Recrods: Chris Knox's Yes

By Dan Silk

Chris Knox wants you and your children, and you should be very afraid.

I remember seeing Knox for the first and only time two and a half years ago in New York. He was supporting his last solo record, Songs of You and Me, by opening for Guided by Voices, and as he wandered around the stage with a radio mic and a drunken disposition, there was an odd Zen about him. He had a sequencer upon which he needed only mash his genial hand to change chords, but he still had trouble hitting it at the right time. When he was off, his otherwise hypnotic voice would break into a giggle and he'd plod on with his bizarre love tales. He looked like a guy who'd live next door and wander around his backyard drunk wearing only a towel and a smirk. I remember wondering how old he was and what brought him to our land.

Well, he was 42 then, which means that he's 44 now, and 1997 brings him to our land again (but not to New Haven, unfortunately) from New Zealand. His sixth solo album YES!!, contains vaguely divine pronouncements like "Sometimes I think maybe there might be something in my heart/Sometimes I think maybe there's not," which Knox repeats over and over again with minute variations in "Almost Tempted." This sums up Knox's odd vocal persona pretty well. At times, his lyrics are perfectly tongue-in cheek, such as in "Engaged": "Finger in her dial/ Anticipating turning makes me want to smile/ Circles of content--round and round--my rotary event." No matter the subject, Knox's seriousness is always questionable. Perhaps the strongest track, "Pibroch," moves at the pace of a float in a parade while Knox belts out prophecies like, "Men with men shall not be bound, no women with their kind/ Embryonic tissue is untouchably divine/ Water turns to wine as part of God's design." These lyrics are sung over a bagpipe-riot punctuated by beats on a drum machine. By the time the parade has faded out, you feel like you've just heard a patriotic anthem for the Nation of Knox.

As eccentric a vocal personality as he may be, Knox is certainly no songwriting slouch: his tunes are fresh and his vocal melodies sharp. Within their limited instrumentation, Knox's arrangements are often strikingly elaborate. As with previous works by Knox (who also plays in Tall Dwarves with Alec Bathgate), YES!! will first endear you and then addict you. Perhaps the least subversive lyrics on the record come in "Pentultimatum": "This may be the best song yet written/This may be the finest of verse/ So sing it and make this heart happy/I know you could do so much worse."

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