This is a weird record for a guy known for his adventurous, avant-garde experimentalism. Nels Cline—Wilco guitarist, mastermind of the Nels Cline Singers, inveterate collaborator who’s supposedly appeared on more than 200 albums (I didn’t count)—has recorded a two-album set inspired by jazz guitarist Jim Hall, pianist Bill Evans and arranger Gil Evans. You could almost put on Lovers at a dinner party with your parents and no one would be startled.
The LP isn’t completely unprecedented in Cline’s canon. Room, his 2014 pairing with Julian Lage (the young guitarist who worked with Hall) was often restrained and melodic, and throughout his career, Cline has interspersed moments of spacious pointillism among the free jazz and rock ’n’ roll freakouts. But Lovers is lush, with a cast of 23 musicians contributing to the orchestral setting led by conductor Michael Leonhard.
Many of these players are bandleaders themselves—Lage is here, as are trumpet player Steven Bernstein, clarinetist Ben Goldberg, harpist Zeena Parkins, cellist Erik Friedlander and drummer Alex Cline (Nels’ twin)—but although occasionally a horn or woodwind will step to the forefront, most of the arrangements are lush and old-school cinematic behind Cline’s leads. Cline mostly plays with a clear tone—there’s little of his effects-pedal mastery here—and he respects the melodic contours of standards from Rodgers & Hammerstein, Jimmy Guiffre and Henry Mancini and mingles them with simpatico originals and covers of tracks from Arto Lindsay, Annette Peacock, and Sonic Youth (“Snare, Girl” from A Thousand Leaves).
Still, this is a Nels Cline album, and although one of his most accessible, it’s not constrained to formula. He adds scratchy dissonant preludes here and bent-note feedback there and, especially late in the album, moves into some ominous, darker territory—but even then, the tracks play like an homage to movie soundtracks from the ’50s.
Cline has said he’s wanted to do this album for 25 years. It was worth the wait.
—Steve Klinge
