The first great album of 2013 seems to be here, even if it was in fact released in 2012. I guess even though it was great it required the patronage of uber-cool UK indie Domino records to lift it out of the Pitchfork clutter.

Big Inner by Matthew E White sounds like the sort of album that got released on labels like Cotillion back in the 70’s. Albums by the likes of James Luther Dickinson, Johnny Jenkins, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Duane Allmann and Leon Russell for example. Albums that influenced Keith Richards taste in making “Exile On Main Street”. Albums from when the South was a melting pot of country and rock and R&B. And to be fair Matthew E White looks the part too – like he was maybe styled to look like he belonged with those happy long haired dudes crossing boundaries on all sides.

Here is a flavour of the wonderful “love is all you need” album closer “Brazos” with its chanted “Jesus Christ is our Lord & your friend” mantra:
 

Big Inner is also already developing its own mythologies – mystery stories of evangelical upbringings, 7 day recording sessions, house bands for “collective vibes’, stalking Randy Newman and so on. You can find them all on the net if you trawl. And on to the references White drops to pop and other musics in the songs – whether to Jorge Ben’s “Brother”, Aaliyah, Jimmy Cliff or even Martin Luther King. All the kind of interesting collateral that music buffs love to drag through. All of this makes good steps on the way to a “classic” album.

All as maybe but at heart Big Inner is that indie-country- jazz-psych-soul-gospel -songwriter mix that just sounds classic already. Like you found it in a dusty crate of old LPs and bought it because of the cover, or heard a track on the hippest of band mix tapes (as in “oh yes Matthew E White – we always listen to him on our tourbus after Karen Dalton”). Other indie bands have tried harking back to classic soul – I think particularly of the Lambchop album with the Curtis Mayfield covers, and Cat Power “The Greatest” and “The Dark End Of The Street EP” – but this somehow is somewhere else, somewhere in the bit where musics mix into the famed Gram Parsons “Cosmic American Music”.

Either that or it’s a clever cult trick that has more in common with the Polyphonic Spree and Ed Sharpe.

Make your own mind up.

-Tony H