Being a collaboration between Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and Glen Kotche with genius all-rounder and Sonic Youth bassist, Jim O'Rourke, Loose Fur is a mouthwatering prospect. Certainly, O'Rourke and Tweedy are probably the most talented and misrepresented musicians of their generation. The former comes with baggage stickered 'difficult' and 'avant-garde' - despite his more recent work being hyper-melodic - a Burt Bacharach cover even appearing in an advert for British Gas. The latter is portrayed as a Founding Father of Alt.Country, yet holds as much in common with the Americana conservatism of, say, Ryan Adams, as John Lennon did with Peter Noone.
Indeed, the dissonance that characterised Wilco's 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot' was Tweedy's own making (O'Rourke, who produced that masterpiece, claims he commercialised the record) while O'Rourke's 'Insignificance' benefited from Tweedy's overdriven guitars. And here too, contrary to preconceptions, it is Tweedy who brings the noise.
With the exception of 'You Were Wrong' - which sounds like a prime 'YHF' outtake - Loose Fur create music that sneaks up on you. Mostly stretching beyond five minutes, these are songs that build and grow and demand repeated listening. They're not difficult - they're deep.
In fact, it is O'Rourke's touch that remains dominant. His mark is all over 'Elegant Transaction', trading vocals with Tweedy in a repetitious circle of acoustic guitars, pianos and drums as clicks, chimes, banjos and the kitchen sink are drip fed to a tsunami of melody. His genius - like Brian Wilson - is making the complex sound simplistic. The music remains subtle and specific - performing daring backflips whenever chaos threatens.
Of the other tracks, 'Laminated Cat' skips over polyrhythms of static and ancient electronics to a stream-of-consciousness Tweedy vocal, while 'So Long' is a gorgeous acoustic number rendered disturbing by clashes and clangs. It concludes with a glorious vocal coda.
Best of all is the closing 'Chinese Apple', which rides more intricate guitar picking before shooting off in a million harmonic directions. Tweedy's intimate cracked voice (Am I waiting for the uncovering of simple paths between the branches? Flower enchants, fence lights rattling, fingers pushing through, slowly brushing past a fast glimpse of you) is poetry in motion.
So, rather than an exercise in side-project doodling, Loose Fur is as good as you could ever wish it to be. The envelope has been truly pushed. This is true cosmic American music and possibly the best thing all concerned have ever done.
