I don't understand what you are trying to say here. Or perhaps I do but I just don’t want to entertain such a simplistic definition of “democracy.”



I am actually surprised at how good the reviews are given that I would give it something like 2.5 or 2 out of 5 and I consider myself a big fan. I was expecting worse from the critics.



Ya... he has largely been a critics darling but I don't see anything wrong with him criticizing the negative reviews. I mean, I think it is a natural reaction for someone that WAS a critic's darling... don't you? The negative reviews must certainly be surprising but his thoughts will change with time. We should be happy that he shares his thoughts/emotions with us like how he does... fresh and raw.



I know that I will not be listening to it on a regular basis... at least until I get around to chopping off the starting and ending of many songs. The first time I heard those little quips and odd noises I was amused but I just can't deal with them for repeat listening.

Even with this said, I think I can handle another album from them like this until they get to where I think they are headed... delivering something that is in between Nuclear Daydream and Let's Just Be. I think that the Let’s Just Be songs (and quite a few of the songs that didn’t make the cut) are better than most of the Nuclear Daydream songs but they just need more work. As well, quite a few of the tracks on Let's Just Be are exclusively Joseph so I don't really perceive this album as a full work of the "band" but I think once we get a true full collaboration, it will be great. And hopefully cleaner and given how, in the past, Joseph has said that he always looks back at what he has done and tries to do something totally different as he moves on, it is not unreasonable to hear something totally different in an album or two.


Troll.

I'm also feeling... well, something about Joe's reaction. Because it sounds strange.

If you think about what he's saying, it seems as if he cares enough about critics to tell us that he doesn't care about them. So, either he wants to assure his fans that he's perfectly well with his new record (which he has been saying over and over) or he needs to confirm to himself that the negative reviews don't matter to him by saying it out loud. But in the end, it strikes me as a contradiction to openly adress something that you don't care about. Well, you could say that he cares and makes it his new defining moment, but it's still strange to me...

About music critics - I'm one myself, sort of, as I review music for our student radio (mostly online articles lately). In the end, you have to think about one thing: Who do you adress?
Mostly, as I also get to review music that I wouldn't normally listen to, I try to showcase the artist and music and tell people to check it out themselves if it looks interesting. I do not use a points system. Lately, though, I've got to admit that I've been trashing a few records just because I really don't think that they're good efforts. Still, I always know that there are people who like this music and, more importantly, people who make that music (something I can relate to as my own efforts at music have been continuosly trashed/ignored by my potential audience ).
But in the end, I've written enough on the page so that people might know me, might know what my musical taste is and when I might be wrong about a record. Plus, I doubt that my reviews will lead to just one CD that's not being sold.

So, think about a mainstream magazine. What are they gonna do? Give LJB a great rating just because Joe is such a cool guy, has done so many good records and has such devoted fans? Or rather evaluate it so that the mainstream audience can put it into perspective?
Do you take Joe's word that it's a great record, or can't you rely on that because no artist will say that his record is bad (at least not when it comes out), and you'd rather have your own opinion anyway?
In the end, they write for an audience who like Fall Out Boy. Why shouldn't there be a magazine for this? And if it's a big magazine, might that be because many people are into that kind of music (maybe superficially because they do not care as much about music as the regular blogger / internet fan does)?
Isn't Joe's message also one of "everyone as he pleases"? Ray Wilson told me once when we spoke about Rolling Stone magazine (which we both dislike), "They don't speak for us." And that's it. Joe has never been mainstream compatible except for two songs. ND was "his most accesible record", and the press sounds as if it were his crowning achivement. And it sold about 10000 copies.

My point is - why do we even ask what the mainstream thinks about the record? And why is it such a big thing that the critics mostly don't like it as much if there are also enough fans to share their opinion? I mean, nobody has said that it was really bad yet. Plus, it's some kind of a debut album.


If you review lots of stuff in a short time, you can't find out the exact facts about each musician, which makes for some funny mistakes from time to time, I can tell you about that...
As for your opinion on these opinions, I think most of the artciles were quite accurate (except for the one who wanted the label or producer to slow Joe down ). Normally, praise for In The Sun and Honey tends to get funnier as people who really don't know anything about Joe write about them, too...

I don't find his response strange. I mean, I am sure that we can all understand the need to be accepted and recognized for your efforts... regardless of whether it is new disc, a gallery or something more mundane. In this respect, critics -whether or not you value them and their purpose- represent a primary means through which you -as a musician- can receive recognition within pop culture so it matters what they say... but not really.



