Some geniuses are prolific; others
take their sweet slowpoke time. Count Marc Anthony Thompson in the
latter category. Over a career spanning more than two decades, the
iconoclastic singer/songwriter has made exactly five albums: two
LPs in 1984 and 1989, which he released under his own name, and
three CDs as Chocolate Genius — Black
Music, Godmusic, and Black Yankee
Rock — in 1998, 2001, and
late 2005, respectively. “I need lyric food,” he told
me by e-mail three years ago, when I asked about his fallow
periods. “You know: heartbreaks, true love, glory, defeat,
some gluttony, a lot of sloth. . . . A really good hangover or
near-death experience is always good for a few gems.”
Although confessional singer/songwriters are about as fashionable
as homemade granola these days, Thompson’s autobiographical
approach is far removed from the post-folky,
ripped-straight-from-the-diary narcissism of his inferiors. At once
grittily realistic and poetically opaque, his lyrics feed on such
topics as deadbeat dads and drunken half-men, the ravages of
Alzheimer’s disease, naked crackheads, household rats, the
erotic allure of the baby Jesus, and testicular sweat. With help from an all-star cast of supporting
musicians, including legendary arranger Van Dyke Parks,
multireedist Roy Nathanson, bassist/chanteuse Me’Shell
Ndegéocello, Cibo Matto member Yuka Honda, and loyal
collaborator Marc Ribot, Thompson began recording Black Yankee Rock the
day after the 2004 presidential election. “If that
doesn’t make you play and sing like it’s the end of the
world,” Thompson recently observed, “I don’t know
what would.” Not that any true Chocolate Genius fan would
expect anything upbeat; Black Music was a vicious dismantling of racial stereotypes,
and Godmusic was a collection of profane hymns, but both were
resolutely down-tempo. Despite the long gaps between releases, every Chocolate Genius CD is essentially the same:
an exquisite downer, a bilious and tender riff on the human condition.
Like the missing link between Marvin Gaye and Tom Waits, Thompson
combines elements of soul, avant-jazz, rock, and blues with a bleak but
never humorless sensibility, one that both invites and resists literal
interpretation. Produced by Craig Street (Cassandra Wilson,
Joe Henry, Norah Jones), Black Yankee
Rock doesn’t so much tinker with
the Chocolate Genius formula as perfect it. Like its two
predecessors, it contains a couple of infectious almost-anthems
(the dirty, distorted garage-rock opener, “The Beginning of
Always,” and the jangly guitar-pop ballad “Forever
Everyone”), but the prevailing aesthetic is slow, sad, and
conflicted. The slinky quiet-stormisms of “Amazona”
serve as ironic commentary on a failed love affair, and the wheezy
calliopelike waltz “Rats Under Waterfalls” turns a
rodent infestation into a Disneyesque caprice. Bolstered by
plangent strings, Thompson’s lithe baritone is predictably
affecting on the self-explanatory “Cry,” and the moody,
piano-based “Down So Low” and the lovely Moby
collaboration “It’s Going Wrong” also fulfill
titular expectations.
In less talented hands, the CD might have
devolved into one long, self-indulgent sobfest, but
Thompson’s acerbic wit and absurdist imagery keep even his
most painful disclosures from seeming maudlin. The opening
track’s chorus shows Thompson poking fun at himself
(“Maybe this time I’ll get better/I’ll try
harder/Yeah?/Whatever”), and the crude pathos of
“Tomboyrockstar” (“You keep calling room service
because you don’t want to be alone. . . . /While the new
things that you want lay dripping in your bed”) belies the
arrangement’s saucy call-and-response horns and pillow-talk
vocals. It’s beautifully appropriate that the CD’s
cover features a Confederate flag rendered in Rasta-sanctioned red,
green, and gold. True to form, Black
Yankee Rock is perverse and
paradoxical, a volatile alloy of ingredients that interact in
uniquely satisfying, if irreconcilable, ways.
This article appears in Oct 27 – Nov 2, 2005.
