Year Zero In The Summertime

Father John Misty “The Old Law”

Josh Tillman has stopped making sense. “The Old Law” departs from his usual narrative clarity and witty bon mots in favor of scrambled, vaguely unnerving nonsense. It’s psychedelic, but mostly in an acid casualty sort of way. But it’s not exactly gibberish. You can sorta parse all of it – the phrases are almost familiar, the odd juxtapositions are oddly intuitive. It’s like encountering vernacular language from another point in time, probably the not-too-distant future. Consider all the phrases and vocabulary that are common now that would’ve seemed alien 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago. Are these words from the future?

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Sault “Fulfill Your Spirit”

Cleo Sol may be singing a lot of platitudes in “Fulfill Your Spirit,” but she does so with so much warmth and sincerity that all the cliches ring true. Like, “love comes from within” is corny, but why deny it?

I can’t hear any of the telltale signs, but Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis contributed to the creation of this song in some way. Sault is deliberately opaque about these things, but I’d love to have more insight into this. I wouldn’t associate a jazzy little groove or swirling orchestral string arrangements with them, but it’s not hard to imagine them jumping at the opportunity to do something totally different. If you can compose “Love Will Never Do (Without You),” I am sure you can do just about anything.

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