A bad or positive review would never influence whether I bought a Joseph disc but I am still interested in what they have to say (because I want him to receive the recognition he deserves and I want to know if other people are thinking what I am) so I think the whole idea of a review is a contradiction in and of itself: it is someone telling you whether you would like something when only you can determine this. And, even more contradictory, I have often found that when I an really put off by new music it is sometimes because it is too much for me to accept at first and I often end up loving it after further consideration... another contraction.

I guess what I am trying to say that it doesn't matter to me if he is being contradictory (or changing his mind about future releases) because I don’t perceive contradiction as proof of insincerity or duplicity or something negative. I think contradiction is reflective of being passionate about what you are doing, what you think, etc and as artist, he needs to be passionate or else he wouldn't be any good at what he does and, finally, I like the fact that he shares his thoughts the way he does (fresh and raw)… I just don’t like his music delivered in the same way. Another contradiction I know

Anyway, I like this quote from Walt Whitman:

Totally agree with you Marco, I also used to review when I was at uni, and worked for some local and more or less bigger magazines, and I relate to your feelings. When i said what sort of training course i was doing, most of people said 'cool must be interesting' but lots of people also were quite aggressive, one person even told me, without having read any of my work : 'well your reviews...opinions are like assholes everyone's got one' . At first I was stunned by the vulgarity and how in your face it was, but then I figured it out that people imagine we think we have a right of death or life on artists' careers which is, to the exception of the great Lester Bangs, certainly wrong or at least exagerated. I think we are more guides than dictators so please don't take this too seriously. Then if i had Poe in front of me I would tell him that Ziggy Stardust was both a critical and commercial success at the time, and it is just one isolated review he found. And if I had Joseph in front of me, I would tell im the reviews aren't so bad and he shouldn't freak out! To reply to freak, yes the first sign of a dictatorship is when the press is being manipulated. It always starts this way. You used the expression 'press darling' but is that a really normal, fair situation? Press should never have darlings, shouldn't be used for advertising. In an ideal world, press would be 100% real, and the readers, the artists 100% respectful of them. At our level of readers or artists, we should show them respect but we do not necessarily have to agree with them or think they are mrs know it all. And I think Joseph's previous albums, especially big city secrets were gems that diserved the good reviews. So we're not talking darlings here. I hope not. I think Joseph should take it lightly , put the bad reviews first page on his website and stop talking about them ( he already talked too much to play it cool )If bad is the new good so go ahead brother, this would be super rock n roll and worthy of him! I genuinely think Joe rocks.
peace and love bros
G

HUH??? A dictatorship? The press being manipulated? Now I am stunned!

I think that he is (was?) a "critics darling" not because the press was being "manipulated." It was because he delivered excellent music... like Afghan Whigs for example (another band that did not have the $ recognition to match the praise of the critics). It happens all the time.

I have often wondered how you can have big names in the music business like REM, Tracy Chapman, Peter Gabriel, etc and actors like Juliette Lewis, Keanu Reaves, etc behind you and NOT be more recognized… and NOT sell more than 10,000 copies of an album (with 10,000 being nothing). How is it that he -as part of a business- has not been more successful: that is, why has the business NOT been "manipulated" in his favour!! Explain that one to me.


Again...

All the big names in music press have strong lobbies behind them, and their work is, unfortunately, advertisement. But all those local papers don't have anybody who's looking upon their shoulders and they're probably telling what they really think.

A darling is a person loved in an unconditional way, may this love be blinded sometimes and can't see what's wrong with the darling, he's a can't do any harm...c'mon...we all know somebody like this, a younger brother or sister, that girl or boy at school teachers prefered to anybody else. It all seemed unfair by moments to us, though we were still able to see what dead them to see that way, because the darling is usually good to start with. Darling, especially if it is a press darling, is a rather pejorative term to my eyes, maybe we don't seem to agree on that.

Why the advertisement did not work?
Well plenty of reasons for that...it's almost mathematical. REM almost always take young virtually unknown bands or singers for their opening act, for example, Jonathan Rice ( not Damien) opened for REM just after Joseph did. Didn't seem to help the much. The audience of Tracy chapman, please remember, was very cold to Joseph and gave him a bad time. People who go to those gigs, for the large majority, pay very little attention to the opening act. It's almost always true, except for guns n roses who were famous to eclipse any band when they were opening acts, motley crue can probably tell you about it. This is a rare exception to the rule. And hard rock is another beast.

