Jason Urick
Husbands
(Thrill Jockey)


Jason Urick recorded a lot of the sounds for this album using the microphone on his laptop, then shaped them into the four songs that comprise this full-length album.

What he has created from this ostensibly simple starting point is a work of no small wonder. These four songs are essentially pop songs, stretched to the aching point, slowed down so that the listener can enjoy almost every single aspect individually, while also enjoying every single aspect simultaneously. This album is a hymn to sound, and a hymn to the possibilities of sounds, and a hymn to the beauty of sound, and a hymn to the joy of music. The second song on this album, “Let There Be Love”, takes two one-second samples of the Bee Gee’s song of that title and works them into a sonic response to the appeal that the title makes, and in so doing becomes one of the most breathtaking and beautiful pieces of music I’ve listened to in a very long time. It’s ten minutes, and worth the price of the album on its own. And yet, “Let There Be Love” is surrounded by music equally thrilling, equally beautiful, equally wonderful. A thesaurus of synonyms for beautiful and wonderful will only begin to tell you what you are missing if you don’t find forty-five minutes of your life to devote to this masterpiece.