Daniel Romano - Mosey [2LP Black Ice]

Mosey has been out of print since 2016, and it returns on Black Ice vinyl cut at 45 rpm, which is the right treatment for the strangest record Daniel Romano has made.

Romano has never sat still long enough for anyone to file him properly, and by his fifth album he had simply invented a genre to hold whatever he was doing: Mosey Music. It caught people off guard at the time. He had built a following on beautifully crafted classic country, and this album took a hard left, splintering genres and discarding rules with the confidence of someone who had stopped asking permission. Picture Rolling Thunder era Dylan in a room with Lee Hazlewood, Tom Waits, and Peter Green, all arguing amiably, and you're somewhere close.

Valerie Leon opens with fuzzed out electric swells and horns pushing in from the edges, and Romano delivers it with a theatrical fury that never tips into parody. Toulouse brings Rachel McAdams in as guest vocalist for the record's most unexpectedly tender moment, Hunger Is a Dream You Die In lives up to a title that good, and Dead Medium closes the album out somewhere between a lament and a joke.

Twelve tracks across two records at 45 rpm, finally back in print for anyone who missed it.