Little

Sound DNA

• Rock

About

Vic Chesnutt had a drunk-driving accident in his late teens that left him a near quadriplegic. What little mobility he has is in his hands and he applies that energy to wringing out each note on the guitar. This “handicap” has forced him to think about music differently than more agile players and as a result his songs focus more on incisive character studies that gain in nuance with the floating pauses that occur as Chesnutt sets up his next musical riff. He’d been performing around Athens, Georgia throughout the late ‘80s when R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe decided to throw him into a recording studio to capture for posterity these songs that would otherwise go lost to the ages. Chesnutt played on a nylon string guitar, adding occasional overdubs of Casio keyboard. This “lo-fi” approach is practically cinema verite. But what the album lacks in finesse, it makes up for in intimacy, as the overwhelming sadness of the misfits recounted (“Danny Carlisle,” “Gepetto,” “Isadora Duncan”) receive their moment in the spotlight as the narrator empathizes with their doomed fates to society’s margins. Often chilling.

via Apple Music

Tracklist

Credits