This is a compliment: Robert Gomez won’t bowl you over with his Bella Union debut Brand New Towns, in the same way that John Vanderslice won’t bowl you over with his albums either. Both of these artists will nudge and cajole, caress and massage. They’ll poke and then, before you know it, you’ve got your back against the ground and you’re looking up at the turf of the winged things. Not bowled over, but in the same place as if you had been. They’re effective that way, in slowly making you sway. This is how the best records actually gain their hold on you, I’ve decided. Why go for the knockouts, the ones that are shiny and offer that short burst of energy – like a ingesting a bottle of honey? The strippers and the pretty faces never make the best wives. Everybody knows that. It feels trite just saying it. There’s an old song by Jimmy Soul that suggests that if you’d like to be happy for the rest of your life, to get an ugly girl to marry you. When you’re looking for records to settle down with and share a loving lifetime with, the ones that instantly make a dent – Franz Ferdinand, for instance – aren’t likely going to be there down the road. You’ve gotten all that you can from them. They’ve flashed their tits and the eyes got crossed. It was lust, all lust. You can figure out a record – get to its chocolately center – and then maybe you keep it around for posterity sake, but an album like Gomez’s, with all of its crannies and the delicate flourishes, requires patience true believers. It’s a rewarding trip that finds you sinking your teeth into the muffled and hushed lyrics that lay into you like a summer wind. Gomez, a Texan with a feel for open spaces, gravitates toward the melancholic and the proximal. It feels personal and that makes for a ride that requires the passenger to do a lot of the work for himself. It carries a lot of the same mystery and stance that the unfortunately underappreciated Slowreader album by Rory Phillips and Gabe Hascall did, being lush and deep without a decoder ring. Yes, you will work for your dinner, but the mint will be finding yourself face up to the owls and the stars.

One — Not being at the Cherokee Casino in Tulsa OK
Oxygen tanks and cigarettes. Penny slots, spinning cartoon characters that go ding ding ding. I lost 1 dollar.

Two — Muir Woods
The holy-shit-I-think-I’m-on-fire sweltering heat does not exist here. Mountains and redwoods. I have a giant Sequoia in a tube!

Three — Afrin™ nose spray
Oxymetazoline hydrochloride!!

Four — Bubble water.
Aqua con gas. Mineralwasser. I grow ever thirstier.

Five — Dans Silverleaf, Denton, TX
Plenty o parking. Don’t ask for a margarita. Whiskey and/or beer available.

Robert Gomez Official Site
World’s Fair Records