P.A.F., Fingerprints, Medicine

The demon is loose behind me right now, blasting its way into my ear cavities. The three-headed demon led by Scott Pinkmountain-Rosenberg (I’m not sure which surname he’s sticking with at this point). If Fingerprints, Medicine is, in fact, the result of a veteran jazz saxophonist throwing down the sax and picking up a guitar (you’ve no idea how hard it was to resist saying “strapping on an axe”), then I highly encourage the jazz community to consider similar such transitions. Though I doubt it is sheer luck and happenstance that guided Pinkmountain to such triumph, his jazz roots clearly factor in.

One of the first aspects of P.A.F.’s music that struck me was their remarkable use of dynamics. Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of hard and fast or slow and groovy, but the two rarely mix. Not so with Pinkmountain and company. Track five, “Passing Days,” features extended passages featuring solely guitar and vocals and occasional full band crashes to accentuate the drama of the tune. Conversely, the record’s opening number, “To Love You,” is a haunting mess featuring spastic avant-garde noise breakdowns in between chilling vocals regarding love. But it’s all going somewhere. The trio is tight and consistent. It’s kind of…controlled chaos. Pinkmountain’s long years of free-jazz jams are clearly guiding him in his stormy compositions.

According to current press info, the rhythm section featured on the album is not the present one. However, after glancing at the names featured in the current rhythm section, I can’t really consider it a major loss. Not to downplay the job done on the disc — the drums and bass are locked in tight providing exactly what the songs needed — but let’s be real, are you really going to be upset over bringing in Tom Wait’s drummer (Gino Robair) and Elliott Smith’s bassist (Sam Coomes)? That’s what I thought. (Though honestly, I respect Coomes more for his work in Quasi. But that’s a whole other deal.)

All high praise considered, the disc is, naturally, not without its pitfalls. The first two tracks, “To Love You” and “Blue Plate Special,” are phenomenal. “Blue Plate” especially is a tasty trip full of power, angst, and damn good rock and roll. The third number, though, takes a turn for the worse. Pinkmountain starts drifting into “tears in my beer” territory, and without much luck. Lyrics about how, “We’ve got nothing / nothing but time,” delivered in heartsick kicker fashion really don’t help matters. A few other dips into miserable three-part country harmonies pop up here and there, but not too often, thankfully. Besides, the guitar work on “Lost In Plain Sight” almost single-handedly makes up for the cheap kicker misery.

Some might criticize Pinkmountain’s vocals as being too much like a dying cat (as my father put it), but I’d strongly disagree. He howls with a borderline psychotic passion that really shook me up a bit. It’s straight up haunting blues. And I fucking love it. In fact, the first thing you hear on the album is his voice, solo, yelling like his vocals chords are going to burst any minute. Then the band stumbles in noisily like Kramer, and the magic takes you away.

It wasn’t just the music that endeared me so much to P.A.F., by the way. The production is what really sealed the deal. Jon Benson and Michael Zapruder know how to kick ass behind the controls. The sound is undoubtedly lo-fi, but not to a sloppy, irritable extent. The instruments are warm, and the vocals are natural. Recorded with minimal overdubs, it sounds the way records used to. The whole thing is like going home to your mom’s cooking. You forget how good it can be.