Pitchfork
January 6, 2010
Link
8
This Philly home-taping head got his biggest break with the 1970s FM-rock dreams of Matador debut Childish Prodigy last fall. But delve deeper into Kurt Vile's work, and you hear a folk troubadour off in his own Another Green World. "I Wanted Everything", from a 7" titled Meet the Philly Elite (tongue, no doubt, halfway in cheek), is Vile in downcast acoustic-totin' slacker mode. The outer-space production flourishes of his best album so far, God Is Saying This to You, must've gone back to their home planet, but Vile's earthy moan and rusty guitar arpeggios pass through lo-fi reverb that should please devotees of Atlas Sound, Ariel Pink, and, hell, early My Morning Jacket. One minute, Vile is dusting off American clichés to promise eternal love. The next, he's bumping up against deeply contemporary quandaries involving work-life balance-- and impending mortality. You can't always get what you want.
