Search - Jeff Tweedy :: Chelsea Walls

It's Tweedy, It's Good, Very Good

Paul Allaer | Cincinnati | 03/17/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I have not seen the movie, but bought this album simply on the strength of Jeff Tweedy's reputation as a gifted, daring and innovative musician. I was not disappointed!9 of the 12 tracks aqre Tweedy penned, most of them instrumentals performed by Tweedy and Glenn Kotche. Several of them are truly mesmorizing, including the "Opening Titles", with guitar-distorts all over, "Frank's Dream", "The Wallman" and, best of all, the 11 min. "Finale" with it's haunting guitar riff and overlaying piano playing.There are 2 tracks attributed to Wilco: the "new" track "Promising" sounds like Tweedy solo, and the other one "When The Roses Bloom Again" is from the Mermaid Avenue sessions with Billy Brag, quite beautiful actually.As with many movie soundtracks, this is a "mood album", and I find it very engaging, altough it's probably not for everyone."

Beautiful Companion Piece to YHF and film.

gekko515 | Texas | 04/23/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If someone turned the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot into a film, then wrote a score to that film, it might sound like this. Deeply evocative and richly textured, this soundtrack plays like a dream-movie in itself. There are a dozen songs. Seven of these are Tweedy solo instrumentals, with one new Wilco song, and one new Wilco/Billy Bragg song. The film's star, Robert Sean Leonard, sings another Wilco song, 'The Lonely 1' from Being There. This might be the most affecting song for fans because it's haunting even in its mediocrity. RSL tries to morph the song into some Viper Room lounge ballad, and the fact that he fails works brilliantly somehow. The main riffs from the song, pained and sobbing, work as a main theme for the score, too, emerging in various parts of the instrumentals. The Jimmy Scott version of 'Jealous Guy' sounds nothing like you'd imagine. Instead of Lennon revised as blues, you get Jimmy Scott imitating Brian Ferry, with minimal instrumentals. And the other RSL song is so low-key, it implodes. I'm sounding hypercritical here, not I don't mean to. It all comes together beautifully somehow. This is true night music, more so than summerteeth. Plus you get this cool, weird picture in the booklet of Frank Whaley dressed as a lounge singer, and Wilco as his backing band. I wish there were instumental credits in the booklet, because I'm sure exactly what Steve Zahn does on the RSL songs, since he doesn't sing. This isn't just some old-fashioned rock star movie instrumental like Neil Young's 'Dead Man' or Leonard Cohen's 'McCabe & Miller.' This is a wonderful piece of work in in itself, with deeper reverberations for hard-core Tweedy/Wilco fans."

Pretty ding dang good

chris whitehead | Austin, Tx USA | 01/29/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is a great CD even if youre not a Wilco/Uncle Tupelo/Alt country completist. The songs are all good, from the "weird" stuff by Tweedy down to the haunting beautiful WIlco track to the non-Tweedy stuff on here...If yopure reading this review you should probably own this or at least give it a listen, even if the movie didn't work for ya."