Loose Fur's debut quietly nestled itself into the dusty annals of my record collection promptly after its release in the spring of 2003. As the lovechild of Wilco architect Jeff Tweedy, avant-garde drumming wunderkind Glen Kotche, and ubiquitous musician/producer/laptop composer Jim O'Rourke, the self-titled LP arrived with a thoroughbred's pedigree.
In the wake of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and O'Rourke's Insignificance, conventional indie rock chemistry, by my precise calculations, indicated that when Tweedy reacted with O'Rourke, the resulting yield wouldn't lay dormant amongst the ghosts of Tweedy collaborations-past (Minus 5's Down With Wilco). Yet Loose Fur faded from memories and stereos with hardly a whimper.
Revisiting the album, it's hard to imagine how Tweedy and O'Rourke could not have anticipated such a fate. Musically and thematically, Loose Fur is the most inconsistent work the two have had a significant hand in crafting this decade. Sonically, it creates a patchwork of each member's aesthetic preferences: Tweedy strums gentle chords or lays down cacophonous riffs; O'Rourke layers subtle keys or pedals distorted electronics; Kotche mercurially shifts with the moods of the songs at the frequent sacrifice of providing a rhythmic backbone. When the elements combined, the songs offer moments of serene and spacey beauty but often are content to meander aimlessly.
With O'Rourke and Kotche at his side, Tweedy has guided Wilco down a similarly emotionally sedated and sonically spacious path since he recorded Loose Fur in the summer of 2000. I had subsequently written off any chance of another Loose Fur collaboration as redundant, but five years after laying those awkward growing pains to tape, Loose Fur has returned with a second album, Born Again in the U.S.A.
Unsurprisingly, after five years of collaboration, the trio sounds significantly tighter and more confident barreling through its compositions. While O'Rourke has never been want of confidence, the assuredness of Tweedy's guitar work since he assumed Wilco's main axe duties makes a difference not only in the chugging riffs that give the album a loose classic rock vibe, but also in his restraint from the noodling that often served to distract on Loose Fur.
What is surprising about Born Again is the direction O'Rourke and Tweedy take their side-project. Whereas Loose Fur was driven by an attempt to color the classic rock template with sonic exploration and swelling clutter, Born Again is imbued with playful buoyancy that's more straightforward and enjoyably lightheaded than anything the two have produced since Insignificance. After the two pushed Wilco's boundaries to droning krautrock and heavy-handed guitar solos on A Ghost Is Born, Born Again may initially sounds like a bit of a retreat. "The Ruling Class" bops along to O'Rourke's lively bass and the loose twang of Tweedy's guitar while a chipper whistle floats throughout. "Hey Chicken" and "Aposolisitc" ride herky-jerk electric guitars, cowbell and the stop-and-go of Kotche's bolstered percussive presence. Both songs recall the bottled energy of Wilco's "Kicking Television" or "I'm A Wheel," but the harmonizing guitars and engaging Tweedy vocals feel like he sent some of his song's out to recess for break.
O'Rourke's contributions similarly avoid the excessive dourness of his Loose Fur tracks. Gentle acoustic strums hold up "Answers To Your Questions" as waves of xylophone vibes and Kotche's slow, primal beat float gently through the song, washing away the bitter taste of typically cynical O'Rourke lines like "What do you want me to say? / Ask you how was your day? / Well I could tell you, / but then I'd have to care." With rollicking ragtime piano and stomping riffs alternating the spotlight, "Thou Shalt Wilt" serves as the companion to Tweedy's "The Ruling Class" as Born Again's most conventional pop nuggets.
As the album and song titles suggest, Born Again in the U.S.A. is loosely tied together by a critique and satire of elements of the religious Right. The theme has been the focus most have given the album, but for Tweedy and O'Rourke, the criticism is hardly biting or passionate. Tweedy takes a political slant but covers nothing more incendiary than his already tame "Theologians" from Wilco's A Ghost Is Born. In his comical "Ruling Class," Tweedy imagines the second coming of Christ in the corporate Bush era -- "Having supper with the upper management of the new regime / He's in a new jacket, tax bracket, and a new pair of jeans / He's got deductions right down the line, / Dependant claims right on down the line." O'Rourke, meanwhile, who once described his songs as the "sexual misadventures of decrepit people," applies his lens to the politics of religion.
The religious undertones give the album a gravitas it doesn't deserve. Rarely on the album do Tweedy, O'Rourke and Kotche sound as if they're not cutting loose. Coming after the pretentiousness of their debut and the following deconstruction of Tweedy's pop craftsmanship, Born Again in the U.S.A. is a pleasant surprise and a reminder of the trio's ability to create readily accessible pop.
Like Loose Fur, however, the album lacks any true standouts. As another one of O'Rourke's and Tweedy's side-project that sounds great without the emotional or intellectual weight of their full-length focus, there's no telling if this won't float out of minds or stereo like its predecessor.
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