Released October 8, 2002,
on Warner Music.
Anyone who attended Buck 65’s first French concert, six months ago in Paris, will remember the remarkable one-man show in which the Canadian spun his flights of fancy and wild musings over pre-recorded backing tracks, striking a balance between touching theatricality and feigned innocence. Nor will they have forgotten the previously unheard instrumentals he unveiled alongside echoes of Vertex and Man Overboard – tantalizing previews of his forthcoming album, his first on a major label.
Well, that album is here, and it’s called Square. “Square” because it marks its place within a four-album sequence, the Language Arts series, begun a few years ago in the wake of the Sebutones album. And as if to drive home the significance of the number four, Buck 65 has divided the record into four roughly equal-length tracks (each about as long as one side of an LP), named “Square 1,” “Square 2,” “Square 3” and “Square 4” – titles every bit as anonymous as the untitled tracks on Man Overboard.
But don’t imagine the album consists of four convoluted, interminable pieces. Instead, each “square” is a suite of short songs, seamlessly mixed together and punctuated by scratches or instrumental transitions, all accompanied by a voice worthy of Tom Waits, one that has grown steadily raspier since the Sebutones days.
In fact, the whole exercise is remarkably similar to the show Buck 65 put on at his first Paris gig. On Square, he sounds as though he first assembled his dream mixtape, entirely instrumental, then let himself ramble over it to his heart’s content. Yet the rough-draft quality that dominates a first listen – an impression reinforced by the strange, black-and-white scribbled cover art – soon fades away. Buck 65 has certainly not dashed off his major-label debut. Far from it!
Every moment of these four extended tracks, every miniature song, is a gem, testament to the boundless, extraordinary inventiveness of a man left almost entirely to his own devices (though a few others, including DJ Signify, did lend a hand). While some artists struggle desperately to come up with a single worthwhile idea over the course of an entire album, this Canadian reels them off one after another. He piles them up, collects them, makes it all seem outrageously easy, then barely pauses to develop them or let them linger.
Abundance and eclecticism have always been the hallmarks of Buck 65’s music, and never more so than here. From the scratches and church organ that open the first track to the gorgeous acoustic guitar that emerges just seconds later, from a hypnotic piano figure on the next number to the occasional electronic flourish, he unfailingly finds just the right loop, just the right notes: an exquisitely crafted setting for his inexhaustible range of moods and styles. The lyrics are just as delightfully and aptly varied, weaving together offbeat humor (“food puts me in a good mood,” on track four), pronouncements (“science is all of the above,” again on the fourth), melancholy (“her name reminds me of the stars,” on the third), and a whole host of other emotions.
But enough words, enough details. For you, the whole thing is still waiting to be discovered. You’ll have to absorb and work your way through each of these four sprawling tracks, every one of which packs enough creativity to fill an entire album. For most of the rest of us, though, the verdict is already in: Buck 65 is the greatest.
