Lost Verses Live

This acoustic live collection culled from seven concerts throughout 2007-08 in the U.S. and Europe featuring Mark Kozelek and guitarist Phil Carney is another perfect example of the soft, illuminating, highly personal folk music that Kozelek has been quietly amassing over the years with Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon. His studio albums sport powerful electronics and guitars that often bleed and feedback, but taken into the quiet club setting Kozelek’s mesmerizing voice takes hold and the overwhelming melancholy that aches within the joys of “Moorestown,” “Lucky Man,” and “Katy Song” rises to the surface. His covers remain idiosyncratic. Stephen Sondheim’s “Send In the Clowns” retains its melody while the Modest Mouse covers of “Four Fingered Fisherman” and “Tiny Cities” are recreated in Kozelek’s own imagined image. The album is heavy on songs from his most recent studio release 2008’s April and even there Kozelek twists the results with minor alterations that prove he is always seeking the freshest emotional resonance from his material.