neil young - a letter home

Neil Young has a 'new' album out. Sort of. There's been a lot of comment about this one, A Letter Home, as it's one of the oddest records Neil has ever put out.

Neil visited Jack White's record store in Nashville where White has a refurbished 1940s recording booth. This immediately presses the recording onto vinyl and many vintage folk and blues records were recorded in this way, back in the day. Neil apparently loved it - not so much low-fi as no-fi whatsoever - and, contrary old goat that he is, he's recorded his whole album via the booth!

Of course this means that the record is smothered in masses of surface noise, pops, crackles and clicks, and at times you can hear the wobbly nature of the vinyl, as the songs warble and flutter. It does really sound like an old 1940s record, thin, reedy, crackly, like a voice from beyond the grave. However, I'm not sure that this is such a good thing. Recording technology has moved on for a reason.

A Letter Home contains just covers of old folk / rock tracks (Dylan, Springsteen, Jansch, Lightfoot, Willie Nelson, the Everly Brothers are all represented) and all are lovely performances, first takes, just Neil the guitar and harmonica (and on a couple of songs, Jack White also pounding away on a piano). And whilst the old fashioned recording does have an undeniable, though weird, charm, I have a feeling that the antique sound will get very annoying after a couple of listens. Which is a shame, as Neil is on fine form and is clearly having a ball, and there's a jaunty, fun mood to many of the tracks. I'd argue that all of these songs deserve to be heard in a better recording.

But this is Neil Young. Inexplicable swerves are his speciality. He's been banging on recently about PONO - a new full fat, totally non-lossless, portable, digital music format. He wants it to rival iTunes, and reckons that the quality it delivers is second to none. Apparently, the next volume of The Archives will not include Blu-Ray (like the last set) but to get the really high-end stuff you'll have to get PONO. Then, just as he's pushing PONO and top sound quality as hard as he can, he releases the lowest-fi album made by anyone in the last 60 years!

Apparently there's also a box set version (though what on earth that includes is anyone's guess - a wax cylinder? An old banjo and a rocking chair so you can create your own version?)

Gotta love Neil, but out of all the weird things he's done (and that's not a short list either!) this has to be one the weirdest ever!