Mica Jones
Gualamata
Straw Hat Recordings
Click to hear: “The Toolshed”
Gualamata is an ambitious album by young singer and multi-instrumentalist Mica Jones. Recorded “in various bedrooms across Portland” between the spring of ’09 and last fall, the 10 tracks here are a beguiling mix of art-damaged folk, ethereal psych-pop and chamber music, with some mariachi and front-porch blues thrown in for good measure. Beautifully crafted and rich with weird and wonderful sounds, this is high-caliber headphone music.
You know you’re into something from the get-go. The album starts with a minute of slightly off-key chiming, “Our Bells, I,” then wafts into “Our Bells, II,” a gentle piece of indie-folk that blooms into a strange little pop parade.
For the first half of the next track, “The Toolshed,” Jones warbles over a John Fahey-style finger-picked figure. “But don’t follow any further/ Don’t stand here with your nose so close / Cause I won’t keep it secret / I’ll tear off all your clothes / Like the night we found the toolshed / In the spring when we were young / I cleared the place with one arm / And we worked until the work was done.” With this the song drops off a cliff into clouds, then catches a draft and floats away in a shimmer of ooohs and electric guitar. It’s a bit breathtaking.
“Brannew,” the mariachi-flavored song, takes a similar trip about halfway along and never looks back. “Out Cold” starts in low orbit and never touches ground.
Gualamata stumbles when it stops trying to be beautiful. “Poor Pretty Girl” suffers from a tedious pump organ and rat-a-tat snare combination and can’t be salvaged by the sonic shenanigans Jones adds to it. The dreary, slightly disorienting “Downtown” may accurately approximate its subject, but it’s not much fun to listen to.
The closer, “The Ceiling,” introducing some rockiness to the pot. Jones plays, plucks and bangs everything on these recordings, but here someone listed in the liner notes as “Human” plays guitar. Makes you wish this mysterious musician had stopped by Jones’ place more often. The riffs and feedback lend some welcome weight to his wispy songwriting.
— Chris Busby
Mica Jones plays Tues., March 13, at the St. Lawrence Arts Center (76 Congress St., Portland) with Tiger Saw and Guy Capecelatro III, at 7 p.m. Tix: $10 (all ages).