Keanu Reeves? Well...mentioned at some point in two or three reviews/interviews , don't forget that Reeves doesn't keep the press excited because since matrix his career is very calm. Well, to be really exciting, Joseph would need somebody like Gael garcia bernal, jack gyllenhaal, those kind of actors that are all the buzz now. Sad but Simple...Lewis, Joseph reported in one of his posts he bet with his friends about pulling an hollywood actress. Think david copperfield and claudia schiffer, but there was no wedding, no duet as a single, in brief, no event to report exciting enough for the press. Look at Pete Doherty and Kate moss, now that's what i call advertising a relationship. But then, forget Pete and Kate, Joseph reported in one of his posts he bet with his friends about pulling an hollywood actress. Rather hink david copperfield and claudia schiffer. Furthermore, Lewis' band did not convince the mainstream and her movie career is well behind her. It's an interesting case of him, attentpting to catch a new rock wild image, and she, trying to get some indie credibility. For a good advertsing, I would recommend Scarlett Johansson, Nathalie portman, well this kind of actress. johansson, gyllenhaal, you see, that kind... popular though not mega huge but with a chic image. Then, since Ryan Adams made an habit of going out with actresses ( lost the count) press won't get excited by a new ryan .

Peter Gabriel? He used to be on his label. He's not anymore. It was years ago, furthermore Gabriel he's not your typical producer, through realworld, he tried to bring world music to the mainstream, it's not meant to be popular.if Joseph was produced by a heavy weight in production, nigel godrich or bowie, visconti , spector or pharell williams( why not?) his artistic family would be immediately assimilated by the public. It really helps. Even Cohen was famously produced by Spector, Cohen did not like the result but hey, it's one of the fans' favorite and the tumult behind the recording of two legends meeting surely made the buzz.
Love the debate, wow it really inspires me. Hope my analysis convinced you or at least brought another solid point of view on the conundrum of why an artis. I just think he's been unlucky with his strategies. Listening to his heart and his intuitions rather than following strategies, delivering his unique crazy folk rock to his real fans is the way we seem to prefer Joseph, for most of us. I think losing the virgin/realworld deal left him in the fear of losing visibility, and if you look at his career, you know that the strategies all came those last years rather than in the middle or at the start of his career. Like all artists and sensitive beings, he's vulnerable and it may explain the different attempts. I think he needed a huge encouragement when realworld dropped him, at that time in particular. I realise now after this analysis, that maybe we did not pay enough attention to this event that changed more or less everything, if of course this analysis is correct. I think it's an interesting debate, and it's a never ending one! I just hope I don't contradict myself.

good night babes

The discussion is now moving off topic. If you want to discuss this further, please move it to the Joseph Arthur forum.

Joseph Arthur & The Lonely Astronauts
Let’s Just Be
C+

As laid back as its title, Let’s Just Be shambles, mutters, and drones its way through eighty minutes as though Joseph Arthur left the tape running while he finally worked out some of his Lennon jones aided by a proper band. Mumbling comments and directions punctuate the whole exercise; one song concludes with the band playing Who Can Snore Loudest? at the end of a long drunken jam. The band is having plenty of fun, but whether you’re invited depends on how much gratuitous pissing about you’ll put up with. Production-wise, Let’s Just Be feels like a bedroom recording even when the crescendos bathe the songs in the sonic equivalent of a laser light show. It makes for excellent travel, or at least departure, music.

It’s not quite the transformation of Nick Cave’s recent Grinderman album, but the comparison holds true—each has a renewed sense of abandon. Arthur’s first major record, Come To Where I’m From, was an intensely claustrophobic experience, melodies walled in by his meticulous one-man arrangements, deftly constructed to be reproducible on stage by Arthur on his own. Let’s Just Be is as poppy and willfully idiosyncratic as Arthur’s older work, but is both more conventionally arranged and more loose-limbed than ever before. His band’s radioactive takes on classic rock riffs are backed up by sitars and meandering, mock-mystic drones. In places the album is deliberately impregnable to casual listening, elsewhere as approachable as the neighborhood tipsy bar band.

