I once embraced any folkish voice like it was a dream girl. I was happy to envelop myself in the new skin of the next Tim Buckley or Nick Drake wannabe. Those days have long passed, myself becoming bitter when the beautiful lady turned into a venomous oasis of my powerful imagination. Coleman III makes me sentimental for my own mind tricks while employing a few of his own. “Alone by the Door” may rest on a familiar refrain (“You know it’s funny/We ain’t got money”), but it works with the spooky burst of Theremin near the end of the song’s plucked melody. It’s all warm summers and Scooby Doo mysteries with this one. “I Want You to Be Live Everybody Else” is a bit stranger — not as overboard as Daniel Johnston, but heavily indebted to him. The rhythm section of Rob Halverson and the vocals of Leslie Sisson lend this sweet, effacing ode a bit of heaviness. Coleman III is clearly a new troubadour. Now if I can just escape this synthesized morass to find the beacon.
More about: John Wesley Coleman III
