Pitchfork

When confronted with Karl Blau's large and often excellent catalog, the inevitable question is: Why isn't this guy at least as well known as his musical cohorts Phil Elverum and Laura Veirs? It's easy to get on one's soapbox and suppose that people want mediocrity. I mean, how else are we to explain the success of a musical Steve Guttenberg such as M. Ward? One can argue that when it comes to music, the public tends to applaud a certain kind of consistency, with records that sound familiar. But that's of course a false dichotomy. And while none of us would easily deny fame and influence, some artists simply choose the roads less traveled (if I may be allowed to make a high school poetry reference rather than a grad school one).

Blau-- who's one-third of supertrio D+ (alongside Bret Lunsford from Beat Happening and the aforementioned Elverum) and who's worked with Mirah, Wolf Colonel, Nate Ashley, the Microphones, and Little Wings-- certainly seems more interested in winding backroads than interstates. The Anacortes, Wash.-based singer-songwriter is kind of like Kevin Ayers with a work ethic. A strong advocate for all-ages venues, his own monthly record service (Kelp!) sends CD-Rs and LPs directly to fans. He may re-record a Microphones album or collect field recordings. His entire shtick might be precious and trite if the work weren't also so straightforward and excellent.

Blau's delightful new record is called AM. Actually, it's not that new. Having originally released it in a more stripped-down form as a CD-R via his monthly record service Kelp! in late 2006, Blau started on this album after he finished work on 2006's Beneath Waves. "As B.W. was a live with band album for the most part, I took some time to record by my lonesome," Blau explains via email. The album meanders from anxious and droney tunes such as the hurdy gurdy (or is that melodica?)-plus-guitar feedback opening number "Morning Prayer" to laid-back folksy groovers like the drawling last track, "In the Morning". The latter song has all of the charm of the least angsty and full-throated songs by Kurt Cobain. Speaking of the 1990s, "Yellow Sunbonnet" sounds like the drunken demo version of some forgotten grunge hit, while the playful xylophone on "Growing Up" sounds like Skip Spence doing a pop-punk tune backed by second graders.

I'm not sure if it qualifies as a concept album, but three of the songs on AM have the word "morning" in the title. And then two tunes have the word "bird" in the title, which is apparently something one hears if one is to awaken early, the sound of birds. I personally am a late riser, but I love the idea of the morning. So does Blau, who writes that "AM was written and recorded in the wee hours of the day to reflect beginnings: spring, childhood, morning." And AM has multiple meanings, too: "I adopted and adapted several poems-- one paragraph actually from a Winnie the Pooh story-- by A.A. Milne. I was reading his work to my daughter at the time of recording this; it hit me that this was very much in the vein of what I was doing with the music."

Again, this enterprise would be so fucking twee if almost anyone else did it. I hasten to add that it's entirely possible to listen to this without being aware of the song's origins. It's not like there's a cover of Loggins and Messina's "House at Pooh Corner" or anything. And musically, it owes no debts to either Belle or Sebastian. Instead, it's a messy experimental folk-pop album of songs recorded in the bedroom before the artist was fully awake. It's awesome.