“Blood Red Sentimental Blues”
from the album Paranoid Cocoon
2009
iTunes
Cotton Jones is the new-ish project of Michael Nau, who spun out several twee-pop statements as the brains behind Page France until the group called it quits last year. The Cumberland, Md. bandleader had quietly released a trio of EPs and 2008’s full-length, The River Strumming, under his new moniker (which was itself shortened from the Cotton Jones Basket Ride). However, Paranoid Cocoon is the strongest indication yet that Nau is ready to forge ahead with a unified new approach replete with more vintage instruments and fewer overt religious references in the lyrics. Most of all, Nau’s most noticeable adjustment is his voice, which scraps the previously favored fragility of his upper register in favor of a deeper, raspier timbre.
PF alum Whitney McGraw softens his newfound roughness with call-and-response moments and soaring harmonies on the lounge-ready “Up a Tree (Went This Heart I Have).” Together, Nau and McGraw revive the cowboy psychedelia originally captured in songs like “Some Velvet Morning” by Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra (and, more recently, She & Him). Recurrent use of the words “velvet” and “morning” in songs doesn’t hurt either.
A moment that pushes the collection up from good toward great is the whistled refrain of “By Morning Light,” which proves to be as memorable as any of Andrew Bird’s, if slightly less virtuosic. Only the instrumental “Photo Summerlove” takes the record’s lounge stylings too close to snoozefest territory. Overall, Paranoid Cocoon‘s bedroom chamber pop spins with variety and subtle dissonances aplenty. “I Am the Changer,” replete with hypnotic organ and guitar patterns, closes out the album. The song’s engaging simplicity resembles And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out-era Yo La Tengo, perhaps the last band this adept at trying on different musical styles and making them fit.