Album Review: Paul Duncan - Be Careful What You Call Home

Paul Duncan - Be Careful What You Call Home
(2005, Hometapes)

The music of Paul Duncan draws you in with an intimacy that few artists posess. You feel welcome and comfortable which is odd considering that the running theme of Be Careful What You Call Home is dissatisfaction with and emotional distance from the place you are. What is a home? How do you connect with it? Do you have to go to it or create it where you are? What do you do when you HAVE created it and then one day look up to see that it holds nothing for you?
In working through these questions Duncan holds back alot from the listener. The words are sparse and vague. They couldn't do the subjectmatter justice anyway. Instead Duncan lets his music do most of the talking. Originally from an unnamed town in East Texas, He clings to his small town sensibilities while spinning them into big city arrangements. With the help of eight other musicians Duncan constructs intricate, yet unassuming, composition that never wear out their welcome. The longest track has a running time of only four and a half minutes. Occasionally traditional acoustic instruments meet with a bit of technological manipulation. Despite their complexity, the songs on Be Careful What You Call Home never become cluttered. The instruments always have room to breathe giving the songs an aspect of freedom and buoyancy.
On occasion Duncan endulges in some artsier flights of fancy. Nothing so obtuse as to disrupt the album's flow but it has insighted comparisons to Chicago musicians, most notably Jim O'Rourke and Sam Prekop. However Duncan's music never gives way to the stuffy pretense that his Chicagoan counterparts often revel in. Plus if you're absolutely starving for a new Iron & Wine long player, Be Careful What You Call Home is MORE than satisfactory to fill that void.