“Brown Bunny” soundtrack ft. John Frusciante [Album As Art #63]

This is the CD cover art, not the LP cover art, but it's all good. Just pretend this is what the LP jacket looks like (it isn't).

Download the full Brown Bunny soundtrack HERE (then buy it, if you can find it)

As at least one or two of you might know, I’ve developed, through my wife, an obsession of sorts for Vincent Gallo, whether it be his acting, musical projects (of which there are/were many –RICCEE, Gray, etc.), directing and even simple autobiographical details about his life (one example: He’s a Republican, and hopes to someday be a stereotypical GOP-er, though I’m guessing there’s sarcasm there; who knows) …

I never thought I’d actually be able to find any of his albums in record stores, but I’ve had some luck. I first located the “Honey Bunny” 7-inch; then came the “So Sad” 12-inch, a close encounter with his only full-length, When (on Warp Records; the LP turned out to have a large scratch on it so I decided $75 wasn’t a good price tag) and now, amazingly, I’ve had the fortune of finding the soundtrack to Gallo’s feature film, Brown Bunny, at Waterloo Records after my soon-to-be-legendary South By Southwest run. On vinyl; on opaque yellow-orange vinyl, in fact.

Yep, god’s definitely looking down on this collector and smiling (I also found the first Wierd Records compilation 3XLP+7-inch, the second noise anthology 3XLP on Sub Rosa, a Warmer Milks split LP and about a dozen others; too bad that Ariel Pink Doldrums LP was a reissue or I might have made the score of the century). Or, if there is no god, in the words of Bobby Dylan: I can’t help it if I’m lucky.

Sadly (sniffle) the Brown Bunny soundtrack does not contain any Gallo songs. Nary a one. Softening the blow was finding out that the entire Side B of the LP was composed by John Frusciante (his tracks mastered by Gallo) among my favorite musicians on the planet for his various indie exploits (mainly the ones that occurred during his bout with heroin). So it’s tough to handle the loss of Gallo, but Frusciante being on this thing is one HELL of a consolation prize, as he rarely fails to bring intrigue to any project he touches, save for maybe that Tricky album he guested on that I just can’t get into …

Back to the music: Side A is a fairly typical collection of cuts, with a tune each by Gordon Lightfoot, Jeff Alexander, Ted Curson, Jackson C. Frank and Matisse/Accardo Quartet. And no, I haven’t heard of any of these guys, with the exception of Lightfoot, either. Judging from the music they offer here, all four/five are worth checking out.

Alexander’s “Come Wander With Me,” which originally ran on a Twilight Zone episode of the same name and is sung beautifully by actress Bonnie Beecher, is a soft, Vashti Bunyan varnish with a Laura Nyro finish, haunting as you might expect from an audio yarn taken from perhaps history’s creepiest-ever TV show yet hopeful enough to keep the wheels turning and the future singin’.

Curson’s “Tears of Dolphy” is fairly self-explanatory soft-jazz in the vein of Mulatu Astatke — tender and pleasant without boring the listener to tears, while “Milk and Honey” by Frank retains the folkloric feel and offers intriguing finger-picking and Tim Buckley-ish melodies.

Now to my favorite stretch by far: The Frusciante side. It starts with “Forever Away,” a very soundtrack-y (appropriately enough, I suppose) tune that features Frusch wordlessly singing a melody or two, which is all well and good, but what really sets the song free is the mathematical precision to which the Red Hot Chili Peppers axeman affixes his solos. They’re impossible, questionable pitch-wise and absurdly pleasurable if you’ve been gobbling up his guitar features of the past on tunes like the Peppers’ “Easily” and several others.

I haven’t even seen Brown Bunny yet and already I can see the pavement disappearing beneath rolling tires and metrically correct slashes of yellow paint. But wait … there’s more!

“Dying Song” contains lyrics like, “What I really need is a heaven / A place to go where I can really be” and some synth stabs not normally associated with Frusciante’s music. Other than that, it’s an average experiment, the vocals being a particularly forceful detriment, but man, those synths are all tingly and such — “Dying Song” is a piece of the Brown Bunny puzzle it might take me awhile to mentally shove into its smoothly grooved resting place.

“Leave All the Days Behind” is a typically fruitful, difficult Frusciante composition. The verses are pretty bleak, so the trick is to wait until the chorus and SMACK-WAPPA-POW-POW, you got yourself more than a sprinkle of intrigue. Unfortunately that chorus never presents itself again; still, a strong enough cut to warrant inclusion.

“Prostitution Song” is instrumental, with likely the most typical Frusciante jaunt on the table here, but that’s a great thing. Only a few layers and obvious overdubs, and somehow the guy turns it into a feast for the ears and a nice grind of the gears for anyone not getting enough guitar gymnastics in their audio diet.

“Falling” is the last song, another instrumental, and it represents Frusciante at his peak: Sensitive, dextrous, warm, urgent and insistent, all at once. This is as entrancing as music gets, like a boiling pot of John Fahey, Jack Rose, Ben Chasny and many others boosted with steroids and cursed with a voice that will always keep the herd astray.

Simply a wonder to behold.