Damien Jurado

Item: Postcards and Audio Letters
Author: Sarah Jones

Postcards and Audio Letters

(2000)

Reviewed by Sarah Jones

Discogs YouTube

Label ChapelleTNI / Made in MexicoBandoppler2000

experimental spoken word

"I'm just sitting on the couch...trying to put my mind into words."

So begins the first track on Damien Jurado's newest project Postcards and Audio Letters.

Postcards is comprised of various phone conversations and audio letters which Jurado has come across over the past couple years while meticulously digging through thrift stores. Out of the 8 tracks on this album, I found myself most intrigued by the first two—audio letters originating from the year 1972 that drag the listener into the midst of a past international romance between Robert, who lives in Europe, and Angel, an American living in Florida. Interesting aspects of these first two tracks are the television droning in the background of Robert's letter, Robert's accent, his inability to let go of Angel, and his obsession with the possibility of "what might have been." He ceaselessly rambles to Angel on the subject, which, after about five minutes, I found simultaneously endearing and incredibly aggravating.

"You are for me, I think, another Angel. And I hope not so. But, I mean, just to put your mind into words, talk to you in a very sincere way. It's so difficult without having you sitting next to me, and without seeing your reactions....I just try to explain myself..."

As he records his audio letter to Angel we learn that within a year of leaving him she married another, whom she has since divorced. Robert pensively relates what he thought when he received the news in a letter she sent him: "It's finished. Two persons change. I was wondering, I thought, now Angel is gone, and for me right now you must be a different Angel." (If you're familiar with Jurado's most recent musical album, "Rehearsals for Departure", you'll recognize that this clip also comes before the song "Letters and Drawings.")

Besides speculating about what could have happened, Robert also rambles about the bar he owns and the staff cuts he's had to make; about socialism; and about his mother, all of which were a nice diversion. He ends his audio letter with the hopes that Angel will be able to come visit him in Germany, and that they might rekindle the relationship they once had.

Angel begins her letter apologizing in advance for the quality of the recording, and tries her best at small talk. "What am I doing?" She's living in Florida and intends to get a job teaching. She talks about things such as the weather and friends that they have in common. Eventually she runs out of inconsequential things to talk about and gets to the point: "I don't know what to say. I wish, Robert, that we had taken advantage of our time when we were together in Germany, and I wish that we had gotten to know each other better when we were over there, and not wasted so much time thinking about things. I don't know what the future will hold for me, I don't know what it holds at all, of course. It's very hard to be far away and still try to communicate with somebody. Maybe we can...You send me a tape when you get a chance, okay? I'll see ya."

I found it pretty obvious that she didn't care half as much for Robert as he did for her. But, "so it goes," I guess. I wonder if it ever worked out. Probably not.

The next two tracks consist of a family attempting to record their Christmas celebration. Adults persist in trying to make a little kid say something into the recorder; different family members take turns speaking. In the background there's the incessant noise of presents being ripped open. The topics of conversation range from mineral water to absent family members. These recordings weren't terribly interesting.

Tracks 5, 6, and 7 are messages to a woman named Dawn, left by her boyfriend, Phil, on her answering machine. At one point he calls late at night and wakes her up and they have a really nice conversation.

Track 8 is rather disturbing. The first time I listened to this CD I was really tired and fell asleep. I woke up to this track and it...wasn't a nice thing to wake up to. It consists of a divorced couple fighting about the well-being of their son. Both the father and the mother are very angry. The mother is afraid that the father is hitting the son. There's a lot of screaming and swearing. At one point the mother calls the police and the father becomes enraged and threatens to sue. Perhaps the most disturbing thing about this track is that you can't tell if he is, in fact, beating their child.

All in all, this is quite an interesting piece of work; highly intriguing. Often times I caught myself wondering what in the world happened to all the people I listened to on this CD. On a whole, I'm not quite sure whether I ought to question Damien Jurado's sanity, or to hail him as the discoverer of a new found art form. Perhaps both.