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Robyn Hitchcock's SPOOKED is the artifact of a brilliant week of acoustic jamming and recording in Nashville, Tennessee with roots mavens Gillian Welch (who sings harmonies and plays guitar, bass, and drums) and David Rawlings (who produces and plays keyboards and guitar). There are few overdubs, and the musicians play directly off each other, eschewing even headphones in an effort to achieve true musical communion. The Nashville duo's natural gravity and grace temper British rocker Hitchcock's more eccentric tendencies, resulting in a balanced, subtle, and disarmingly earnest set of songs. Though Welch's vocal presence lends a novel feminine touch, and Rawlings's electric piano and slide guitar take Hitchcock's songs in new directions, loyalists will not feel lost. The spoken "Welcome to Earth" will gratify fans of Hitchcock's surreal and hilarious onstage banter, and the a cappella "Demons & Fiends" revisits the slightly dissonant vocal harmonies of earlier Hitchcock faves. Elsewhere, the quietly intense "Creeped Out" is Hitchcock at his vitriolic best, and "We're Gonna Live in the Trees" sounds like a gleeful BTO with a primate fixation. The standout track here is the wistful "Sometimes a Blonde," with its beautiful descending guitar pattern that grows more insistent as it weaves around an increasingly urgent vocal and tangy dobro. SPOOKED is proof that an artist can mature, and even quiet down, without losing an ounce of vibrancy.
