At least half of all marriages end in divorce, and
the rate at which bands break up has to be even higher, so what are the
odds that a husband-and-wife band could succeed in the long run? Whatever
they are, Brett and Rennie Sparks are beating them. The Sparkses have been
married for 18 years, and they’ve spent the last dozen of them as the
Handsome Family, a bent and beautiful little band whose long, prolific
career is a case study in the virtues of what marriage counselors call the
equitable division of labor. Rennie, a published author, writes all the
lyrics; Brett, a former music major, writes all the music and records it on
a Mac in the couple’s garage. They each play instruments and sing,
although Brett does the bulk of both. Whereas most bands collapse under the
weight of too many contending egos, the two members of the Handsome Family
know their place; by divvying up the compositional chores, they complement,
rather than compete against, each other. On Last
Days of Wonder, the system is working
better than ever. Rennie’s lyrics are heartbreaking and
hilarious, distilling a weird loveliness out of the sad detritus of daily
life. Illegal dumping sites, the automatic sinks in airport restrooms, golf
carts in ditches, billboards full of singing birds — all are portals
to the miraculous, and nature, red in tooth and claw, is both our solace
and our undoing. A smiling girl at a drive-thru window dispenses a large
iced tea, an extra packet of ketchup, a small bag of onion rings, and a
supersized epiphany; two drunks in a graveyard are transfixed by the
security lights swaying in the trees overhead; a hunter mistakes a wild
boar for his one true love. “Tesla’s Hotel Room”
touchingly describes the final days of the great inventor: “Nicola
Tesla in the Hotel New Yorker nursing sick pigeons by the open window.
Dreamed of a death ray to disintegrate matter. Detected Morse code from
faraway planets.” Another standout, “Our Blue Sky,” asks
a series of questions that we all wish Jerry Falwell would answer:
“Could you love God if he didn’t love you more than rivers,
snakes, or wind? Could you share heaven with black buzzing flies?”
Brett’s music is especially rich and varied
this time around, a wildly inventive blend of retro and modern. In addition
to acoustic guitars, ukeleles, banjos, and autoharps — all the
old-timey accoutrements that, along with his plangent baritone, cause the
Handsome Family to be saddled with such deeply inadequate labels as
“alt-country” and “Gothic Americana” — he
uses a wide array of samples and experimental production techniques.
“Beautiful William,” an ethereal waltz about a man who suddenly
disappears, pairs a glass armonica synthesizer patch with bowed crystal
wineglasses. The Tom Waits-ian “These Golden Jewels” buttresses
a Mellotron tape loop with an eerie musical saw played by actual Waits
collaborator David Coulter, who e-mailed his part from London. Rather than
use a drum machine, as on previous Handsome Family recordings, Brett
recorded each element of a drum kit separately in real time and spliced
them all together on the computer. Last Days of Wonder is
greater than the sum of its parts, though, and that’s the best thing
about it. You could write an entire essay about Brett’s genius studio
gimcrackery, another one about Rennie’s eschatological obsessions,
but that would be just part of the picture. The real magic happens when you
put it all together, when you hear Rennie singing Brett’s melodies,
Brett singing Rennie’s words, the glorious symbiosis that happens
when two talented people bring out the best in each other. A wonder,
indeed.
This article appears in Jun 15-21, 2006.
