A Time When Everything Rhymed

Kurt Vile “Like Exploding Stones”

Kurt Vile’s music always sounds like something made to please himself when left to his own devices, but he’s fine with you listening in. It’s all the languid and indulgent stuff that other artists might tighten up in later drafts, and the kind of slightly goofy lyrics that you might make up on the spot as a stopgap to get the melody down. It’s not as though he’s just recording random jams, though – he is refining everything, especially these days, but the key is preserving the essence of himself at his most relaxed and instinctive. “Like Exploding Stones” leans towards the more produced end of his output, a mellow groove filled out with synths that sound like grey clouds and a sax part that drifts into the mix with a surreal tone similar to that of Destroyer’s Kaputt album. He narrates these moves in real time – “Moog making noise now, guitar’s feeding back now” – and it’s funny in a deadpan way, but then he states that it’s all just at attempt to soothe his own pain and it’s suddenly quite poignant.

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