White Vinyl
Long-time coming reissue of Plush's debut LP, originally released in the indie interzone hinterland of 1998 to far too little acclaim. Liam Hayes is kind of the nearly-man of the 90s Chicago underground, a late night piano-bar crooner in the grain of Harry Nillson that projected as a transplant from an entirely different era. On later albums and in accompanying press photos, Hayes presented as a kind of glammy Brian Wilson, but on More You Becomes You sincerity defines his persona, a heart-on-the-sleeve emoter who just can't find a little baby and knows just how ridiculous such a longing can be. When he reaches for the high note '(I Didn't Know) I Was Asleep' and breaks into laughter as he fails, the measure of the artist is truly revealed - this is a classic songwriter aware that classicism is there to be subverted. Pianomen like Rufus Wainwright coined a ton from a similar approach, which makes Hayes' relative obscurity that more perplexing. Eccentricity doesn't always commercially connect I guess, but it does tend to endure. Even as More You Becomes You mines the classic, it manages to venture off-piste into its own uneven terrain, its own kind of Songs of Longing and Laughing About It, if you like. Sing a sad song, but make it better.
