Yes, Sub-Space is Colder

By Jo Cline. Originally appeared in C-Ville Weekly. October 1996.

Mention Albemarle County resident David Berman among indie rock cognoscenti and you’ll get instant recognition. But most people around here just say “Isn’t he that tall, cool guy? “The Silver Jews is Berman’s band, founded in 1990 when he shared a Hoboken apartment with Steve Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich, both erstwhile Charlottesvillians via UVA, and both better known as M.O.P.: Members of Pavement. Their music is pensive and tuneful, with no real pyrotechnics. It’s almost folksy: simple music about important things which inspires you to sing along.

Despite the differences from Pavement, the Silver Jews have been unfairly labeled a Pavement side project. That will change. The Jews’ second full-length comes out today on Chicago’s ultra-hip label Drag City. Called “The Natural Bridge”, the album is chock full of Virginia references and Virginia moods, and the same gentle wit that made their first album, “Starlite Walker”, a quiet triumph among the in-the-know. “Bridge” spawned gossip long before it was recorded: after a week of practice in Charlottesville last October, the Silver Jews returned to the same studio in Memphis where they’d done “Starlite”. But something wasn’t quite right. “I didn’t feel like they were entering the songs the way I wanted them to,” Berman explains. And, knowing he was costing lots of people time, money and inconvenience, he scrapped the sessions.

Finally recorded in June at Studio .45 (an old Colt gun factory) in Hartford, Connecticut, “Bridge” features Peyton Pinkerton and Matt Hunter from New Radiant Storm King (with whom the Silver Jews released a split single in 1993), producer / drummer Rian Thomas Murphy, a Drag City fixture, and keyboardist Michael Deming. “I needed people who understood the Silver Jews,” Berman says, “but didn’t feel like they had to be in the band. ” This line-up change took some feather-smoothing on Berman’s part, but he says that Malkmus and Nastanovich are still in the Silver Jews, and his next project will be with them.

Many of the “Bridge” songs were written last winter, says Berman, “when I was trapped in the house. All of them were written on cloudy days. “He made tapes of the songs and sent demos to the other musicians a couple weeks before meeting to record. “By the time we got to the studio,” says Berman, “they knew the songs better than I did. “He describes the two weeks of recordings as kind of hellish because he had severe insomnia, so severe that he was having walking hallucinations and being “constantly on the line with God,” praying to be able to sleep again.

One day driving to the studio, a tractor trailor truck from Guaranteed Overnight Delivery - G.O.D. - was parked perpendicular to the street, blocking their way, and he knew he wasn’t going to get any sleep in Connecticut.

The “Bridge” songs are populated with God, prayers, death, churches and even a hearse, but rather than gloom, “Bridge” invokes a kind of company for thought, a jumping off point for a pondering mood. More polished than “Starlite”, “Bridge” music points to the lyrics. “When I go downtown I always wear a corduroy suit / Cause it’s made of a hundred gutters that the rain can run right through. ” - “Black and Brown Blues”“In the cold places where Spanish is spoken / Most wars end in the fall. ” - “Pet Politics”The lyrics, Berman’s deep soothing voice, and the pretty melodies team up to make the record a beautiful listen. Famous for trumping up reasons why he won’t play live, Berman says he’ll break down and do it within the next year (you heard it here). In the meantime, he’s doing a spoken word tour in Europe, including a Peel Session. He sheepishly points to his own words in “The Frontier Index” to describe his situation: “When I was younger I was a cobra / In every case I wanted to be cool / Now that I’m older and sub-space is colder / I just want to say something true. ”