Chris Mills – The Wall To Wall Sessions

It seemed like courting catastrophe: Record ten songs with seventeen musicians, mostly unrehearsed, live to two-track, in two days. There was a time, though, when records were made exactly that way, and Chris Mills argues that those were the best records, ever — fresh, inspired, solid gold. It was the time of Phil Spector’s “wall of sound,” the nascent era of orchestral pop.

Mills has flirted with Spector-like parts on his three previous full-length releases. He revels in the lavish accompaniment, though his articulate and emotional songs work equally with just his ragged, earnest vocals and an acoustic guitar. This time, with the help of composer David Nagler, he filled Chicago’s capacious Wall To Wall studios with a hand-picked selection of the finest indie-rock and free-jazz strings, horns and vocalists (including Nora O’Connor and Kelly Hogan). Against all odds, the record sounds magnificent — lush and accomplished, but genuine. Mills and Nagler didn’t so much resurrect this sound as reinvent it; it’s millennial music, the old-fashioned way.

Mills left Chicago for New York two years ago. These songs hint that displacement wasn’t a pleasant experience. “Escape From New York” alternates frenetic pacing through a nightmare with a gentle waltz of “we can leave all this behind” promise. “Dancin’ On The Head Of A Pin” captures the pervasive tension of life on the edge of personal and social disaster. Other highlights include the rollicking “Mothra”, the country-folk “Everything About The Heart”, the unforgettable “My Favorite Song” and the reassuring, closing lullaby, “Constellations”.