JORDAAN MASON AND THE HORSE MUSEUM – DIVORCE LAWYERS I SHAVED MY HEAD
Divorce Lawyers I Shaved My Head is a sad album. In fact, Divorce Lawyers is a certain kind of sad album: ‘indie sad’. Think Arcade Fire, with a generous dash of Xiu Xiu’s visceral imagery: swallowing shotguns, shotgun weddings, sex and abuse … the list could go on. All credit to Mason, who carries strings of such imagery on the strength of his strained voice; he often sounds as if he might collapse under the pressure of it all. The basic formula is Mason expounding the intimate sorrows of various characters while he alternatively plucks and pounds his nylon-string, with the Horse Museum pulling up the rear. They are the colour to Mason’s Canadian pale: bassoons, flute, accordion, piano. It’s all played with amateur earnestness, like a church band, and the whole thing sounds like it was recorded in a basement. This isn’t a criticism: the production values, or lack thereof, add a layer of charm and authenticity to the whole pageant. That being said, there isn’t much more to this album. It’s an exercise in fictional (let’s hope) over-sharing and the whole thing gets a little tedious at times. But the general feeling Divorce Lawyers evokes is ‘teenage emotional overload’ without the cheese. This will be good music, when you’re in the mood for something depressing and under-produced.
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