Jay Bennett / Edward Burch – Palace 1919
Palace 1919 contains largely acoustic versions of songs from Jay Bennett & Edward Burch’s 2002 debut The Palace At 4 A.M. (Part I), an album that, in the first place, not enough people got to hear. The whole affair has been curiously packaged to look like John Cale’s 1973 release Paris 1919, and they’ve even tossed in covers of that album’s “Child’s Christmas In Wales” and “Half Past France”. That’s piling obscurity onto enigma.
The many merits of The Palace At 4 A.M. (Part 1) were overwhelmed by the attention given to the soap opera surrounding Bennett and his ex-bandmates in Wilco upon the release of their Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album. If there was any problem with Bennett & Burch’s disc, it was that there were almost too many ideas packed into each song. Palace 1919 peels back the craft and refocuses on the duo’s songwriting.
Yet even as they’ve simplified matters, they still display an astute knack for arrangement. On the original album, the dense arrangement of “Drinkin’ On Your Dime” and the strained tag-team vocal delivery gave the song a tortured, angry edge. Burch delivers the Palace 1919 version solo in a choirboy-pure voice that conveys dolor over ire.
Conversely, “C.T.M.”, shorn of the original’s restless momentum and converted into a duel between 12-string acoustic and an ominous slide guitar, provides even more bite. “Talk To Me” was previously blown up into a widescreen pop gem, but on Palace 1919, the melody shimmers on a foundation of acoustic guitar, bass, tabla-style percussion, electric piano and an obstinate analog synthesizer solo.
One can name plenty of singers whose technique exceeds Bennett’s, but there’s no denying the stark emotion he invests in a bruised, affecting piano-only rendering of “It Hurts”. The duo performs a similar deconstruction job on Cale’s songs, shaving away the orchestral excesses of the 30-year-old versions to expose the heart beating beneath.
Bennett has said he and Burch have already recorded enough material to fill multiple albums, and his website indicates the pair is working on The Palace At 4 A.M. (Part 2). But Palace 1919 is too satisfying a listening experience to write off as a mere between-release stopgap, and too fully realized to dismiss as a for-fans-only item.