The Unexpected Kurt Vile

Kurt Vile.  You'd figure him for a punk, right?  Sid Vicious. Jello Biafra. Richard Hell.  Those are not names for singer/songwriters.  So you, like me, might have passed right by Mr. Vile, a Philadelphian who spent some time in the band War on Drugs.  Word up: slow down.

Vile (born Kurt Samuel Vile; who would do that to a kid?) records in a variety of styles but the stuff that grabbed me is from his 2013 Walking on A Pretty Daze, a mashup of the Velvets, Neil Young and the Kinks, all in their low decibel mode.   A psychedelic stew of low-fi, reverb and mumble-core vocals.

"Walking on a Pretty Day," the 9-minute title track (sort of) would have been right at home on Young's Everybody Knows this is Nowhere, but Vile's vocals are easier on the ears.

"Never Run Away" is more succinct and on it, Vile sounds to me like the love child of Ray Davies and Dean Wareham of Luna.  His parents must be so proud.  

Bonus:  In 1985, Lou Reed turned up on Lost in the Stars, a "tribute" album to the real Kurt Weill that, I'm embarrassed to say, was where I figured out who Weill was and was put wise to his weird sensibility.  Reed's version of "September Song" was worth the price of that disk.  It's still a keeper.