Benji

Mark Kozelek’s work with The Album Leaf’s Jimmy Lavalle on Perils from the Sea gave the Sun Kil Moon leader (formerly of Red House Painters) a new outlook on lyric writing. Kozelek discovered that if he shifted his approach, he could deliver a conversational narrative as personal and as rambling as anything since Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac cataloged what was on their minds. In Kozelek’s case, he pays tribute to his family, whether it’s “Carissa” (a second cousin he barely knew who passed at age 35 in an accidental fire), his uncle who died on his birthday in an eerily similar fire, or his mom (“I Can’t Live Without My Mother’s Love”) and dad (“I Love My Dad”). He recounts details, big and small, and finds a way to thank Ivo Watts-Russell (the 4AD founder who discovered him in 1992) in a song about watching the Led Zeppelin movie The Song Remains the Same. Even Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie (“Ben’s My Friend”) has a breezy-tune/serious-lyric written about him. There aren’t many artists who discover new voices in their songwriting after 20+ years, but Kozelek’s done it a few times.