At Play In The Fields

Richard Buckner's Lyrical New Album Meadow Experiments With Storytelling Styles

originally published November 1, 2006

On Richard Buckner’s latest album, titled Meadow, a sparse world takes shape in imagistic clusters: “Coming up the stairs / lying in the smoke / waiting in the weeds / dropping on a dare / sometimes, you just know / the light through the leaves as you’re coming on,” he sings in “The Tether and the Tie.” For all their plain language and familiar word-pictures, the San Francisco singer’s newest songs describe a realm that is anything but realistic, and their inhabitants exhibit behavior that resists being read against that of real people: “Everyone’s talking as they’re falling / always thinking of rides to come,” for instance.

“The words just come, and then editing is where I love to spend my time,” Buckner explains. This process leads him to paying close attention to language and “letting phrases become characters or isolated moments, remembered for one reason or another that may lead to another phrase that turns a corner or provokes something else into happening.” Songs spring to life as words are divorced from context and savored as individual units. “Content is an after-effect, no matter what you think you’re trying,” Buckner asserts.

With over a century of modernist, postmodernist and consciously abstract art under its belt, western civ should be pretty comfortable with Buckner’s aesthetic precepts; ambitious English majors could glean multiple species of post-Nietzschean critical theory from them. Those who have followed Buckner’s career from Day One, however, might be surprised to hear him embrace abstraction.

When the singer-guitarist made his recording debut with Bloomed in 1994, he spun clear narratives full of characters with whom you could easily relate, garnering comparisons to alt-country progenitors like Bruce Hancock and Townes Van Zandt. And while Buckner attests that there is “no kinship” between his music and any particular genre, many listeners still count him among Americana’s insurgent faction. Reviewers still call him a “troubadour” and make requisite references to whiskey and lonely highways when discussing his work. Later albums like The Hill, a set of 15 poems from Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology set to music that Buckner released in 2000, have lent some credence to this depiction and placement in the folk setting. Even Meadow, whose songs feature bristling rock guitar and a meaty rhythm section, boasts some lyrical piano lines that wouldn’t sound out of place in an Emmylou Harris ballad.

But Buckner’s increasingly obtuse lyrics continuously distance him from the alt-country crowd. He also doesn’t share the genre’s interest in constructing authenticity and consciously eschewing the mainstream, speaking of his late ‘90s major label stint in balanced, realistic terms: “MCA was an education in human nature," he says, "the game of business and survival. I had a good contract that gave me a lot of freedom, but I still had to fight for everything as well. I was unrepresented by A&R and had no manager… There were perks and potholes. I kinda leave the whole experience with other things like divorce or change of lifestyle, where, later on, it seems weird that you went through it, but you’re glad you did.”

Throughout his career, Buckner has never actively sought out or shunned mainstream attention, citing the fact that “no one else was interested” as his grounds for inking a big label deal. Like other acts such as The Innocence Mission, American Music Club and Athens’ own Vigilantes of Love, who gained cultish followings among the adult-alternative set during tenures on majors, Buckner failed to produce a hit single or album. Devotion + Doubt and Since, his two releases for MCA, are still his definitive works, however, mixing aching acoustic tunes with yearning, twangy rock to bring the disparate elements of Buckner’s sound together successfully.

Buckner also developed some fruitful and lasting artistic relationships during the late ‘90s. For Devotion + Doubt, he hooked up with Joey Burns and John Convertino (both of Calexico, Giant Sand and Friends of Dean Martinez), both of whom he would continue to collaborate with in the future. JD Foster engineered both albums; with Meadow, he and Buckner work together once again. This decision was partially logistical - Buckner recently moved to Brooklyn, making him Foster’s neighbor - but more rooted in friendship.

“We spent a lot of the time we were working on the record just sitting around and talking,” Buckner recalls. He also feels that Foster’s skills complement his own: “JD has a technical mind that I don’t have for recording, effects and such.” Like playing with language, working with his friend allows Buckner to take his songs in unexpected directions. “I wanted to work with JD Foster because I wanted to take myself out of the picture as much as I could,” notes the songwriter.

So while Meadow bears only Buckner’s name on its spine, the record is a collaborative effort through and through. “The demos with basic melody ideas and words were done," says Buckner, "but I wanted my parts reinterpreted by other musicians, as well as their own ideas.” These other musicians include GBV alumni Doug Gillard and Kevin March and Mekons drummer Steven Goulding. Unsurprisingly, the record’s a rocker, rippling with muscle even during slower cuts like “Before.”

This taut long-player contrasts nicely with Impasse and Dents and Shells, Buckner’s two previous full-lengths. The Elliott Smith-esque arrangements that populate those albums are deft and compelling, but their general sonic is so similar to that of more generic indie-pop releases that Buckner’s uniqueness can be easily missed. In Meadow, rockers like “Canyon” use mounting tension to draw attention to their slippery structures, teasing us with hooks and strong melodies but denying us the pleasures of recognizable choruses or clear resolutions.

These musical curveballs might be the byproducts of Buckner’s early conception of Meadow. “The beginning idea for Meadow was going to be more [experimental], with intros, outros and in-betweens,” Buckner reveals, adding that he “also wanted JD Foster to have as much time and sound for what he wanted to do. After I got JD on the project, I was really trying to step back more, remembering that ideas can be used anytime, really. I still plan on using some of those sorts of ways, but it’s a slow process: gear, ideas and time.”

While a departure into more esoteric musical territory would likely jolt many of Buckner’s fans, it isn’t unthinkable: avant-garde artists like David Grubbs and Marc Ribot have appeared on previous albums, and Buckner says he enjoys the abrasive minimalism of Tony Conrad and Vibracathedral Orchestra. Perhaps the next batch of fragmented lyrics that this “troubadour” pins will even demand more abstract musical accompaniment. For now, though, he has an extensive catalogue of often misunderstood, universally underappreciated songs waiting to be unpacked. Truth be told, Buckner needn’t be any more challenging or thought-provoking than he already is.

Phillip Buchan

WHO: Richard Buckner, Kimberly Morgan

WHERE: 40 Watt Club

WHEN: Tuesday, November 7

HOW MUCH: $10