Arthur gets dirtier than ever before—he’s either been getting laid more often or needs to—singing, with a frank pleading in his voice, “Taste you like a woman” on the sly, seedy “Precious One.” Arthur actually sounds pleased to be cohabiting, and even hands off vocals for a couple of tracks. Whether the single-takes feel counts as a good thing will mostly depend on how you feel about Arthur’s songwriting, which is as strong as ever, causally sliding between tongue-in-cheek pseudo-sexual frenzy à la “Cockteeze,” and lugubrious mourning songs à la “Chicago,” which amply recalls Arthur’s “In The Sun” (aka The One Covered by Michael Stipe and Chris Martin).

Let’s Just Be’s twenty-minute centerpiece, “Lonely Astronaut,” is a different kind of claustrophobia for Arthur—perhaps agoraphobia is better. Half-finished thoughts trip over lusty, ruptured reminiscences and solipsistic twitching—a good ten minute section consists of blasts of raunchy, discordant noise punctuated by Arthur and band groaning “I.” Having seen off all the acoustic guitar lovers, Arthur gets maudlin again in the midst of the collapse, singing “I love you, stay out of reach, some things you can’t teach.” Nothing else on the album is nearly as aggressive, ambitious or flat-out weird; lying at the exact mid-point of the album, it’s destined to be skipped in most listens but deserves better, and promises proper destruction in live versions.

Let’s Just Be’s particular confusion is a sort of acoustical bipolarism. By turns art- and bedroom-rock, eye-popping and inward. Arthur’s grinning, willful agnosticism will piss off just about everyone at some point, and the record appears designed to self-destruct after a few plays—“Gimme Some Company” teasingly rips both “Lithium” and “On A Plain,” a tickling that can only be cured by a proper Nirvana workout. But all the studio chatter helps frame the record as a document of a particular moment rather than an attempt at timelessness. By the time the album closes on the sitar-saturated “Star Song,” with Arthur addressing himself, or perhaps his many forebears—“You need to find a dream now / That can give / What you could not pay / Cause you / Have the ears of the world, now / But you ain’t got a thing to say / Need a little time away, dear”—you’re more than ready to listen to something with a little more pretension, and a little less too.

(from Stylus Magazine)

this week's ECLECTIC highlights

joseph arthur and the lonely astronauts
joseph arthur has teamed up with his band the lonely astronauts for his 6th studio offering, let's just be. while much of this album seems to be a work in experimentation (even more so than usual for arthur), there are some solid nuggets here: diamond ring, lack a vision and the title track, let's just be.

(from radioioEclectic)

Joseph Arthur & the Lonely Astronauts
Let’s Just Be (Indica)

The good news about Joseph Arthur’s latest is he’s eased up on the sensitive, vulnerable schtick and rocks out like never before. The bad news is it required either drugs or psychosis to do it, because parts of Let’s Just Be exhibit self-indulgence on a scale not heard from an established artist since Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music 30 years ago. So, be amused by Arthur bursting from his shell but keep the skip button handy. The strident chorus on “Precious One” shows a little swagger never hurt anybody but the nadir of this album is the last 15 minutes of “Lonely Astronaut”—tolerable only to masochists and the deaf.

Doug Taylor, Published April 26, 2007
(from The Coast - Halifax, NS, Canada)

"Let's Just Be" Joseph Arthur & The Lonely Astronauts

Overall Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
Lyrics: 5 stars
Music: 4 stars
Vocals: 5 stars

Artist's sophomore effort blends folk, electric vibe

Art-folk songwriter Joseph Arthur, popularized by several of his songs that graced "The OC's" soundtrack, is back in action with two releases for 2007. The first, "Let's Just Be," dropped April 17 and finds Arthur accompanied by his backers, The Lonely Astronauts.

Arthur got his start in the mid-1990s when world-renown abstract musician Peter Gabriel signed him to Real World Records. Arthur released "Big City Streets" in 1997 through Gabriel's label and extensively toured with then-label mates Ben Harper and Gomez. He continued his musical drifting throughout the late '90s and early 2000s, exploring electronic sounds and aesthetics to complement his already emotive folk/rock tunes.

Arthur always has taken an artful approach to his music - in 1999 he and co-artist Zachary Larner received a Grammy nomination for Best Recording Package for the design on his EP, "Vacancy."

While the EP received a good amount of attention for its artistic enterprise, many of Arthur's covers are of his own design, an aspect that keeps his music consistently new. He brings a new meaning to musical artist - because indeed, he is both. His Web site even contains an art gallery of paintings and sketches he has done. His inter-medium exploration continued into 2006 when he published a collection of his artwork and released a musical accompaniment, "The Invisible Parade."

