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New Jandek Release Could Be His Last

Jason Henn reports:
This week, as happens at least a couple times a year, a new Jandek album was
dusted across the college radio and independent retail landscapes like a
musical pesticide across a vast field of suck. But with Jandek fans prone to
wild speculation, the name of this most recent Corwood Industries release is
profoundly loaded: The End of It All.

As music writer Douglas Wolk discussed in the 2003 documentary Jandek on
Corwood, albums throughout the Jandek catalog contain what some fans have
translated as clues to the end of Corwood Industries' mysterious 26-year
string of Jandek releases. Since 1978, Corwood has granted exactly one
interview and generally offered no explanation for the music released under
the moniker Jandek. Previously, much more subtle suggestions of finality
have been amplified and circulated as fact-- notably the idea that a finite
number of Jandek releases were recorded in a single session, and that the
19th release would be the last. Titles such as "The Electric End" and even
"The Beginning" have been construed as coded letters of resignation.

Title aside, the album finds Jandek in roughly the same musical territory as
on the June release Shadow of Leaves, an all bass and vocal collection
that-- with the exception of its bright, apparently digital production-- is
as dark and sour as Jandek's very earliest lonely acoustic guitar albums. On
The End of It All, we find the same familiar voice wailing over a lone
chorused guitar, the plastic-on-metal plunking of guitar strings bleeding in
the vocal mic. The person singing seems troubled as usual. The thought of
the Jandek story's end being indicated so directly and literally seems just
unlikely enough to make it true, but naturally, nothing has been made
official quite yet. Or possibly ever.

.: Pitchfork Review: Various Artists: Naked in the Afternoon: A Tribute to
Jandek
.: A Guide to Jandek (Unofficial Site): http://tisue.net/jandek
.: Jandek on Corwood (A Documentary): http://www.jandekoncorwood.com
.: Corwood Industries (Unofficial Site): http://www.corwood.com