My Morning Jacket: Rock to the Power of 'Z'

Sunday News
Published: October 6, 2005
By JOHN DUFFY, Correspondent

Quite a silly name for a band really, My Morning Jacket. It suggests an in side joke we will never be privy to, or some literary reference too cool to be familiar with. Even the group's music, indie rock washed through southern gothic streams and drenched in syrupy reverb, is layered over with a sense of mystery.

Their 2003 major label introduction "It Still Moves" was a sleeper hit of sorts, garnering volumes of critical praise even from the mainstream press, and becoming a dorm room classic over the next two years. It even sold well for not having a bona fide hit single. Their new disc "Z" (ATO Records/RCA) hit stores last week.

My Morning Jacket brings their new songs from to Lancaster Oct. 11 with an all ages show at the Chameleon Club just prior to a two- night stand at TLA in Philadelphia. Sultry Canadian country-rock singer songwriter Kathleen Edwards opens on this leg of the tour. Coming at a critical point in the group's career arc, "Z" is all at once more focused and more wide-reaching than its predecessor, more detailed, more spacious, and if it's hard to imagine, more ambitious in its stylistic reach.

"We did a lot of things differently then they did on the first record," explains keyboardist Bo Koster, who along with guitarist Carl Broemel joined the group immediately after "It Still Moves" was released. "We cut the length down a bit, used a big professional studio." The group also brought in veteran producer John Leckie (Los Lobos, George Harrison, John Lennon), who moved them from their Louisville, Kentucky base to the rural isolation of upstate New York for tracking.

"He knows his way around a studio for sure. He knew how to get the best sounds out of the gear we had," Koster says, taking a break from the last day of rehearsal before the band leaves for its Atlanta tour opener. During the six-week recording process, Leckie used old-school tricks like recording to actual analog tape, using a vintage harmonizer, and slightly varying the playback speed of tunes (called varispeed) for subtle effects. But the result is anything but nostalgia.

The group intigrates tense modern electronic beats and R&B into "Wordless Chorus," which features looped drums, prickly guitar arpeggios and organ stabs along with singer Jim James' soulful falsetto wailing. "It Beats 4 U" conjures up the icy alt.rock of Radiohead, and "Off the Record" borrows the surf-guitar riff from the Searcher's "Secret Agent Man" to introduce a bouncing reggae/dub celebration.

Distorted hip-hop beats push "Lay Low," and the spooky minimalist jam-rock of "Dondante" is crisp as a biting wind. And while the echo that covered "It Still Moves" did serve dramatic purpose, it muddied some songs to the point that it sounded like they were recorded in an empty airplane hanger, obscuring James' soaring vocals. It did not help that much of the record sounded like aimless noodling either. On "Z," the echo and reverb effects are more carefully deployed, or left out altogether.

It indicates not only indicates an increasing confidence in the band of its own abilities, but a leap forward in James' ability to communicate with his voice. "It's definitely a noticeable difference," says Koster. "But it wasn't a conscious decision. I never heard anybody vocalize it. Just through Jim and John experimenting with different ideas it seemed to happen that way."

Thankfully, their record label left it all in their hands, says Koster. "They were never breathing down our neck, and we have a good relationship. I think that helped in the long run make this an artistically motivated album." The group will be on the road until Thanksgiving. "We're a little anxious," admits Koster. "But I'm really excited to see what these songs do in a live setting."