I’ve despised most of Matthew Houck, AKA Phosphorescent’s output before his great 2010 album, Taking It Easy Too Long. If it wasn’t for that record – which I didn’t listen immediately after the release date because I thought I’d hate it as much as I hated Bon Iver’s debut (hey look, another city dweller, bearded guy locked up in a cabin somewhere pretending he’s countrier than thou), but a friend shoved me one of his songs down my throat until I loved it – I wouldn’t be so keen on listening to “Song for Zula”, the first song off his next album, Muchacho, coming up in March. I’m glad I did. Again, I could live without him saying he recorded the album in a “little hut” on some beach down in the Mexican southern peninsula of Yucatán, but at least he acknowledges that story is cheesy as fuck. I think I like you even more after you said that, Matt. I’m sure you’re nice folk and you wrote my first favorite song of 2013. I haven’t listened to anything else to be released in the next year, but hey, I gotta start somewhere.
DSS
