SOTD #146 // Wise Blood: ‘Solo (for Claire)'

07 October 2010, 20:27 | Written by Paul Bridgewater

(Tracks)

"When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs as you do, you can relax a little and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock—to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind, you draw large and startling figures."

So wrote the great Flannery O’Connor in The Fiction Writer & His Country, a succinct and simple a description of the artist’s role as communicator as one could ever pen. Apt too considering Pittsburgh resident Christopher Laufman – aka Wise Blood – has co-opted the title of O’Connor’s other masterwork for his musical offerings, which attempt such communication on a dazzling number of levels.

Laufman’s bandcamp website – hazemotes.bandcamp.com – even takes its URL from ‘Hazel Motes’, the anti-hero of the great novel. What does this tell us about him? Connor claimed that her creation Motes was “not Christ-centered, but Christ-haunted”, rejecting guilt and redemption. There’s a similar disregard for boundaries and forgiveness in Wise Blood’s first physical release.

‘Solo (for Claire)’ is an arrogant and aggressive stampede of a song, tinged with overtly predatory undertones. It begins with a lift from Anne Frank’s diary and closes with the filthy frenetic rub-up of the line “Claire I wanna meet you/Tie you up and teach ya tonight….”

Laufmann’s a burgeoning musical visionary of sorts; the download only + EP showcased an impressive cut-and-paste approach to songwriting that brushed up against a cupboard-full of influences but ‘Solo (for Claire)’ leans away from the more experimental side to his sound, into something that would be laughably parodic if it wasn’t so downright delicious.

What do we call this? Garage-glam? Referencing Mark Bolan seems to obvious, too easy but ‘Solo (for Claire)’ drips with the lovejuice of a million backstreet fingerings: it’s sordidly lovely in that way that T Rex was on ‘Hot Love’ and ‘Get it On’.

The 7″ double-A-side ‘Solo (4 Claire)’ / ‘Rot My Brain Away’ is out sometime in November via Transparent.

Wise Blood: ‘Solo (for Claire)’