Sid Hillman Quartet – Self-Titled
The aesthetic of amateurism isn’t the unique provenance of alternative country, but it’s certainly found a home there. With the exception of punk, few musical movements have been so willing, from the get-go, to embrace creaky, quirky, and happenstance sounds beyond all chops and experience, and make a commercial run for it.
Though he’s been playing around Los Angeles for some eight years, Sid Hillman (nephew of ex-Byrd Chris) has retained what’s most appealing about the unpolished, sing-from-the-hipster side of psychedelic twang. Like Clem Snide or the Willard Grant Conspiracy, Hillman writes elliptical, exquisitely sad songs, images of melancholy hope and decay; delivers them in an untutored, sometimes Stipean voice; and sets them afloat on a minimalist mirage of atmospheric twang.
“Until You” is a minor gem of weary, wasted talking-to-oneself and pealing pedal steel. “Hope” is pure downer jangle-rock, with pretty lines like “A sweet face of quiet reckoning was there before me, silent and sad but for a simple dignity.” Hillman asks “What if I were godlike?”, and though his gods may include Lou Reed and Will Oldham, he’s not so much interested in being like them as he is in defying them on their own terms. Given the modest, often memorable pleasures of this debut, such defiance may be the inspired amateur’s best bet.