J. Tillman is a Seattle based musician who has been quietly releasing solo albums for the past few years, before which he was stick man for the instrumental rock band Saxon Shore, and now more recently he is the newly arrived drummer for Fleet Foxes. The thing is, though, those quietly released albums have been brilliant. It seems that he has been caught in the fickle tides of the internet music boom: too many artists too readily available, so someone as talented as Tillman can all too easily get ignored.Cancer And Delirium again shows off folk and country stylings as seen in Tillman's past albums, although those two terms are more like signifiers than straight up descriptors. The album has a patchwork of, roughly, two or three song types; first we have austerity, an almost suffocating bare-bones approach, ‘Visions Of A Troubled Mind', ‘Milk White Air', ‘A Fine Suit' and ‘If I Get To The Borderline' all have that same late at night and alone chilliness, with lots of space around Tillman's vocal and guitar, and some subtle accomplished backing of harmonica (‘Visions Of A...'), piano (‘A Fine Suit') and room ambience (all). With ‘Evans And Falls', ‘Ribbons Of Glass' and ‘Under The Sun' there comes more overt contributions from some of Tillman's collaborators, there is a communal band feel and a pull away from the explicit feeling of sadness in the first set of songs. The banjo goes a long way to generating this different feel, with lifting melodies in ‘Ribbons Of Glass' and ‘Under The Sun', backing vocals on both these tracks are perfect additions and some clear drumming in all three tracks add a propulsive backdrop. The last two songs are somewhat singular in their own respects, ‘When I Light Your Darkened Door' has that extra instrumentation, (drums, bass, electric guitar, backing vocals), but it is buried under a brilliant layer of analogue ambience, and there is a return to the sadness of the first set of songs, so I suppose you could call it a compound of both styles. ‘How Much Mystery' has a lighter feel with acoustic and banjo picking out similar melodies, that slight reverbing space around Tillman's voice is back, but the tone isn't the same as that first set of songs, except when you look at the lyrics, where you can see that in some ways it does return to that first set.Tillman himself has said in interviews about how he is influenced by Southern Gothic literature, and that is a good reference point to keep in mind, especially if you are familiar with Bonnie Prince Billy who also mines a similar vein. Mere snatches of scenes and situations are offered, and it is sometimes hard to come away with any concrete meaning from the song, in the end you feel you can glean just as much from letting the imagery wash over you as from trying to find a hard centre. Having said that, songs like ‘A Fine Suit', which looks at a death and a funeral, and ‘How Much Mystery', which seems to be about being unsure and at sea with life and relationships, can be read simply enough.In general, Tillman brings together lyrics that use names and phrases which only make sense in the world he has created on Cancer And Delirium, and possibly in his own head, for example: ‘Untethered, back-lit by sleight of hand' on ‘Visions Of A Troubled Mind', ‘Said the cat-scratch knees/To the pulled-back hair' on ‘Milk White Air', ‘My spring-bird does... In the gaze of Iron-side' on ‘Ribbons Of Glass'. At other times he creates startlingly beautiful imagery using physical objects that mingle with the internal world of perception and emotion, ‘Something black/Something pale/Wrapped in stone/In the milk white air' from ‘Milk White Air' has something alchemical, magical, about it, again omitting overt explanation, what he leaves out intensifying what he leaves in. With ‘Ribbons Of Glass' we get ‘Ribbons of glass/Hang along the mountain pass', a stirring yet ever so slightly skewed image, speaking of the internal anguish later in the song, but also just being plain lovely in it's own right. ‘If I Get To The Borderline' is possibly set during the civil war, with references to ‘the North Country' and a ‘stable-boy', but the line that really strikes home is near the end, ‘Spray of violets strewn ‘cross my sides', again almost needing no context to be beautiful. On ‘A Fine Suit' the listing of ‘For a wristwatch/And a cedar box/And a fine suit/Of fine linen' is so evocative due to the attention to detail in how each object is described, a painful chrome-cast scene appearing out of the darkness. Such a description can be used to describe the whole album actually; the front cover is a pretty good indicator for how most of the song and lyrics come across. An exception to this would be ‘Under The Sun', which is an aching early morning hymn that displays just how well suited Tillman is to his new band Fleet Foxes, just three lines are repeated, ‘In your own time/This too shall pass/Under the sun', less a dire warning and more a comforting promise of release.It is rather unfortunate that this album, released in 2007, never had any proper press coverage here in the UK, because it certainly deserves it. Hopefully new album Vacilando Territory Blues will fare much better. With 4 excellent albums done, a new one coming out later this year, and the wild success of Fleet Foxes, J. Tillman is on a roll. 85%Links J. Tillman [myspace] [european distribution] [tlobf loves... j. tillman] [after hours: j. tillman]