Pitchfork

My Morning Jacket's Jim James sings those words on "Golden", the effervescent centerpiece of last year's excellent It Still Moves. It's hard to think of a more poignant evocation of the mix of nerves and adrenaline that precede a live performance. But when he sings it over a spare arrangement of two acoustic guitars on the new live EP Acoustic Citsuoca, there's no hint of nervousness or hesitation-- he just goes for it. James is one of those people who's been blessed with a voice that you could never mistake for another-- it's a clean, piercing tenor that reveals vulnerability when needed, but mostly just soars. James doesn't even need to be saying anything to shiver spines, and when he lets his falsetto rip on a wordless passage of "mmm's" and "aaah's" at the end of this version of "Golden", it's one of the absolute highlights of a pretty strong set.

Perhaps what makes the passion behind the playing and singing on this EP most remarkable, though, is the fact that it was recorded at a very casual Halloween gathering in the most excellently named town in Massachusetts, Braintree. There's a laidback, unrehearsed feel to most of it, particularly the three stripped-down solo tracks. Around the two-minute mark in a run through At Dawn's unrelentingly gorgeous "Bermuda Highway", James slips for a second on his acoustic and utters a barely audible little "oop!", and soon after that, almost bursts out laughing as he sings the verse twice by mistake. Yet, these mistakes lend the music a sense of jovial intimacy, especially when set against the powerful directness of their content.

To hear these songs presented on record without the pools of reverb that My Morning Jacket's albums tend to float in is intriguing; they hold up very nicely. The two fully arranged tracks that open the set are especially revealing. "The Bear", from the band's debut, kicks off with the classic "Be My Baby" drumbeat, but with just the natural reverb of the Startime Pavilion, it sounds very different. The effect is interesting, the band shuffling along with an easy groove while James climbs up into the ionosphere with his vocal booster rockets. The version of "Sooner", originally from the Chocolate & Ice EP, actually bests the original in some respects, particularly in the late verses when the guitars are replaced with an ominously beeping keyboard (featured in the original, but buried under a lot of other stuff) nicely befitting the Halloween milieu in which the song was performed.

It's not really going out on a limb to say that this is required listening for any established My Morning Jacket fan, even if newcomers would do better to start with one of their three full-lengths (take your pick; they're all fantastic). It's a well-captured and spirited performance-- "a most enchanting night," as Berman puts it-- and a fine between-albums teaser for fans can't get quite enough of My Morning Jacket's unique brand of sonic seduction.