Gabriel Birnbaum, the man behind Boy Without God, is what you call a musician’s musician. At 23 Birnbaum has already performed with electro-clash band Catholic Skin, played the saxophone with spazz-rockers The Abraham Lincoln Brigade, joined up with Virgin Records’ Eli “Paperboy” Reed and even lent his skills to folk-poppers The Tiny Tornadoes. Since 2006, Birnbaum has shifted his focus primarily to his own solo project Boy Without God, and in that short time has released a handful of home-recorded EP’s and two full length albums (available free through his MySpace) thanks to his unique minute-a-day recording method. But last summer, Birnbaum chose to refine his overall sound with the help of producer/friend Nick Boyaijan, focusing more on arrangements that could combine his wide range of influences into a project accessible to the non-musician as well as display his impressive musical knowledge.
After to listening “Your Body is Your Soul” it’s obvious Birnbaum made the right choice in changing his approach. The songs on Boy Without God’s latest LP for Make Records are a pleasing mixture of straightforward folk-pop guitar work, melodic phrases that sound like Leonard Cohen’s baritone covering Elliot Smith’s solo work and Birnbaum’s obvious devotion to improvised musical styles of all kinds. Production-wise Birnbaum uses his aforementioned musical chops to spice up clever arrangements with small doses of saxophone, distorted toy piano, gentle banjo plucking, cheap bells and layered hand claps, all of which Birnbaum plays exclusively. Lyrically “Your Body is Your Soul” does not keep up with the album’s musicianship but still contains a sense of originality with the use of hallucinatory imagery confronting issues of death, love and sex through a slight air of self-deprecation and tenderness.
Stand-out songs on “Your Body is Your Soul” include “Holy Holy Little Fist,” which starts off similar to a noisier Animal Collective track and settles into a melody impressive enough to continue to resonating long after listening. “If You” shows Birnbaum’s softer side, channeling The Mountain Goats during subdued parts and The Magnetic Fields during the more psychedelic. The album does contain a few instrumental throw away tracks, however, a forgivable offense since they are relatively short and an indulgence one might expect from a previously instrumental musician.
Ultimately “Your Body is Your Soul” is a interesting album showing the promise of a capable, trained musician coming to terms with his gift for constructing smart pop songs.
You can buy “Your Body is Your Soul” here
by: Harold Johns III
August 20th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
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