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Originally released in 2011 "Truth Jump Fall" is one of Toby Goodshank's finest albums.
Recorded with the help of Moldy Peaches' Jack Dishel and loaded with songs whose beauty is hard to describe, yet to be felt within the first seconds of a song. The songs are catchy and deep, light and heavy at the same time. The arrangments often touch on a psychedelic, heavier side of the singer songwriter tradition while the lyrics explore the topics of love and friendship in meaningful ways.
Songwriter Myles Manley on "Truth Jump Fall"
It had been clear from the Montana Casey directed video for the opening title track that this, by conservative count his 28th solo release within a decade, was to be something special.
Filmed from 360 degrees on a rooftop near his apartment in Brooklyn, sporting his then signature fox mask, over ominous organ and double bass, Toby Goodshank slowly croons We got the generator bill in the mail today / That's when my father freaked out at the very bottom of his vocal range.
Much of Toby's work feels like a zesty thumb of the nose at domesticated bullshit; this album is unusually sombre and haunting in tone, written in the period following the death of his father and bringing his prodigious skills as a songwriter to bear on processing the accompanying grief and trauma. The lyrics, as ever, include a bricolage mosaic of cultural artefacts, lurid sexual outbursts and cryptic storytelling which twists this way and that, lulling you in before unleashing disarming clarity, as in (from track 3, 'Prelude to Fire') I wanna love me but I don’t know how / I wanna leave this life / I wanna change but I don’t know how / I’ve got to change / I’m scared to stay the same.
The album was recorded and heavily produced by Jack Dishel (also formerly of The Moldy Peaches) who had the stated aim of making “every song sound like it could be someone's favourite song of all time”. The pair together honed the gymnastic vocal sections and eccentric riffery in a process that Toby found “crazy” at first, being accustomed to recording quickly and with full autonomy.
The accompaniment to Toby's voice and acoustic guitar is minimal (drums, bass, organ, pads arranged by Dishel and some choice contributions - including electric saw - from other friends) but careful, and perfectly weighted to the strange, tight musculature of the songs.
The result is an album of such cohesion and emotional depth that, as an already confirmed stan, I delighted in it not just for my own sake but for how I could use it; it has since functioned like a gateway drug for most folk I aim to push into the devious musical world of this great songwriter Toby Goodshank.
( - Myles Manley)
