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Release Info : Whip is the solo
project of Timesbold's Jason Merritt, and functions as an outlet for
some of his less band-orientated musings; those that are better served
by more sparse, minimal arrangements.
Press Release : Whip
is the solo project of Timesbold's Jason Merritt, and Atheist
Lovesongs To God is his latest project. As graciously acceded by the
man himself ‘parts of my songs have been respectfully borrowed from Tom Rapp,
Leadbelly, Lou Reed, Neil Young, Mick Jagger and John Lennon’, but
as impressive a list of references this is, it’s more of an
endorsement than anything. Whip’s love songs encompass a wide range of
familiar touchpoints whilst retaining their creator’s sense of freedom
an individuality. We’re sure the undersigned would more than approve. ‘These
songs have made my mother cry.’ His
second LP as Whip, Atheist
Lovesongs To God is the result of a prolonged period of solitude
towards the end of 2003 when, having just returned from a tour with
Timesbold, Merritt simply shut himself into his home in Brooklyn, New
York, and stayed there. The recurring theme throughout the album is
alluded to in its title. Whip's self-confessed inability to allow any
sort of God into his life, while harbouring an overwhelming need for the
sense of solace and security that it may provide. This results in a
collection of songs that Jason claims are the ‘closest
thing I have found to divinity.’ ‘Being an American
atheist today feels like I'd imagine a pagan felt a few centuries
ago’.
Atheist Lovesongs To God is loaded with musical and literary reference points. While the vocals are perhaps instantly reminiscent of Will Oldham or Bonne Prince Billy, Whip himself has been variously filed under the auspices of anti-folk, new weird America and alt-country, without ever satisfying straightforward labels nor categorisation. The warm attention to detail in his work speaks louder than simple adjectives could ever hope. ‘I believe in writing songs that don't need to be sung by me, a good song can be sung by anyone. As Leadbelly said introducing his classic song Irene Goodnight, ‘this is a real song, not one that was written by anybody’ Whip has been releasing records on small independent labels for the last five years, steadily accruing a modest but dedicated following which stretched from Japan to Croatia, Moscow to Yisplanti and back again. His live CV is just as varied, having played with or toured with the likes of Mercury Rev, Iron And Wine, Garth Hudson of The Band, South San Gabriel, Blonde Redhead, legendary psych-folk mavericks the Tower Recordings, Alan Sparhawk of Low, and others far too numerous to mention. ‘I
only work by invitation, if it's a club or a stairwell or an empty
swimming pool, if the invitation is sincere, I'll play’
Reviews :
What with Bush now blaming him/her/it for the war in Iraq, I daresay God is in need of a bit of well-intentioned TLC to keep the spirits up... The solo work of Timebold's Jason Merritt, Whip is an outlet for the more personal and folk blistered songs creeping about his musical cranium; with 'Atheist Lovesongs to God' his second LP. Sharing a bourbon soaked predilection with the likes of John Webster Johns, Will Oldham and Matt Elliot, Merritt wears his bleeding heart firmly on the sleeve, carving painful aural confessions from his evidently bruised soul. Opening on the Fairport Convention meets The Godfather of 'One For Fire' ("no matter what kinds of trouble you bring, I'll turn it all into ashes"), Merritt then sets about plundering all corners of Americana to articulate his tales of pain, hope and confusion. Whilst this manifests as undulating acoustica on 'Oh Why' and bluegrass dusted banjo in 'Perfect Dive', elsewhere 'Ballad of Cobain' is Smog-like in its crushing directness whilst 'While' is a sparkly nursery rhyme. Gorgeous. BOOMKAT In publishing, we are told, timing is everything. This has the ring of truth to it; certainly, Dan Brown would be living a very different life right now if The Da Vinci Code had been sent to the printers a century ago! Likewise, it's possible that Atheist Lovesongs to God arrived in the hands of a Christian-turned-agnostic at almost the precise point at which that momentous change took place. Or perhaps Jason Merritt is really as good as he seems -- right now, yesterday, and tomorrow, regardless of who's listening. In any case, his