ALBUM REVIEW: Chris Acker’s ‘Famous Lunch’ Relishes Small, Weird Moments of Life
Corbie Hill
Posted On December 13, 2024
EDITOR’S NOTE: Chris Acker’s Famous Lunch came out on Oct. 11 on Gar Hole Records. We’re reviewing it now as part of a year-end round up of some of the best albums we missed along the way this year.
On “Cursive Proverbs,” from his new album, Famous Lunch, New Orleans songwriter Chris Acker plays with an easy, slow shamble. Like a rusted-out hatchback with too many miles on the engine, the song is liable to stall out if it goes any slower.
This is Deep South deep summer energy: it’s too hot to move, even if you’re a guitar. “Back tat peeking from the left of her strap / cursive proverb under the flag,” Acker observes in a Neil Young quaver. “She is pumping gas in the August air / her bumper’s asking me why I’m still here.” Later, and just as offhandedly, Acker’s mind wanders as he stares at Instagram instead of doing anything. The song is a picture of a messy, dangerous world, yet Acker experiences it like all of us: within an overall pleasant day, even if he falls asleep unproductive and with a phone held to his face.
Acker’s latest album Famous Lunch, which came out in early October, is about the small moments out of which life is made. This is everyday music implicitly highlighting–as Acker sings at album’s close–that every day is “unlike any other one.” Acker sings of intrusive thoughts and passing distractions, of minor intimate details and quirky acquaintances, all with an oddball Americana-folk approach that’s midway between John Prine and early, early Beck.
“Here I go, just swimming in my Calvins / because I like the way they fit me,” Acker sings in “Swimming in my Calvins.” It’s a simple, private little song, like The White Stripes’ “We’re Going to be Friends” sans chaste naivete. “I hold you below your belly button / and you make the softest sound,” Acker sings. “Quiet as putting in a bookmark / softer than thinking about new socks.”
Acker’s dual strengths are his songs’ easy, approachable pacing and his everyday poetic one-liners. To the former, his jangly, acoustic-driven tunes are as comfortable as well-worn jeans that have never seen a spin cycle. To the latter, lines like “impatient as a buffet line” (“Stubborn Eyes”) and “I say no like an apology” (“Don’t You Know (Who I Think I Am)”) build vivid scenes at an impressively low word count.
The album ends simply but poignantly. On the home-recorded “11/8/23,” Acker sings what he sees, painting with the unlikely details of a real moment in a real room. He ponders the nature of time and his mind wanders. “Your glasses shine when your face laughs with mine / I wanna do just as you do,” he sings. “In the inevitable ever when we’re no longer together / I’ll still find all my strength in you.” These lines are loaded with anxiety and loneliness, just like the real world: everyday fears that welcome themselves to any of our minds when we’re not paying attention.
Acker knows our lives are constructed of seemingly unremarkable moments. It’s why Famous Lunch makes so much sense.
