It’s hard to place Grant-Lee Phillips among the current crop of male singer-songwriters. More folksy and intimate than Rufus Wainwright or Ben Folds, yet more ambient and textured than Pete Yorn or Ryan Adams, Phillips seems destined for a niche market. And that, according to him, is just fine.
After six years and four critically acclaimed albums with Grant Lee Buffalo, Phillips decided to part with both the band and their major label backing in 1999. “Embrace the solitude,” he sings on this year’s Mobilize, his second solo effort, “It’s doin’ me good.” Freed from relentless touring and mass-marketing ploys, Phillips recorded 2000’s Ladies’ Love Oracle over three days in the basement studio of über-producer Jon Brion. A product of complete creative autonomy (it was released through Phillips’s web page), the album exposes Phillips as a masterful songwriter, not just a dynamic frontman.
For Mobilize, Phillips is once again doing it all, acting as writer, performer and co-producer with Carmen Rizzo. This time, though, he is with a record label (Cambridge-based Rounder Records Group subsidiary, Zoë) and has brought back the funky Grant Lee Buffalo vibe and use of production machinery. An amalgamation of psychedelic folk and bluesy rock, Mobilize captures both the epic and the intimate, sometimes in the same breath. The 12 tracks glide together seamlessly, combining textured, atmospheric instrumentals with mildly hypnotic guitar melodies. Phillips’s honey-coated, slightly haggard voice is alternately plaintive and playful as he turns his introvert’s eye to the outside world. “See America,” showcases Phillips’s embrace of soft electronic ambience,a la U2, while “Beautiful Dreamers” has a decidedly 70s psychedelic flair. The closest thing the album has to a breakthrough single—“Spring Released”—is so bouncy that it is almost hard to believe its author could also create the brilliant misery of “Sadness Soot.” The title track is perhaps the album’s weakest, but even its eeriness is beautifully crafted, which speaks volumes for the quality of the record as a whole.
—Stacy A. Porter