As 2007 wound down, Will Oldham, as Bonnie Prince Billy, entered the Hexam Head studio in Philadelphia with Greg Weeks and Meg Baird and recorded seven cover tunes and a lone original. Given Oldham's delightfully idiosyncratic method of working, one would expect these tunes (titled only by their writers' names, so it's up to you to figure out what songs he's actually singing) to be radically strange versions of songs both popular and somewhat obscure. While it's true that these are not straight-up readings, they are also far from strange. In fact, what Oldham has done is create a half-hour of relaxed -- if sometimes harrowing and melancholy -- personally interpreted music he enjoys performing. Despite the fine sound and full presence of both Oldham and Baird, there is the distance of reverie, memory, regret, and distance in these songs. There are no stutter steps, loose lyrics, or unexpected interruptions that have made earlier records more marginal, and perhaps -- to some -- more interesting. The bottom line is that only a songwriter could read these songs so subtly and yet inflect them with the kind of immediacy that makes them sound as if they were his own. This is no mean feat when some of the tunes here are considered -- in their respective circles -- as having already been read that way. A case in point is Oldham's version of Gayle Caldwell's Cycles, which is (and will continue to be) utterly defined by the persona of Frank Sinatra reading it. Nonetheless, as Bonnie Prince Billy, he and Baird in duet sing it as if it were some self-reflective back-porch ballad looking on the passage of time and the stages of life. Unless you actually knew this tune well enough, you'd never associate the two versions -- though Weeks does a nice job of injecting some of the original's instrumental and sonic tropes.

1		I Came to Hear the Music
2		I've Seen It All
3		Am I Demon?
4		My Life
5		I'm Loving the Street
6		The Way I Am
7		Cycles
8		The World's Greatest

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