'Old Ramon' has spent the last few years in danger of becoming a great, lost album. Red House Painters, with the aid of three wonderful albums released on 4AD in the early '90s, converted a considerable number of the indie faithful to their lovely, sad, low-key rock. The songs, which sounded both epic and frail, were unusually structured but mesmeric and natural, while the lyrics were almost confessionally honest analyses of broken down love affairs and inner turmoil. Not chirpy stuff, then, but rather profoundly intense music that inspired devotion.
Folkier, more acoustic elements entered the fourth record 'Ocean Beach', which tended to break the spell, although not nearly so much as their fondness for '70s rock, which saw their fifth record, the solo-drenched 'Songs For A Blue Guitar', rejected by their record label. Fatefully, they instead signed to an Island imprint, and the album was released in 1996. Few could have guessed that the big label buy-out from Universal was just round the corner, or imagined the harm it would do.
We all now know how many bands were dropped, how many imprint labels were closed, how many contracts were nulled, how many jobs were lost. For the Red House Painters, it meant that their album 'Old Ramon', finished in early '98, was trapped in limbo, owned by a label that had no means to release or distribute the record. So, negotiations began, and Mark Kozelek embarked on several quirky solo projects. To the outside world, unaware of these wrangles, it simply looked as if the Red House Painters had come to an end.
Three years later - and following an extensive on-line campaign to see this record released - it's emerged on trusty US indie Sub Pop. So everything's alright, then, yes?
Well, no. The response of the RHP fanbase upon finally hearing 'Old Ramon' has shifted between disappointment and utter heartbreak. It's been a victim of circumstance, of course; intense anticipation almost ensures a letdown, after all. But 'Old Ramon' is a slight affair cut from similar cloth to '...Blue Guitar', fuzzy with distortion, hampered by less than inspirational songwriting. Where previously, there was an entrancing charm to the lengthier songs, which themselves seemed to unfold and develop, here they're just (whisper it) a little boring. There are highlights, like the fuzzy pop of 'Between Days', the powerful 'Void' and John Denver-inspired ballad 'Golden', but as a complete record it may be their least satisfying so far.
It's just not how that story should have ended, is it?