Listeners will find Arthur revisiting very similar sounds on "Let's Just Be" - ethereal electronics and atmospheric vocals flutter throughout the 16-track disc. But other elements intensify many of the songs on this full-band effort, as electric guitars in their various effects push through "Diamond Ring" and "Cocaine Feet."

Flagshipping "Just Be" is the band's and record label's namesake song, "Lonely Astronaut," a 20-minute-plus extravaganza of sounds and shapes. Arthur opens with a metaphoric sigh, "Here comes the rain, fallin' down like ecstasy." Halfway through the sixth minute, Arthur's left brain kicks into full gear, unleashing a frenzy of hellish electronics, drums and guitars. The remaining portions are drenched in obscurity, a squeaking acoustic riff interspersed with a voice declaring "I" and "love."

This is Arthur's second full-length album produced on his own label, Lonely Astronaut Records.

The other, "Nuclear Daydream," was released in 2006, the same year the normally solo musician embarked on a tour with a full band. The label launched with the help of Eric Gerber and Lauren Pattenaude with the intent of regularly releasing great music.

Fans of Arthur easily could say his music is hard to predict, and each subsequent release could venture along any number of sonic avenues, from true folk to rock 'n' roll into flowering abysses of psychedelia. Arthur's composition on "Let's Just Be" is no different - the album is broken into two parts. Arthur's solo work with dampened music and forthcoming vocals.

After track eight, "Lonely Astronaut," Arthur kicks into a new gear - darker by design, flirting with tragedy. The final tracks lack cohesion, and there is no rhyme or reason to their placement. "Cocaine Feet" resembles an overly aggressive attempt at "pyscho-blues" tinged with metal.

Almost as soon as "Cocaine Feet" starts walking, it falls into a sequence of alt-folk singer-songwriter pieces that initiated his name into pop culture.

by Trey Scroggin, April 26th, 2007
(from Lansing Lowdown)

I don't understand how this could get a 5 stars for lyrics

>>Let's Just Be" Joseph Arthur & The Lonely Astronauts

Overall Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
Lyrics: 5 stars
Music: 4 stars
Vocals: 5 stars <<

Bill

Joseph Arthur
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Let’s Just Be (Lonely Astronaut Records)
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New album from the pop artist takes a dirty 180 degree turn. Panpot contributor Ryan Clark knows exactly what Joseph Arthur should do with his copy of ‘Exile on Main Street’.

Remember when you were eleven years old or so and you hijacked your stepfather’s copy of the White Album and listened to “Why don’t we do it in the road?” over and over again in your little sexless room and thought that Paul McCartney must be some sort of bad ass, sex crazed, maniac? Remember how you felt years later, sitting in your still sexless first year dorm room, staring at those big brown eyes on the 8 x 10 glossy, when you realized that Paul McCartney had probably never done it in road, wasn’t bad ass or dangerous at all, and had fooled you for years into thinking he was, by blanketing what was obviously a very thought out and heavily crafted song into the guise of a raw and pressing sound? No? Well that’s exactly how I feel about Joseph Arthur’s latest release, Let’s Just Be; like someone is trying to pass themselves off as being a down and out rocker willing to release an album, “warts and all if it has the right feeling,” when in reality we’re still dealing with the same dude who had a song on the Shrek 2 soundtrack, and has been aiming for the middle of the musical road for years.

I’m not sure what may have brought on the strange divergence, but he is consciously avoiding the sheen and polished pop of his previous efforts, choosing instead to go for a dirty, sloppy bar rock vibe, complete with way too much slide guitar and T-Rex style falsetto harmony vocals on nearly every track. There is nothing wrong with an artist trying to reinvent themselves in the light of a new sound; many of the best rock records of all time come from people attempting to radically mix up their comfortable scenes by bringing in styles of playing or genres of music that differ wildly from what they are famous for doing. It does however, take an artist with enough foresight and taste to be able to manoeuvre these changes convincingly, or without coming across as an impostor or a fraud. Unfortunately, Joseph Arthur hasn’t really succeeded on either of those two levels and it is a real mystery as to who he thinks will like this record: anyone who liked his previous releases probably won’t like the new, ragged sound and anyone who digs the Stones’ style rock and roll that he’s ripping off wouldn’t buy a Joseph Arthur record.

