May 2- 8, 2002

music

Point of Departure

MUSICAL CHAIRS: Damien Jurado (far right) is about to break something.

Damien Jurado stands on Chairs.

by Brian Howard

“I just don’t know how to rock,” laughs Damien Jurado. “It’s the whole moving around and playing at the same time thing.”

It's an understandable admission. Seattle native Jurado has emerged synonymous with dark modern folk songs probing the tricky and, at times, treacherous byways and side alleys of human interaction. The husky-voiced 29-year-old has a penchant for plumbing emotional depths and, fittingly, his accompaniment has tended to be of the acoustic guitar variety. His 1999 album Rehearsals for Departure was steeped in bittersweet agony throughout tales of love, loss, cheating-hearts and renewal. Released in 2000, Ghost of David was a dire effort pillar to post which commenced with "Medication," one of the bleaker songs you'll ever hear ("Lord, do me a favor/ It's wrong but I ask you/ Take my brother's life") and continued at broke-heart speed.

Known for rocking Jurado ain't. It's a preconception he says he wants to change. In the latest campaign in his battle against type, Jurado has just released his fourth -- and perhaps final -- album for Sub Pop records, I Break Chairs, which premieres his backing band, Gathered In Song (monikered for his 1998 EP of the same name).

From the opening chords of "Paper Wings," an amped-up paean to perilously high ambitions that's hard to imagine anyone sitting through, to the surging anthem "Lose My Head," it's clear that Jurado's got more than one trick up his sleeve.

Though I Break Chairs' defining characteristic may be its fuller sound, Jurado and co. play all their cards. Among rockers like the Pixies-esque "The Way You Look" and "Dancing" you'll find bassist Josh Golden's chilling "Air Show Disaster," the plaintive "Never Ending Shores" (which wouldn't sound out of place on Jurado's prior efforts) and the sing-songy story song "Like Titanic" ("She can sink me...").

Jurado doesn't see what all the fuss is about.

"I hinted at the pop sound with Rehearsals for Departure on å and Drawings' and å Baby,'" he says via cell phone while driving to a tour stop. "For me it was time to do the full band thing.

"It's easy to be pigeonholed. I've been called everything from the new Nick Drake to Seattle's Will Oldham," he recalls. "Personally I don't want to be pigeonholed.... I just don't want to make the same record over and over again. I want to keep surprising people."

Two factors contribute to Jurado's genre-busting take. One was chatting with his father-in-law about the first time he heard Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The second was Lou Reed and "noticing that every record of his was completely different from the last."

While Jurado's highly emotional style could prompt some to lump him in with the emo craze, he's quick to avoid labeling his work. He considers himself a songwriter, no more, no less. "Songwriters can do any genre they really want to," he explains enthusiastically. Hence his near burning desire to not retread familiar ground.

But in another way, he is going back to his roots.

Gathered In Song isn't his first experience with a band. He and David Bazan of Pedro The Lion were in a punk band, Coolidge, in high school. Bazan, whose PTL have just released Control (Jade Tree) and will be headlining when Jurado hits town, gets production credits for I Break Chairs.

"He knows my music more than anybody," says Jurado of his old friend, "especially because he's seen the stages I've gone through musically.... He has a good ear and knows what I like and what I need."

The album was more conceptual than just beefing up Jurado's folksy catalog. Most of the songs, admits Jurado, were written with a backing band in mind.

"They wouldn't [work] at all [in a solo setting]," he explains of his approach to the album. "I set out to make a record where the music was more up front than the lyrics."

Following the decidedly bleak, agonizing Ghost of David (which for all its wonderfulness is a hard listen), it's understandable that Jurado wanted to let things rip a bit. But for those who may have trouble warming to I Break Chairs' heavier sound, who can't imagine Jurado rocking out, take heart. He expects to release his next record, on the Secretly Canadian label, this fall. "It's very stripped down, along the lines of Ghost of David but less experimental. It's very dark, probably the darkest record I've ever done."

Which is to say that Jurado will probably need his chair fixed for his next tour. So enjoy the kinetic energy while you can.