IGNATZ - CAN I GO HOME NOW? (CD)

"Whilst 'Can I Go Home Now?' is Ignatz's first Fonal release, it is in fact his fifth full-length album proper. Recorded in Schaarbeek, Brussels, Belgium between 2011 and 2012 on four-track and computer, the album sees Devens shift his focus toward more exclusively song-based compositions, cut largely from unabridged electric and acoustic guitar. Ignatz's songs stem from a familiar stripped folk framework, with Devens' delivery recalling the louche primitivism of V.U. or Henry Flynt - but these songs sound inverted, cast adrift, their cool touch belying a stymied heat beneath the surface. Where Devens' fretwork is adorned, it is executed with a refined coarseness. Autonomous loops entwine each other. Songs brush past percussion, bass notes, or a scant keyboard motif. A voice recedes from the heart of the song into a dislocated, cracked drawl. And yet if Ignatz does occasionally recall the ghost of Jandek, there are moments of warmth and beauty, as sunlight glistens on the ice." (label info)