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Even if, in addition to writing, playing, and singing his own material, Jodie Landau had not brought on board an established producer (Valgeir Sigurðsson), three other L.A.-based composers, six chamber musicians, and an entire Icelandic women's chorus (Graduale Nobili), You of All Things would still be a most unusual debut. For one thing, Landau's voice is a most unusual instrument. At once raw and exposed, pure and unerringly precise, his vocals are able to veer between choirboy cantillation, torch-singer croon, and full-throated bellow without losing a character that is unmistakably his own. And his compositional aesthetic -- which manages to encompass both the unpretentious bounce of popular song and moments of ominous stasis, setting his own, emotionally intimate lyrics or penning purely instrumental interludes -- demands that elasticity. His other instruments are a little out of the ordinary, as well: in addition to singing, Landau beats and bows on a small battery of percussion instruments. But as a vocalist, a composer, and a percussionist, Landau insinuates himself effortlessly into every layer of music-making on the album. Rehearsed, performed, and recorded in a week and a half, the scores demand a certain spontaneity from the performers, and that spontaneity is reflected in a recording that captures the whirlwind energy of these sessions, without sacrificing clarity, quality, or color of sound. The resulting album offers a glimpse of a wild, chimerical beast, caught in action for the first time, but never quite tamed.
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