12

For 12, his twelfth album, Keller Williams has assembled a compilation by selecting one track each from his previous 11 albums (that would be Freek [1994], Buzz [1996], Spun [1998], Breathe [1999], Loop [2001], Laugh [2002], Dance [2003], Home [2003], Stage [2004], Grass [2006; credited to Keller & the Keels], and Dream [2007]), plus one new song, "Freshies." Those who have heard all of those discs might have picked differently; Williams has never had anything resembling a hit, and was free to create a collection as he saw fit. He neither attempted to pick his "best" songs, whatever those would have been, nor even to find representative ones, which might have been even more difficult, given his eclectic nature. Rather, he seems to have aimed at musical cohesion, such that 12, despite some of his usual veering from style to style, hangs together as a whole. To the extent that it makes a statement about who Williams is as a musician, it suggests that he is a lover of riffs, especially ones developed on the bass guitar, and that he tends to build his compositions out of those riffs, adding other tasty elements along the way. Among those elements are lyrics, which seem to be written more with a sense of how they sound than what they mean. (How else could one come up with tracks called "Freeker by the Speaker" and "Butt Sweat"?) Occasionally, though, Williams is moved to express his philosophy of life in the words of new-age self-actualization, as when he chants the greeting-card lines "Work like you don't need the money, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody is watching" during "More Than a Little." But what really matters to him is the groove; repeatedly, he uses the word "funky," and that's what he wants to be, not a surprising aspiration for a one-man band who spends most of his time trying to warm up audiences who came to see somebody else. To succeed, such a performer needs ear-catching material, and the selections on 12, like much of Williams' repertoire, are catchy and engaging, if rarely compelling.