Willis Earl Beal
Noctunes
Reviewed by: Max Miller
Say what you will about Willis Earl Beal, but two things are undeniable: 1) The Chicago-based musician is excellent at cultivating a mystique and 2) he’s got a damn good voice. Beal has garnered a reputation as a Jandek-like figure gone (sort of) mainstream. After a period of leaving homemade CD-Rs all around Chicago for strangers to find, Beal eventually caught the attention of everyone from Found Magazine to Chan Marshall, and was signed to an offshoot of XL Recordings. (He was also on The X Factor at some point, apparently.)
After two full-lengths for Hot Charity/XL, Beal parted ways with his label and released a third album, Experiments in Time: The Golden Hour, on his own. Now allied with Electric Soul Records and Tender Loving Empire, Beal has released Noctunes, his fourth LP.
While it can’t be said that Beal has always stuck to a particular style, his music has often been informed by the blues and soul tradition one might find on Alan Lomax’s recordings or Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music. Tom Waits has also been noted by both Beal and critics as a touchstone, although Beal regrets that an offhanded comment that he wanted to be “the black Tom Waits” became his de facto descriptor. Noctunes continues his evolution toward professional production techniques and electronic instrumentation, a far cry from his former lo-fi proclivities. The album can often verge on ambient or minimalistic; indeed, Beal said of it that “people had all these ideas about what I was supposed to be, [but] I had only ever wanted to make lullabies.” Songs often focus on long, drawn-out melody lines and repeated motifs. Beal exercises all of his vocal range, often overlaying his deep croon with dueling falsettos that swoop across tunes like angels in flight. With the exception of some tunes which feature deep house elements or jazzy percussion, few tracks feature a beat of any kind, adding to the ethereal aspect of the record.
The only real issue Noctunes runs into is that, at 12 songs spanning a little over an hour, the album suffers from a sameness of palette that’s usually not been an issue for Beal in the past. The lyrics often focus on romantic and spiritual woe, with lush synthesized backing that recalls anything from adult contemporary jazz to new age music to freaking vaporwave. This means the “lullaby” qualities Beal said he intended to emphasize sometimes work a little too well.
Rating: Listenable
