Daniel Johnston yes, Ancestors no

I’ve got a couple of new reviews up at Blurt today, which makes this, all in all, a pretty productive week.
I liked Daniel Johnston’s collaboration with Jason Falkner a lot, concluding:
The bottom line: this is the most accessible, least squirm inducing Daniel Johnston record ever. That will undoubtedly be a problem for the folks who turn up primarily for the peep show, but if you come for the music, listen up. Jason Falkner has run Daniel Johnston's vision through a focus lens. The subject matter is still pretty odd, but you can see it better than ever.


The full review is here.

There’s a free mp3 of “Freedom,” too.

Not so crazy about Ancestors’ Sound of Mind, which is kind of a prog metal thing.

The review

The MySpace

Daniel Johnston cleaned up

Okay, here's the thing. The idea of Daniel Johnston making a studio album with a professional producer and session guys doesn't immediately sound like a good one. After all, what we want from Johnston is a kind of purity, of unfiltered creativity untouched by artifice, rough and a little crazy. But in this case, the producer is Jason Falkner, whose Author Unknown is one of my favorites (I can listen to "She Goes to Bed" a dozen times in a row...and have), a guy who, incidentially, worked with Brendan Benson on another of my favorites, Lapalco. The Johnston/Falker collaboration -- Johnston's songs and Falkner's guitar, bass, keys and sound work -- is called Is and Always Was. It will be out October 6 on High Wire Music. One listen in, it's maybe my favorite Daniel Johnston ever...almost enough to get that image of that airplane fiasco out of my head.

Here's an mp3 of "Freedom"