Serpe
A Night In Gins Hollow
Home Recorded Culture, 2006

Michael John Serpe’s baroque folk songs erupt with the same raw intensity one might find in an Elliot Smith album. Or at the bottom of a bottle of gin, which his new album, A Night In Gins Hollow, is soaked in, both metaphorically and literally.

The singer-songwriter describes the record – which was co-produced with Greg Williamson (Sunny Day Real Estate) and was seven years in the making – as “diving into a bottle of gin to toast the ghosts that chase you through your head.”

Those ghosts, however, must double as muses because Serpe, a recent transplant from Seattle who owns and operates his own studio in Tucson called Home Recorded Culture, was inspired enough to create an album full of honest and intimate pieces of acoustic poetry. He continues what he started with American Gothic, but expands his folk sound further into rock and pop while losing a little of the moodiness (not too much, though).

The title track starts with Serpe strumming over an electronic mix of programmed, ambient noises. His voice, sort of a soft mix of Smith and Tim Buckley, floats over everything ethereally as he dives into reflection and self-purgatory.

“Eat When Hungry” drifts in twangy space and tinny vocals, with Serpe’s finger-picking style providing an eerie background to his even eerier voice. Then in poly-rhythmic delight, the drums start up, creating an unsettling mix of shouts and beats that don’t quite match up, but sound good nonetheless.

There’s a melody to “And When” that reminds me of any number of current indie acts, but there’s a hard stomping to it that’s straight old school Zeppelin. The track’s really quite beautiful, even with the multiple drum beats, horns and vocal layers threatening to clog the whole thing and leave it an acoustic mess. But Serpe doesn’t let that happen, instead creating a dreamy piece of near psychedelic rock, that ends with his softly strumming his guitar.

“Southpaw” is as close to emo as Serpe gets on Gins Hollow, and it’s also one of the album’s few missteps. Karoline Vass’ viola is lovely, but the song lacks the overall intensity of the rest of the record, despite Serpe’s hurtful recanting of lines like “From time to time I lose the pace/What’s the matter now?/I can see it on your face, fight or flight?”

He gets wickedly moody on “Me & Kerri,” which features Matt Chase on sax, as well as backup vocals that sound like sirens in the distance of some archaic sea. His multi-layered vocals and poly-rhythms once again create a confusing array of noises that is as pleasing as the catchiest pop hook.

The fuzzy rock song “First Snow” sounds like that person Serpe described earlier: hammered on gin, toasting his ghosts, pounding his fist into the air at nothing and everything in particular. And there’s a mix of styles in the song – rock, pop, folk and a little punk – that urges you to give the track more than one listen.

And ultimately that’s what a dense record like A Night In Gins Hollow needs, multiple listens. From the bottle-shaped packaging to the gin-soaked album sleeve to the personal lyrics and genre-busting style that comprise this album, Serpe demonstrates that he is both artist and poet. And, after all, who can fully comprehend what a true artist’s trying to say upon first glance of a painting, reading of a poem, or listen of an album?

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Serpe
CD release show
When: Tuesday, Feb. 21, 9:30 p.m.
Where: Plush (340 E. 6th St.)
Cost: Free
Age limit: 21 and older