Catching Up With the Past Five Years of Mark Kozelek

The catalog of the Ohio-born, San Francisco-residing singer-guitarist Mark Kozelek is vast, with nearly 50 LPs between his go-to songwriting vehicle Sun Kil Moon, ’90s band Red House Painters, solo outings, collaborative one-offs, covers albums, live records … you get the idea. Personal favorites aside, fans can generally agree the three pillars of the Kozelek songbook are RHP’s eponymous, sepia-toned ’93 sadcore opus, informally known as “Rollercoaster” for its cover art; 2003’s Ghosts of the Great Highway, the debut of the Sun Kil Moon moniker and a new, Crazy Horse-styled electric band; and 2014’s Benji, which was something else entirely. 

Benji marked a dramatic shift in Kozelek’s approach to songwriting. He turned the mirror on himself for an intimate, unfiltered look at his own life that felt groundbreaking, and not just in the context of the Painters/SKM continuum. The beats in the stories on this album deftly tie together his past, his present and his concerns for the future, guiding the music to new emotional heights. Woven into the fabric of the work are his hardscrabble Northeast Ohio origins and the family ties he holds close; his life traveling the world making music, and the mix of luck and hard work that gave him that opportunity; and his anxieties about aging and the violent state of the world.

For Kozelek, a staunch luddite who abhors social media and declines most interviews, the acclaim Benji received gave him the floor in a way he’d never had it before. His so-called feud with Philly band The War on Drugs might’ve been funnier to him than to the guys on the receiving end, but ultimately harmed no one. (And let’s be real, “beer-commercial lead guitar” is the perfect description of TWoD’s sound, setting aside any discussion of their lyrics.)

But his back-and-forth with British journalist Laura Snapes showed a colder side that wasn’t funny to anyone. Such distractions threatened to overshadow the creative high-water mark he achieved with Benji, and for some, it did. Reviewers of his next record, 2015’s Universal Themes, seemed to be critiquing Kozelek the person more than the music itself.

Now on the other side of 50 and no longer under the microscope to quite such a degree, Kozelek continues to mine Benji’s hyper-autobiographical streak at a prolific rate. Much of his output since 2015 (between six and 10 LPs, counting collaborations) consists of arrangements that drift in and out of form, which carry thoughts, tangents and commentary on his travels, politics, food, film, boxing, cats and anything else on his mind. These stories can be deeply profound. Just as often they’re dead ends. Sometimes it’s debatable if it’s even music. I’ve heard the spoken-word approach he favors these days described, not inaccurately, as “podcast rock.”

A lot of old-school Painters fans have deemed this direction a non-starter and moved on. I personally find the window into Kozelek’s itinerant lifestyle and mindset endlessly fascinating. For those curious about what to expect when Sun Kil Moon plays City Winery on Tuesday, Sept. 17, I’ve selected a handful of post-Benji tracks I think hit the sweet spot between engaging stories and cool musical ideas.

“Bombs,” Jesu and Sun Kil Moon, 30 Seconds to the Decline of Planet Earth, 2017

This 13-minute story-song comes from the second of Kozelek’s two collaborative albums with Jesu and Godflesh main man Justin Broadrick. For both of those LPs, Broadrick wrote the music and Kozelek the lyrics. Where the first one, 2016's Jesu/Sun Kil Moon, sounded like the exact sum of its parts, those parts made for strange bedfellows, with Kozelek’s booming, searching vocals straining to be heard over the lumbering, metallic crunch of Jesu instrumentals.

The mellower, looser follow-up 30 Seconds to the Decline of Planet Earth got the balance right, however. Juxtaposing the heaviness of world news with the hurry-up-and-wait mundanity of tour life is a frequent theme of Kozelek’s work. On “Bombs,” Broadrick’s loping, chiming guitar figure propels Kozelek from tour stop to tour stop as he riffs amusingly on everything from his Polish heritage and incredulity at the extent of Holland’s bike culture, to humorless Arizona cops and overly friendly Midwestern waiters whose every other word is “boss.” Pro tip: These musical travelogues are best enjoyed in the car on a long drive of your own, where you won’t be spooked by the runtimes and can just let him lead.

“I Love Portugal,” Sun Kil Moon, Common as Light and Love are Red Valleys of Blood, 2017

Out of all of Kozelek’s post-Benji records, the two-hour-long triple LP Common as Light and Love are Red Valleys of Blood — his first to come out after Trump took office — is the toughest sell. Yet passing on it would mean missing this this sweet little ode to a country Kozelek’s been visiting on tour for years and, in light of current events, has never felt more drawn to. As he sings: “If we’re gonna live with a president who’s a huge fucking asshole / then believe me baby, I’m gonna buy me a house in Portugal.” Over a jaunty walking bass line and peals of Spanish classical guitar, he salutes Portugal’s people, its food (which he loves so much he named his label Caldo Verde for a traditional Portuguese soup) and the pleasures of a leisurely, civilized life compared with the craziness in the States. In this place, the day’s biggest problem is the shoe store he wants to shop at being closed for siesta. Listening to him describe it, you’d be hard-pressed not to want to follow him there.

“This Is My Town,” Mark Kozelek, 2018

Sun Kil Moon songs about American places tend to fall into one of three categories: Ohio songs (like most of Benji), New Orleans songs (“Carondelet” from Jesu/Sun Kil Moon, Universal Themes’ “Ali/Spinks II”) and songs of his first love: San Francisco. When he sings “I’ve sung about this walk so many times” on “This is My Town” — which opens his 2018 self-titled album— he isn’t kidding. He’s sung about the City By the Bay for so long Red House Painters diehards have been known to map out their own walking tours of Kozelek’s SF. 

One of his tighter streams-of-consciousness, “This is My Town” references a litany of specific locales to paint a bigger picture: dim sum in Chinatown, Pacific Ocean air, Mission burritos, the studio where he dials in his perfect guitar tone, the tea shop where they know him by heart. Whether native or visitor, San Francisco, like New Orleans, has a way of awakening the imagination. The scenery, the food, the history — how when the light hits it just right, there’s nowhere better to be. In his songs about both cities, Kozelek knows how to capture that feeling. Yet what “This is My Town” best articulates is the deep sense of comfort that comes with knowing a place so intimately it’s part of you — which isn’t SF-specific at all.