Storefront Hitchcock: Music Fr

10/27/1998 3:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Jon Young

This stellar 1996 acoustic set is a companion piece to the Jonathan Demme-directed concert film of the same name. (Hardcore fans should note the contents of the movie and CD are not identical, and the vinyl version contains further variations!) Performing without a band, but with graceful Deni Bonet providing occasional violin, Hitchcock strips his surreal songs of the distracting whimsy that sometimes creeps into his electric records. Though it retains plenty of left-field humor, Storefront provides a clearer view of the melancholy pervading Hitchcock's work. The sardonic "Where You Go When You Die?"-- "nowhere," says Robyn--offers one of the harshest commentaries on mortality in the history of pop music.

Taking the rock out of his folk-rock also makes it easier to appreciate Hitchcock on a purely musical level. As his nimble picking on "Freeze," "I'm Only You" and other tracks demonstrates, he's an inventive guitarist; his dry, expressive vocals, in the finest Lennon tradition, are always compelling. Perverse, complex, and thoroughly engaging, this existential joker has rarely been heard to better effect.