featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
December 31, 2024
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
Like a beacon in the fog of this holiday lull, David Wax Museum casts its warm, inviting Secret Creature (Mark Of the Leopard). Across the space of ten previous albums, David Wax and Suz Slezak have explored the possibilities of rhythmic folk, what they originally termed Mexo-Americana. Their spirited and engaging live act attracted a devoted fanbase, following them through the more ambitious indie and pop projects, including Slezak's excellent 2022 solo effort. Those recent records found David Wax Museum sometimes straying from specifically Mexican or Latin influences, though their work has remained personable and rhythmically adventurous.
In the days following 2023's You Must Change Your Life, David Wax was hospitalized and treated for an undiagnosed heart condition. It might be this episode that generated the pervasive sense of zen that fills the empty spaces on Secret Creature, from the roomy arrangements to Wax's thoughtful lyrics: You might break free from your grasping mind / You might get to die before you die. Produced by longtime collaborator, multi-instrumentalist Alec Spiegelman, the new sessions were recorded live in Wax and Slezak's barn studio surrounded by a host of witnesses. Both the nearness and the spaciousness are audible.
You'll hear it on the exquisite "Freshly Fallen Snow", the live-ness of the room, the sound of the instruments swarming from wall-to-wall. Wax's fingerpicked guitar skips its way across the song, the knocking percussion holding back until a change in the time signature cues its release: The more that I get lost / The better off I'll be. Acoustic guitar, piano, drum, and Slezak's eloquent fiddle flock throughout "Baby Go", as Wax delivers a gentle message on forgiveness and moving forward: Sometimes it don't work out / That's all right - it's allowed. These arrangements aren't polished or fancy. Like the harmonies on "Baby", what matters is the presence and the heart.
While other David Wax Museum records have offered a more finished product, Secret Creature is more invested in capturing the spirited interplay of the four instrumentalists (including percussionist Jeremy Gustin). Generating an acoustic groove on "Shade Of the Trees", or digging for the country roots of "Different Versions", the cohort float in an out of step with one another, expertly twining almost like a jazz combo. Spiegelman's flute accents the wandering "Shade", Suz Slezak's backing vocal a near whisper: I'm gonna cross the river / And lie in the shade of those trees // If anyone were to ask for me / Don't tell them where I've gone.
Slezak takes the lead on the breezy, psychedelic "Out Of My Mind", her voice another glint amidst the swirling strings and playful keys. Her fiddle accents appear throughout the sessions, folky one moment and almost avant the next. She leads the looping percussion on "Famous Peoples' Faces", and emphasizes the bluesy quirk on "Different Versions", like a rootsier take on the Wood Brothers.
Like Over the Rhine, there's a freewheeling independence to David Wax Museum, unmooring from mainstream expectations early in their career, then establishing rules of their own from record to record. Despite their loose vibe, David Wax writes songs that merit a close listen, both for their wisdom and for their melodic savvy. Much of Secret Creature speaks to our perfectly flawed human tendencies, especially as they spark and cleave in relation to one another. He sings, Thank you for loving / All these versions of myself. On the upbeat "If You Want My Love To Last", he pleads for patience: I need a ladder babe / Out of the saddest day. Like "Different Versions", the bossa-adjacent title cut acknowledges our fractured, faceted nature: One of us is teacher / The other acolyte / Oh this secret creature / I read by its light.
An evening spent streaming David Wax Museum's work is an opportunity to revel in the rhythmic and expressive possibilities of song. Wax and Slezak can be magnetic, and in its immediacy Secret Creature captures that magic in all its musicality and exoticism.
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