Archer Prewitt

Wilderness
Thrill Jockey (2005)

Reviewed by Kate Guillemette

Archer Prewitt is that guy from the Sea and Cake and the Coctails. He has released four solo albums prior to this recording that have continuously left me rather blasé about Mr. Prewitt’s solo career. The plain fact is that there are lots of voices better and/or more interesting than Prewitt’s in the highly vexed land singer-songwriters. The great thing about this album is that Prewitt seems to have come to terms with that, and has mustered the troops of extraordinary and infinitely tasteful instrumentation. You’ve got a harpsichord, bells, at least six types of keyboard-shaped-things, horns, and a string section in addition to Prewitt’s signature guitar-playing. They all add up to some surprisingly dense, mature, and grand recordings.
The only oddness comes from the fact that Mr. Prewitt’s voice doesn’t match the serious stateliness of the orchestration here and there, but again, that might be because this is a voice so darn gentle and pleasant that you can’t really believe anything bad or otherwise superlative has ever happened to it. I had to listen to the album three times before I could even start to care what the man was singing (“It has lyrics? No. Wait.”), and I still couldn’t quote you a line of it. Prewitt also drew the picture of the fey and unnecessarily topless girl with highly improbable hair on the cover.

On TGB rating scale, Archer Prewitt is a true Earthling.

It is my pleasure to welcome Kate to The Great Beyond. As you can see, she's not afraid to tell it like it is. Kate is the music director at KVRX-Austin 91.7 FM-on the campus of the University of Texas. You can find out more about the station at www.kvrx.org.

Glad to have you in The Great Beyond.