Drag City (Caroline)
2003
Loose Fur
About This Album
Calling Loose Fur the least-inspired of Jeff Tweedy, Glenn Kotche, and Jim O'Rourke's collaborations isn't as bad as it sounds, considering that two of their other projects -- Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which O'Rourke produced, and O'Rourke's own Insignificance, which featured Tweedy and Kotche among its supporting players -- were two of the best-received albums in 2002 and 2001. As it stands, the album's laid-back, off-the-cuff experiments are just enjoyable instead of brilliant, but they nevertheless display the undeniable creative chemistry that the trio shares. Though O'Rourke, Tweedy, and Kotche share songwriting credits on all six of Loose Fur's shambling, largely acoustic tracks, their individual musical identities -- particularly Tweedy and O'Rourke's -- still bubble to top occasionally, most notably on the album's first two songs. The backwater Krautrock of "Laminated Cat" sets Tweedy's earthy, earnest vocals against percolating synths, a lumbering guitar lick, and an intricate, kinetic drum pattern, making it a slightly rough-around-the-edges kissing cousin to the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot material. "Elegant Transaction," on the other hand, captures the fey, folky, Steely Dan-tinged feel of O'Rourke's Drag City solo work to the hilt.
Track List (try tracks 1,4 and 6)

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