Sun Kil Moon - "By The Time That I Awoke" (live at Haldern Pop Festival 2014). I have no recording of Sun Kil Moon's Wednesday night performance at Pop Montreal. Their "By The Time That I Awoke" sounded nothing like the album version, which Mark Kozelek made with Jimmy LaValle. This was a greater wonder, a gift sent out into a darkened hall, a comet in a Montreal autumn. Instead of cascading computer synths, Sun Kil Moon gave galloping drums, glimmering piano, a blade-edged bass guitar. Kozelek stood with one hand in his jean pocket and sang into a handheld microphone. He sang and shouted, crooned and shouted, bathed in swaying reverb. The darkened hall, the comet, the Montreal autumn - everything felt buffeted by that swaying, disembodied reverb. Sometimes it was hard to know if we were listening to a moving music or ourselves being moved through the music, our spirits pulled roughly across another material, water or glass or smoke. The song stopped and it started again. We understood some lines and others came across all blurred, incomprehensible, their meaning reduced to intonation. Kozelek's music has always been a lesson in the way intonation can overwhelm: as Red House Painters, as Sun Kil Moon, as himself, he sang in a voice that sounded almost like a moan. He sang in a voice like a right hook gliding steadily through space. We never saw it coming; we never saw it 'til we were hit, 'til it knocked us down.

[audio source / buy albums by Mark Kozelek]

(photo source)