spare, evocative country folk sound is captivating. Tense, ghostly, absorbing and creepy as hell, Whip's music will give you good reason to brood, even if you're not in the middle of a philosophical crisis. Atheist Lovesongs to God, as a title, is an unsubtle hint at the issues over which Merritt -- who fronts like-sounding folk act Timesbold when he's feeling less reclusive -- wrings his hands throughout the disc. While Merritt has a predilection for cryptic metaphor, a sense of existential angst pervades his songs and communicates the concepts that prosaic turns of phrase often do not. He's at least as conflicted as his album title suggests, and it's driving him nuts. Much of the difficulty Merritt faces becomes clear in "Ballad of Cobain". "I slept where Cobain slept / Dreamt where Cobain dreamt / One year, I married Cobain / One year, I buried his slain / It's cold and the windows are dark / There's blood on the miracle spark... I found holes in shadows / Roses in lions' manes. / Good people drowning in droves / And I know what Cobain knows." Simply evoking Kurt Cobain has become a sort of shorthand for spiritual confusion and frustration -- the former choirboy recorded some very powerful music on the subject himself, and might be darkly amused to see that he's often depicted with angel wings and a halo -- but Merritt makes it more explicit than that. In describing his witnessing of the bleakest of the bleak (Holes in shadows, fer Chrissake) and asserting that he knows what drove Cobain -- a suicide at least as famous in modernity as Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun -- to death, he presents a classic case against belief in any kind of divinity. There's an implicit expression of hope here as well. If he knows what Cobain knows (note the present tense), if he can actually see what drove a talented, successful, famous man to take his own life, the natural question to ask is why Merritt hasn't offed himself, too. In another context, the answer might be less clear, but here it seems likely that he's expressing a sort of hope beyond reason that there is, if not a god per se, at least some form of divinity that gives purpose to such earthly horrors. Much of Atheist Lovesongs..., then, can be read as an attempt to find and express Merritt's own special kind of hope and divinity. In "Father", he sings of his lover, her father, whose death he dreams, and the good wishes they share for her future: "For I believe you have the choice / Hear this word and hear his voice / Love yourself as I love you / Love and wish and sing in tune." In "Nature", against a backdrop of warm banjo, acoustic guitar and shuffling percussion, he makes a sweet, sentimental plea for us to slow the engines of industry and slow down our planet-killing efforts. From a musical perspective, "Perfect Dive" is the album's standout track. Though its cryptic chorus -- "When God moves on water, / You better do a perfect dive" -- doesn't make a whole lot of sense, the Southern banjo, whispering theremin, accordion (probably), scraping percussion and deep, deep drums make for a musically rich song that recalls the bayou and grand old Southern churches. The bitterly gleeful party tune "16th Mission" features a great sing-along chorus and playful, bouncy western rhythm. The sparse acoustic "Reckless Goodness" climaxes in a roaring, majestic electric guitar riff borrowed directly from Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and the soupy "While" drags on a little too long with Merritt a little too close to the mic, but makes such good use of the theremin that you won't think to complain. Listeners in the midst of a philosophical struggle for meaning of any sort will find Merritt's work to be an insightful (if sometimes unnecessarily obfuscated) expression of that search, and the quasi-mystical resolution at which he ultimately arrives results in rich, emotionally powerful music that will appeal to any fan of modern alt-Americana. Sometimes unsettling, often strangely comforting, Atheist Lovesongs to God's host of contradictions are a powerful statement -- not the muddled musings its title suggests. SPLENDIDEZINE Most people, if they locked themselves away and thought too much about whether God exists or not, would probably go a bit nuts. Not Jason Merritt, though. He’s produced a solo album, the fifth under the name Whip, that documents his thoughts during one such prolonged