Trust a man whose ideal compositional form is the palindrome to reckon with this axiom: Everything comes back to where you started, then you start over again. 2023’s American Landscapes, the last record by Dutch lutenist/multi-instrumentalist Jozef Van Wissem and American guitarist/filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, ground their sound down to the essentials of pealing feedback and patiently cycling lute melodies, then let it sprawl, taking up all available space. After that, what can you do but build things back up?
That’s one gambit that they employ on their new LP. The quivering, e-bowed guitar tones that Jarmusch wraps around gradual progress on The Day The Angels Cried opener “Concerning Celestial Hierarchy” blossom like a chorus of holy clarinets blowing clouds out over the edge of the world on some illustration drawn half a millennium ago. It’s followed by the title track, on which a mortality-haunted chant rolls over gently chiming guitars like a bound bunch of envelopes containing bad news landing on your nice new doormat. Elsewhere, Jarmusch’s stacked guitars make like a chorus of bagpipes while Van Wissem’s multi-tracked lutes multiply and blend, slightly out of synch, like some celluloid trick of the eye.
But while the arrangements are elaborate, the tunes themselves are generally more succinct than the widescreen efforts on American Landscapes. The only time they spread out is on the funereal “To Those Who Mourn,” which at more than eight minutes is double the length of anything else on The Day The Angels Cried. It’s as though Van Wissem and Jarmusch really want to make some points before the curtain falls. [Incunabulum]
—Bill Meyer
