Jay Walter Bennett (1963-2009) was first of all known as a keyboard player in the line-up of Wilco during the years 1994-2001. He was dropped out from the band after the artistic-relied disagreements with the frontman Jeff Tweedy, and Jim O`Rourke who was being invited for producing and mixing Wilco`s fourth (and legendary) album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot finally issued in 2002. Thereafter Bennett released 6 solo albums reflecting upon his personal failures (department from the band, divorce) and disturbed touch because of having been sustained on painkillers (lacking the money for hip replacement surgery).
Vis à vis with his previous album Whatever Happened I Apologize (2007/2008), the 11-track brand new heavy Kicking at the Perfumed Air (mastered and recorded(?) 2007-2009) is more fulfilled with suggestive splendour, making it up through crafty variegated tunes, first off, offering energic and dynamic proceedings, on the other side, downdrifting into a melancholic alliance of sparse fingerpicked guitar and husky voice manner, or on the third side being brought forth via mid-tempo songs, based, as usual, upon alt-country/alt-folk tunes spiced up with lush organ blowups. Moreover, having managed to get in for a touch upon Bennett`s approach at the silence-noise and traditional/modern scale it does not make much difference in comparison with Wilco`s last issues in principle, having its experimental oasises in the middle of the American roots music-drenched desert. As Kicking at the Perfumed Air is filled with excellent tracks from the outset to this closure, it can proudly be admitted about the presence of the beautiful swan song by this great singer-songwriter.
Listen to it here
9.6