S.P.'s more restrained moments, "If I'm quiet, I can hear your heart/ When I'm up on ya."

The two other notable moments on Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth are a true 12-bar blues homage, enigmatically titled "Karins Blues", and a decelerated, beatless, acoustic version of "Are We Still Married", originally penned for the 1992 HNIA record Home Is in Your Head. The latter is the most beautiful moment on the record, with gently plucked acoustic guitar weaving in and out of haunting piano chords and string accompaniment as Pippen lends true emotion to the record's best lyrics: "I'm kind of getting shot at/ I'm kind of getting hurt.../ This is your last life/ Take me where you want to go."

The ambition and daring that Warn Defever continually displays in his work, with His Name Is Alive and otherwise, is admirable. His willingness to plunge head-first into a foreign style shows his versatility and knowledge for creating authentic soundscapes of any kind, and his enthusiastic collaborative spirit is infectious as well. While I can't fully recommend Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth as an entirely successful release, I can fervently encourage a closer investigation into the rest of his brilliantly eccentric catalog, a look out for his upcoming work, and maybe even a second glance at this record just to see what he's up to now.