Mojave 3: Seduced by the Bad News Muse

“I think I’ve only ever written one song in my life,” confesses Neil Halstead, principal voice and pen behind the spaced-out, countrified fauxlk-rock of Mojave 3, whose album Spoon And Rafter was recently released on the 4AD label. Halstead may be onto something. The 10 variations of this one song that appear on Spoon And Rafter indeed continue in the tradition of the past few Mojave 3 albums, creating the feel of a jilted lover trying to slit his wrist with a feather. Ethereal, blissed-out canvases full of pedal steel, heartbreak and Halstead’s whispery vocals drift across like the fading scent of an ex’s perfume barely clinging to the fibers of your winter coat.

The album was recorded in brief spurts over the course of 13 months at the band’s Cornwall studio in southwest England. They worked whenever Halstead could cajole the other members of the band — Rachel Goswell (vocals, bass), Ian McCutcheon (drums, percussion), Simon Rowe (guitar) and Alan Forrester (keyboards) — into ditching London (and their day jobs) long enough to get into the studio to work on the album. With too much free time between recording sessions, the band inevitably began second-guessing arrangements and song selections, resulting in a much different record at the journey’s end.

“Songs like ‘Bluebird [of Happiness]’ and ‘Battle of the Broken Hearts’ were songs we’d come back to and change the arrangements each time. We’d come back into the studio after three months and say, ‘Maybe we should change that a bit, or change that a bit.’ So we’d start again or try and change it in some other way, but I think in some ways it was quite nice. It allowed some of the songs to sprawl a bit, they’re a bit more overweight than some of the stuff we’ve done in the past.” One of the more shocking artistic decisions on the album, the band opens with “Bluebird of Happiness,” a sprawl-athon, overweight to the tune of nine minutes and 15 seconds. According to Halstead, it was a group decision.

“We all felt at the time it was a good song to start the album with. And it was very hard to put it in any other place the record, actually. So that dictated it as much as anything else.” If a little monotonous at times in its repetition of the song’s lyrical refrain (“Got to find a way to get home soon / Got to find a way back home / Got to find a road that brings me back soon / Got to find a way back home”), “Bluebird” soars into a Moog-drenched interlude that breaks the song into three discrete (read: more easily digestible) movements.

With Spoon And Rafter, Mojave 3 proves heartbreak is still an artist’s best friend. But Halstead bristles at the suggestion that he seems to have an easy time writing about pain, misery and loss. “There are a lot of songs about relationships, and I guess I’d dispute the fact that they’re miserable. I don’t necessarily agree with that.”

Miserable or not, his songs make for some perfect late-night company.