Bedroom songwriters. A breed loaded with connotations both endearing and all at the same time sneering and vile. That trapped image of the pale-faced adolescent outcast, greasy complexion, matted hair, narrow eyes and a volume of take-out menus that we are all prone to become at one point in our lives, given about any instrument and the correct balance of imagined disillusionment, is a little too much to suppress. Best Friend Records is a new Philadelphia label driven by the desire to take some of these four-small-wall-bound creations from the obscurity they were created in and to the wider audience outside. And judging from what they’re offering us in the shape of King Of Prussia, “obsessive home recorder” Sam Henderson, they’ve tapped into the correct proportion. Right into it.
Listening to him – the sound of his voice, the tone of his words, the warmth of the instruments he wraps himself up in, and the fact he’s gone out and got himself a band (and a sharp capable one at that) – you know he has felt the wind through the holes in his jeans, inhaled the air of a smoky bar or two, fallen in and out of love, then tried again, and again, and even left town on an occasion or two. His bedroom is just where he probably, y’know, keeps his stuff. And really the only place for someone so prolific to be (he had an archive of 300 songs to choose from for this album), given the geography of the kitchen and nearest all-night garage, natch. His voice tumbles solemnly and slightly across the songs, surrounded by still dark air. You can almost see the half drunk cup of double-caff coffee sat on the side, white snow on the TV and the LCD clock on top of a pile of records ticking over to 4.01am or suchlike.
There is something very poetic, knowing and humane about the stories he tells with such wry and stylistically anti-folk wit, from the likes of “nothing in my ribcage, nothing up my sleeve, but one of us is lying through our perfect teeth,” (‘One Of Us Is Lying’) to which we can all relate, to “as you wipe the cum away with a couple of tissues, indelible stains… remain on the upholstery of the car,” (‘Concord’) that not quite so many perhaps can. All the while, the band strikes up in various directions, all of them very American and very alternative, taking those lyrics to even further places. From the Violent Femmes (name checked in ‘Idiot Flag’) to REM to Moldy Peaches to Juliana Hatfield and Evan Dando to Husker Du to Royal Trux and beyond. Maybe as he doesn’t display the pained vulnerability that say Bright Eyes’ recordings do, King Of Prussia will never make flavour of the month, but that doesn’t stop this being truly one of the most tender albums this writer has heard all year.