Broken Spindles: Inside/Absent

Joel Peterson, a.k.a. Broken Spindles, is probably always going to be somewhat left of center, even in an industry where center chases left of center. Inside/Absent is no exception. This is not his surprise cowboy pop record.

It was written on tour and sounds it – that is, raw and somewhat weary: “I don’t know how long I can go before I break and run away/I don’t care how long has passed I’ve got to get out of this mess.”

He intersperses more fully instrumented songs with horror film threads of suspenseful piano; all of these pieces are remarkable. They start out of nowhere and wander a bit before fading away; skeletal, spectral pieces of music.

The quality he gets out of the piano is unforgettable – as if played somewhere far away, coming across silent fields or oceans but also very clear, intimate. It’s hard to imagine anyone in the room when these piano pieces were recorded; this sounds instead like something you would stumble across a frightening stranger playing to himself alone.

The other songs – the ones that fit under a more traditional definition of song – succeed to various degrees. The standout is the hypnotic confessional “This Is an Introduction,” dark, direct, and pulsing with life. On “The Distance is Nearsighted” he experiments with a digital funk/falsetto style that calls to mind Beck.

Peterson’s spidery, Euro-trash, robo-gothic thing obviously isn’t going to appeal to everyone, and he’s not too far, at times, from a Dieter-like pretentious self-parody. He walks a fine line of dreariness, occasionally failing to entertain…but better that than fail to break new ground.

- Tom Vale
Broken Spindles (Saddle Creek)