Jason Falkner

Necessity: The 4-Track Years (SpinArt)
by Tim Den

This man never gets bad reviews. Why? Cuz he’s that good. Air wants to work with him, and Nigel Godrich (supposedly) turned down U2 to produce him. With impeccable pedigree (Jellyfish, The Grays) and two equally flawless solo records behind him, Jason Falkner is the King of Pop. Necessity: The 4-Track Years says “this is some of the stuff I fucked around with when I was bored in my bedroom.” Take a listen. It’s still better than anything you’ve ever heard. Never a harmony missed, never a clever hook overused, never an unexpected vocal turn out of place. If it didn’t feel so goddamn natural, you’d think the Gods of Music had given him some kind of mathematical equation of equilibrium to follow or something. It’d be useless to try extracting what he’s melted together (Tom Waits’ intimacy, XTC’s quirkiness, The Beatles’ “everything but the kitchen sink” approach to instruments, Badfinger’s chunky ’60s guitar pop that’s packed with as much momentum as inventive vocal melodies), cuz he himself is the reference point most of the time. Four-track or not, Jason Falkner’s songs are bursting at the seams with brilliance. The best songwriter out there today.
(PO Box 1798 New York, NY 10156)