In the last decade, in his melodic side-career back from humor, Tim Heidecker has compiled a dark collection of soft-rock music about death and sadness, democratic hellscapes and daily nihilism. And nevertheless, one of the most heartfelt songs on his latest album, High School, it’s a Neil Young movie extra, Young’s 1993 Unplugged production of “Harvest Moon.” The story goes as follows: Heidecker is an adolescent in Allentown, Pennsylvania, watching MTV at a weekend dinner. Captivated by Young’s production, he understands the music on instruments and it for his family. They say he sounds great, but again, that’s what they say about it. He goes outside and buys the album and begins to feel frustrated with the more sophisticated film remake. Finally, he understands to understand that edition, very, and contains it on a combination CD for a stomp, who dissolves with him not long after.
As an introspective lyricist goes, this wasn’t the most compelling source. And as Heidecker sings it — one monotonous information at a period, with very little romantic accessory — he would seem to boost how normal the whole thing is. But there is something deep and real about Heidecker’s travel through the history of High School, a home-produced idea album about his teen years. Co-produced with Drew Robertson’s backing band, Eric D. Jones of Fruit Bats, and Mac DeMarco, the song moves with the representative shine of 1980s singer-songwriter remarks like Bruce Springsteen’s Tunnel of Love and Randy Newman’s Trouble in Paradise. With a vibrant, lived-in noise and several of Heidecker’s nicest or most compassionate compositions, music feels like a cycle towards another deeper truth about how we end up as the individuals we are. Accepted, for instance, the central character in “Buddy” a local druggy whose secession into a cautionary tale occurs sure delicately that it’s hard to pinpoint clearly when it takes place. It’s an epitaph produced like a big fire singing, as Heidecker’s viewpoint transforms from a character study into a present of self-interrogation: “Do you think I let you down? We lost touch the minute I moved out of town” he sings, unfortunately. Numerous of the songs have similar jumps, not ever giving a sense of precision or a courage to their storylines. Rather like a fisherman’s jelly dreary), Heidecker focuses on the reasons why such open-ended memories tend to stick with all of us, how do we reconsider them decades later?, we’ll turn them over and repeat our moves.
As with all Heidecker can, From his spot-on skit of Joe Rogan to his multi-part celebrity courthouse fake The Trial, he has a calmness which enables him to handle big issues even without appearing snarky or self-conscious. He prefers communicative communication and interactive rhythms matched with refreshing and positive rhythms, major-key tunes that covers how strong his lyricism is. Yet while he’s telling special moments, his actors can seem like themes, whereas his extra zoomed-out reflections ( “I’m thinkin ‘every day/Hopin’ I could remain the above kids”) gain real-life resonance from repetition: You may start singing before You recognize the darker message below the surface.
After collaborating with Weyes Blood on 2020’s ambitious Fear of Death, Heidecker tightens his scope with a smaller group of collaborators: Jonathan Rado adds some comments “Night moving” style piano dramas “Stupid Kid” Kurt Vile offers his distinctive electric guitar and speak-sing throughout “Sirens of Titan” a groovy highlight that could have been a novelty hit in the late 1980s. Otherwise, The record is performed by a core group of musicians, carrying lo-fi textural threads from song to song. A cohesive approach helps unite The material, making less narrative-based tracks “Future Is Uncertain” sound like moody dream sequences between the larger breakthroughs, circling Heidecker’s adult anxieties before diving into the formative experiences that led him there.
Which leads back to “Harvest Moon” and Heidecker’s original obsession with Stupid Kid. “Dreaming of his own destiny as a songwriter, he wasn’t drawn to the open-hearted love of the songs, beautifully, early-autumn vocals from Linda Ronstadt, or the revelation that a music so great could come during the fourth century of an artist’s job. Rather, Heidecker keeps on returning to the fact that Young has been able to express himself with a very simple setup” Didn’t have a band “he remembers” Just some dude sweepin ‘a broom “and how it created him to understand a regular man could stand a chance. Heidecker’s music, obviously, ends with a break-up — a memento that not everything will still see opportunities in him. That’s not the figure: High School glistens with hard-earned faith that someone is here, somewhere else could listen to his narrative and meet the same awakening for their own destiny.
