One Track Mind

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Daniel Johnston is the sort of artist whose legacy speaks for itself. Since 1981′s Songs of Pain, he has been toiling relentlessly–and largely without an appropriate degree of public recognition–releasing album after album of brilliant, head-tripping songs which could only come from the slightly addled mind of a genius. Back in 2005, Johnston had a brief moment of glory as the feature of The Devil and Daniel Johnston, a documentary distributed (ironically enough) by the behemoth Sony Pictures studio. On October 6th, Johnston will release his first new record in over six years, Is and Always Was, a decidedly more polished affair in part thanks to his collaboration with indie pop songsmith and producer extraordinaire Jason Falkner.

On “Freedom,” one can hear both of these ideas at work: Falkner’s penchant for the sheen of classic pop production and Johnston’s distinctively manic, slightly scatterbrained fervor. Johnston lets slip lines like “Last night I dreamed I died in my sleep / Only to awake laying in a coffin” in a relatively disconnected flow of disclosures which are extremely personal and yet sequenced in an oddly random fashion. In addition to Johnston’s vocals, the listener is treated to militaristic drum beats, bluesy guitar riffs, distorted background harmonied, and twinkling keyboards all in a span of well under two minutes, making “Freedom” a concise but far-reaching musical statement. Longtime fans are likely to enjoy the freshness of hearing his music framed within this new perspective of studio clarity, especially since Falkner is smart enough to leave the edges frayed like exposed electrical wiring.