In 2006 I bought I See A Darkness by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, which was the perfect introduction to his work - by complete chance I started with one of Will Oldham's best albums. Over the years that followed I continued to buy albums of his pretty much at random. The second album was this one, his first and recorded under the name Palace Brothers.
It was the sixth week in my Tuesday-record-from-Spillers week and the week before I'd just heard In the Aeroplane Over the Sea for the first time, so we were on a good roll. I can't remember much of what the description on this sleeve said, but it would have mentioned that it was a Will Oldham album and probably said some other things that drew me in. I was certainly keen to hear more and £9.50 now sounds ludicrously cheap for an LP.
I struggled with this album a lot at the start - there were moments I really enjoyed but it didn't hit anywhere near as hard as I See A Darkness. It's a difficult listen, and I strongly suspect that's intentional. There are simple-sounding songs that remind me of Daniel Johnston (like (I Was Drunk at the) Pulpit and I Had a Good Mother and Father) but I always thought Will was trying to create that persona of naivety and simplicity rather than actually having it; the fully rounded songs like Long Before, the title-track and King Me fly in the face of that, and are some of the stronger moments.
A while later I bought the Bonnie 'Prince' Billy Sings Palace's Greatest Hits cd, which was the nail in the coffin for the Palace albums for me. I really should try the others properly (Days in the Wake has some songs that I know to be great from other records) but it's not happened yet. My scatter-gun approach to his back-catalogue has been more miss than hit, but that could be bad luck. It's been fun dabbling though.
When I was buying a record every Tuesday from Spillers, I made an effort to record them all onto cd to play on the kitchen hifi - that stack of cds ended up in my car and I tried to play this one recently. I don't think we made it to the end of Idle Hands before my wife suggested we listen to something less abrasive.
Tracks: 12
Cost: £9.50 new
Bought: Spillers Records, Cardiff
When: 12/02/08
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: None