This record kind of sounds like the product of someone who wants to try to stick it to their record label, though I fear that this probably isn’t the case. Unfortunately there is either a serious lack of musical judgment or a complete lack of caring going on here. One listen through the 20 minute track, “Lonely Astronaut”, which I shit you not, contains a 10 minute plus section where Arthur repeats the word “I” a dozen or so times in a monotonous and banal mantra over top of a “psychedelic groove” until he transitions to the next word, “love,” repeating the same clever trick for a few more minutes, really solidifies this point that something just isn’t right. I can’t tell you if he ever reaches the much anticipated “you,” because I ripped the CD out of the machine and hurled it across the room before the song could reach its artist nadir.

I guess we can only hope that Arthur will lose his copy of Exile on Main Street and get back to making the kind of innocuous pseudo world music that we’ve come to expect from him.

www.josepharthur.com

Ryan Clark
(from Panpot.ca)

Track Reviews / May 1, 2007

Joseph Arthur & the Lonely Astronauts: “Lonely Astronaut"
> From Let's Just Be (Lonely Astronaut; 2007)

A few weeks ago I remembered how much more I like Joseph Arthur than, like, Chris Martin and Michael Stipe. I was watching a rerun of Coldplay’s 2004 Austin City Limits performance, where Stipe is a guest, and I saw the two balladeers sing Arthur’s “In the Sun,” which, if you recall, would later appear on a Hurricane Katrina benefit EP sold through iTunes. Now it’s three years after two of the biggest musicians on the planet attach their names to one of his songs, and what’s happened? Three more albums, a new band, a new label, and no one to tell him not to put a tripartite 20-minute studio jam in the middle of his newest full-length album. The jam in question is “Lonely Astronaut” and the singer is Joseph Arthur, the greatest coffee-shop success story that wasn’t. And in many ways, that’s a good thing.

From 2000-2004 Arthur was absolutely devastating in his output, releasing three albums that showcased both his penchants for melancholic, poignant lyricism and quirky pop sensibilities. Even at his most “singer-songwriter,” he used his impressive vocal range and unique arrangements to, at bare minimum, keep you interested, if not break your little heart. But the sheer boringness of Nuclear Daydream (2006) signaled Arthur’s need for a new game plan, and here he happily gets one that separates from his undeserved “radio-friendly” image. Adding a band (taking a cue, perhaps, from the man he is most often compared to: Ryan Adams), Arthur’s work sounds fresh and adventurous while remaining heartfelt and provocative. A major label might not have allowed “Lonely Astronaut,” a song that is at once sweet and utterly sickening, like a kid gorging himself on Skittles and then vomiting in the movie theater aisle.

“Lonely Astronaut” begins with acoustic and slide guitars, a shaker keeping the beat, and Arthur singing like a streetcorner wino. In the background, from the first strums, we hear a distant “hey!” which will soon join Arthur in an echo-like second vocal track, just a bit off-key and out of time, setting the stage for the literal space odyssey to ensue. This voice will alternate between whispering and shouting throughout this first section, Arthur’s childlike voice of innocence and inner Mick Jagger. The song picks up in tempo and intensity around the 6 minute mark, with guitar solos and drums collapsing into noise, marking the transition from tender ballad to the psych-folk freak-out that will consume the next 10 minutes of your life. At this point the song is still really good, nothing more abrasive or intense (or innovative) than what we’ve been hearing from Wilco all decade.

But then things go wrong. Arthur appears to have a mid-song revelation: I’m fronting a band! And they’ll just keep playing! The middle section is dominated by Arthur singing simply the word “I,” only to unceremoniously switch to “love” several minutes later. Interestingly, he never completes the sentence, and while this song is easily recognizable as a lonely love song, it begs the question: what exactly does he love for the middle ten minutes of this song. Himself? Music? The emptiness of space? This is a song literally about a man lost in space; Arthur getting lost in himself and in studio magic is both self-indulgent and obvious, but not unforgivable. The final section reels us back in with guitars and Arthur’s astronaut drifting further and further away: “I stay out of reach / Because you lack vision.” Whether or not I’ll have the “vision” to tolerate this song after a few more listens remains to be seen, but if Arthur needed to go to space to reinvigorate his earthly music, then I’ll go along for the ride.

-Craig Eley
(from CokemachineGlow)