Drag City
Dave Pajo has done his fair share to launch and shape the post-rock
movement. He honed the touchstone with Slint’s Spiderland, and
created the blueprint in 1996 with Tortoise’s _Millions Now Living Will
Never Die_. On the side, he served time in Billy Corgan’s short-lived
Zwan, helped out long-time buddy Will Oldham, and tinkered with Scotland’s
Mogwai. Independently, he recorded a spate of solo or nearly-solo albums
under various monikers: M, Aerial M, M is the thirteenth Letter, and most
notably Papa M. With the album at hand, Drag City collects scattered
singles from Pajo’s various labels and incarnations and attempts to give
some shape to his eclectic and influential career. While connections
might be drawn between these mostly instrumental pieces and the post-rock
movement Pajo helped mold, Hole of Burning Alms evinces an organic
simplicity that may initially seem at odds with pieces of his back
catalog.
Above all, Pajo seems to have purpose. Not all of the music here is
gripping, but it doesn’t all try to be. The focus is rather on saying
something simple and saying it well, all of which comes quite naturally to
Pajo, so naturally in fact that even the indulgent, improvised
instrumental take on "Turn, Turn, Turn" (which cuts to a close as the tape
runs out somewhere beyond the sixteen minute mark) doesn’t get stale. It
never peaks, never squeals, never demands attention; it runs smoothly and
unassumingly along, eliciting attention gradually as Pajo winds around the
melody, elaborates ideas, and explores the cavernous spaces within a
melody at his leisure. It’s an approach that peeks its head up in his
other projects, an attention to detail that serves him well in all his
work, but perhaps shows itself best here.
