Father John Misty - "Mahashmashana"
Father John Misty is one of those names that I have been seeing everywhere for the last year or so. And frequently alongside names like Noah Kahan and Hozier. So I had decided I needed to give him a listen well before I saw this release pop up a few months back.
Let me tell you: I’m mad I wasn’t aware of him sooner.
First, I have to elaborate on just how much I’ve missed…
“Father John Misty” is, of course, a stage name. His real name is Joshua Tillman, and he started his music career as a member of Saxon Shore, releasing two albums in 2002 & 2003; he also launched his solo career under J. Tillman, releasing eight albums between 2003-2010. Then, briefly, he joined Fleet Foxes and is credited with vocals and percussion on their 2011 release, Helplessness Blues.
He became Father John Misty in 2012, and Mahashmashana is his sixth album under that name; for those who didn’t want to keep count, that makes this his 17th album, overall, in just 22 years.
FJM’s style is best described as Indie Folk/Rock and Chamber Pop. While I can’t speak to his older discography, it is abundantly clear that Tillman cares not one single whit about ‘typical’ or ‘popular’ song/songwriting styles and structures. Every song on this album is its own beast and does exactly what it needs to do to suit itself best.
And that starts, of course, with the opening (and title) track, “Mahashmashana”, which greets us with half a second of rapidfire percussion before the orchestra swells to meet, and then overwhelm, it.
What follows is a climactic, swelling story of love and conception and birth which is layered in motifs of life and death, masculine and feminine, and, as user Birdslibrary on Genius put it, ‘The Mundane’ and ‘The Infinite’.1 The lyrics are gorgeously poetic, and the song is an orchestral wall-of-sound which swells magnificently in the chorus.
And it lasts for over nine minutes.
My immediate response, every time I’ve played through this album, has been: that’s it. That’s the album. Why is there more?
More to the point (and I want to underscore that this is my only serious beef with the album), why is this song first?! Sure, it does a great job at setting up the album’s themes and motifs. But it creates this absolutely bonkers structure. If this is track 6 or 7 (out of 8), then it’s very possibly a perfect 10/10 and my new AOTY frontrunner.
The rest of the album is so very good, too, but it is — jarring — to go from “Mahashmashana” to “She Cleans Up”, which is a gorgeous, melodic mid-tempo rocker with dense instrumentation and a lot of momentum with how FJM delivers the verses on (mostly) flat eight-notes with nary a break or breath. In a mix or playlist, this song is phenomenal; on the album, it takes a moment to acclimate.
“She Cleans Up” is one of only two songs which really have any sort of energy — the other being the Disco-infused “I Guess Time Just Makes Fools of Us All”, which was the album’s first single and was included on the Greatest Hits album that FJM released earlier this year as a bonus track of sorts. It’s also the second-longest song on the album, at 8:36.
At large, Mahashmashana focuses broadly on the concepts of life, death, religion, perception, time, and mental health. The album questions existence and purpose on multiple levels, and uses some of the absolute best lyricisim I’ve seen all year in the process. The album’s title, “mahashmashana”, is a Sanskrit word which describes a Hindi concept: “The Great Cremation” — clearly something related to Shiva, but I have had little luck in researching the specifics of exactly what the concept entails.
What I do know is that the concept plays into the overarching spiritual existentialism which pervades the album.
While the songs which comprise Mahashmashana are largely incredibly varied (despite the low average tempo) and compelling, I don’t love “Being You” or “Summer’s Gone” — though, the latter does work well as the album’s closer. Everything else has dense instrumentation, strong hooks, etc. These two are a bit more bare-bones (especially “Summer’s Gone”). They aren’t bad, but beside everything else, it’s clear that they’re not at the same level.
I’m definitely going to be following FJM going forward. This album was a treat.
Rating: Blue
I liked this reading too much not to steal it. I have to give credit for it, though. The link earlier in this sentence is to the first annotation in the lyrics.