driving music, 1

By chance I find myself about to listen to Fig. 5 by Jackie-O-Motherfucker in the car. It has been a long since the last lime I listened to it and can only vaguely remember what to expect from it. Let the journey begin, then.
The first song, "Analogue Skillet" is rough, dry, perfect for my current location: a cold industrial state.
With the second song, "Native Einstein", I wish I was in a seaside village, at Summer time, crowded, noisy, loud, and me, within the car, the windows fully closed, the volume at maximum, enjoying the sound, the contrast, the silences, the inside isolation, the feeling that whatever is happening outside is not real.
And we reach the third song, "Your Cells are in Motion", the 9 minutes of repetitive melodies, of chained sounds, lysergic emotions that in someone else's hands would have degenerated into post-rock or even worst, but that Jackie-O-Motherfucker know how to maintain it in a folk tune, cathartical, spiritual, even.
And after 20 minutes within the world of Fig. 5, the voices arrive.
With the fourth song, "Go down, old Hannah", the folkie suspicions are confirmed. The song is a clear statement. The voice is extracted from a Folk guidebook, the same once followed by Cat Power, the one still followed by Eighteenth day of May, Lau Nau, Larkin Grimm, She and Him. But with the elongated will to do things slowly, to let the sounds flow, the melodies grow at will. With no hurry. There are 74 minutes in the album and only 9 songs, so time is not a constraint.
And, of course, the banjo on the fifth song, "Amazing Grace" doesn't surprise us.
We return to the soft melodies combined with some sound eccentricities in "Beautiful September (We are going there)" and "Chiapas! I must go there", to prepare ourselves for the over 24 minutes of "Michigan Avenue Social Club" and its constant melody and its subjugating charm that reminds us of the Velvet Underground.
And to end the album, "Madame Curie". Calmly. With wind chimes and insinuated melodies.

And so we reach our destination happily.