withdrawal from the world. Steeped in the musical past, including Dylan, Young, Cohen and even Guthrie, the album stands shoulder to shoulder with works by peers like Mercury Rev and Will Oldham, and stares life unflinchingly in the face. Listening to it feels like cruising in the slipstream of an alt-country juggernaut, waiting to be catapulted out into the unknown. This is an album written by a man who is so comfortable in his skin that he’s not afraid to question the meaning of his life. He has embraced the tradition of storytelling through music to try to make sense of existence in a way that draws together blue-grass, country and folk. At once a deeply personal album and yet also a very communal one, Merritt has described the songs he has written as being the closest thing to divinity that an atheist could probably find. It’s not an idle boast, either. Every song bar one is under 4 minutes long. The arrangements are sparse and minimal, uncluttered by attempts to force meaning into the songs. The simple melodies and precise lyrics bring meaning enough. 16th Mission is a blue-grass stomp out, an atheist’s take on the kind of hollerin’, rockin’ singalong favoured by travelling preachers in 30s dustbowl America. Other songs, like Ballad Of Cobain, are folkish cousins of that other New York poet-philosopher, Leonard Cohen. One For Fire aches and weeps and weaves gamelan xylophone and cymbal through the clockwork rhythms of guitar and banjo. Ballad Of Rapp and Father are twin tracks that share a simple guitar strummed rhythm. Ballad Of Rapp is a waltz of hope that pre-electric Dylan would have been proud of, while Father is a lullaby and a love song. The weakest track on the album is one that clocks in at just over 6 minutes. The intention of While might be to offer up something ethereal and dreamlike, but it merely drifts aimlessly, lacking the pithiness and surety of the other tracks – the unwanted middle-aged spread on an otherwise taut torso. Happily, that’s the only aberration on what is pretty much a perfect album. Equal parts comfort, pain, hope and confusion, Atheist Lovesongs To God is a collection of real songs that will crawl under your skin and make their home there. ANGRYAPE Atheist Lovesongs To God, the second full-length by Whip (Jason Merritt), offers an intimate glimpse into the Timesbold member's world. The title alludes to Merrit's inability to accept God while simultaneously desiring the solace such belief would impart. Don't assume, however, that such existential concerns translate into tortuous angst; though it's rooted in a folk-blues style, his music favours composed dignity over despair, due in large part to a vocal delivery that evidences little trace of the anguish that suffuses the singing of, say, Kurt Cobain. As most songs are ballads (predominantly waltz time too), an uptempo romp like “16th Mission” stand out for its bold contrast. While the material often adheres to the gothic folk-blues tradition with Merritt donning the guise of raconteur (“Ballad of Rapp,” “Father”), one of the recording's strongest songs is also the least characteristic: the penultimate “While” stands out as particularly memorable for its haunted melodies and a hazy, slightly psychedelic arrangement. Merritt subtly enhances his starkly arranged acoustic settings with mandolins, banjos, accordion, glockenspiels, and even a Jew's harp on “Reckless Goodness.” Though inner sleeve text states “All songs written by Whip with parts respectfully borrowed from Tom Rapp, Leadbelly, Lou Reed, Neil Young, Mick Jagger, John Lennon, and several others less obviously,” such 'borrowing' doesn't declare itself in as obvious and conspicuous a manner as the note implies. In fact, the connection is sometimes so subtle it's easy to miss; lyrics in “16th Mission” (“Suckin' on a silver spoon / Dead flowers howlin' at the moon / With a face of flaming fire / Balanced on a golden wire”) are so evocative, you hardly notice the Sticky Fingers reference. Given the inclusion of a stark and affectionate tribute to Nirvana's frontman (“Ballad of Cobain”), it's surprising the late icon isn't included in the list; similarly, after listening to the clatter of junkyard percussion in the back-porch banjo shuffle “Perfect Dive” (“When God moves on water / Better do perfect dive”), one might wonder why Tom Waits' name isn't on the list too. TEXTURA
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