The Sermon On Exposition Blvd.

The Sermon On Exposition Blvd.
Label: New West Records
Length: LP
Release Date: 2007-02-06
Media: CD
Format: Album
WorkNameSort: Sermon On Exposition Blvd., The
Oh, the high weirdness: a 13-song cycle based on the words and ideas of Jesus Christ, written and performed by Rickie Lee Jones. The recording began with visual artist Lee Cantelon, who’d conceived of the project as a lo-fi spoken-word interpretation of his book of J.C.’s teachings, The Words, featuring a rotating cast of luminaries. Instead of speaking, Jones improvised an actual tune for ‘Nobody Knows My Name,â?� and it became her project. Producer Rob Schnapf (Beck, Elliott Smith) was brought aboard to finish the album with the same cast of musicians for consistency’s sake, and the results is an album that’s meandering and weird, stylistically akin to Tom Waits’ grimy brown sound, with vocals that stretch beyond convention to evoke an otherworldly spiritual journey. ‘Road to Emmausâ?� stalks by with twisted ambient tones, leading into the loose acoustic closer, ‘I Was There,â?� where Jones channels Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks and Neil Young’s On the Beach with her lazy drawl.

This article appears in Feb 7-13, 2007.