The White Mahatma sings of aimless travel, doomed love, gin-fueled optimism, ragged beauty and the desperate need for redemption in a world of tumult. His lyrics are humorous and gallows-bleak, informed as much by poets T.S Eliot and John Berryman as by bad television, industrial decay and the fading roadside culture of 1950's America.
Distorted guitars snarl out of the smoke, analog electronic noise crystallizes into carnival organ, only to dissolve again into abstract and chaotic bleeps and phasings. Melodies careen and shuffle, congas thump and tom toms boom, as apocalyptic visions fold in upon themselves, and surprisingly reemerge as countrified rhythms seasoned with banjo and feedback.
White Mahatma's cambered, jig-saw tunes depict lost nights in threadbare motels, dazed and medicated drifters stranded in broken cars, the fleeting comfort of weekday matinees and shopping mall bars.
Untidy rooms echo with the endless ring of a telephone. Perfumed letters sit locked away in a drawer by the bed, along with the revolver, the whiskey, the dog-eared street map of New Orleans. Dreams are always thirsty, and the devil roams the back roads in a rusting Buick Skylark.
This is music to play late at night, when you're drunk on the floor and everyone's gone home. Or almost everyone.
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