The word "acoustic" in The Invisible Light: Acoustic Space is almost mischievous. T Bone Burnett, drummer Jay Bellerose and keyboardist Keefus Ciancia have made a record full of physical instruments, but almost none of them behave conventionally. Percussion becomes atmosphere, piano arrives through echo and processing, and guitar often appears as a distant shape rather than a recognizable source.
The project is the first part of a planned trilogy examining technology, media and the ways repeated electronic messages can distort perceptions of reality. Burnett's lyrics therefore arrive less as conventional verses than as fragments of a long poem, spoken or half-sung over arrangements that resemble moving environments.
That structure makes the album demanding. With the exception of the jazz-inflected waltz "Anti Cyclone", there are few obvious songs in the traditional singer-songwriter sense. Pieces unfold around spoken language, tribal percussion, drones and cinematic textures, with familiar instruments surfacing briefly before dissolving again.
The approach has precedents without having an obvious equivalent. There are traces of Robbie Robertson's more atmospheric work, Tom Waits' interest in percussion and decay, and the abstract studio constructions associated with Bill Laswell. Yet Burnett, Bellerose and Ciancia occupy a particularly austere space of their own.
The political and cultural concerns are woven into that austerity. "A Man Without a Country" and "To Beat the Devil" address contemporary American disorientation through allusion and imagery rather than topical reportage. The surrounding production makes the words feel as though they are being transmitted through damaged machinery.
That tension between old forms and technological treatment gives the record much of its character. Burnett has spent decades working with American roots traditions; here he places fragments of those traditions inside a world of loops, processed sound and ominous negative space. The past is still audible, but at a distance.
Acoustic Space does not make its rewards immediate. It asks the listener to follow language without predictable choruses and arrangements without familiar destination points. The difficulty is deliberate, and once its internal logic becomes apparent, the album begins to feel less forbidding than hypnotic.
GENRE: Of Its Own
RELEASE DATE: April 12, 2019
PRODUCED BY: T Bone Burnett
LABEL: Verve Forecast
RATING: 8/10