Carla Bozulich - Boy (Constellation, 2014)
After years of touring as Evangelista, Carla Bozulich shakes off her alter ego and plunges into the wonderful world of pop with “Boy”. Pop as Bozulich understands it. Raw, but with an eye for song structures and choruses. The result is a remarkably less direct and harsh album. The screaming and stomping has stopped. Bozulich seems to have aged, but once you start digging through her lyrics and music, her punk virus and experimentalism continues to fester under the skin. “Boy” sounds like Bozulich has taken on a southern curse. It is a brooding record that slowly rubs and tears. Understated and with an almost lazy feel. Slowly carving with a palette of sounds that goes back 100 years. It picks up elements of jazz noir and bluegrass, chewing tobacco included. From the mantra-rich “One Hard Man” - Bozulich has always loved intrusive repetition - to the musically insistent “Don’t Follow Me”, the tear-jerking “Gonna Stop Killing” and the poignant “Deeper Than The Will”, Bozulich dedicates her darkest soul erratics to you. “Boy” is intense, even if it takes longer for the bruises to show, covered by a layer of fond de teint, carelessly applied, of course. Because it remains raw and it remains Carla Bozulich, an artist who has been wrapping herself in drama of the highest quality for decades.
Released on Constellation,