Where Nighttiming had the patchwork charm of many homemade pop albums,
Davy -- the second album by Jason Schwartzman's one-man-band
Coconut Records -- is pulled together and streamlined, its elements flowing smoothly and logically from one point to the next. Nighttiming split the difference between witty, classicist power pop and moody acoustic melancholia, but
Davy firmly sets up camp within
Beatlesque pop, where even the songs built upon acoustic guitars -- the delicate "Courtyard" and the two-step bounce "Wandering Around" -- wind up scaling up to a luxuriant crescendo.
Davy is pop so lush it's easy to disappear within it: Schwartzman layers his arrangements with small details, from stairstepping basslines to murmuring organs, yet he never overstuffs the songs, he never loses sight of the beauty of the melody. Schwartzman is so in love with '60s pop that he understands why both the songs and records work, why the melodies linger and the textures remain in the imagination. Part of the appeal of classic pop is its brevity, how it never overstays its welcome, and Schwartzman follows suit here. Only two songs here clock in over three minutes -- and even then just barely, they don't cross the 3:30 barrier -- and the whole affair is over in a half-hour, but nothing feels incomplete or unrealized; everything feels complete, a sense that was missing from Nighttiming but is welcome here. That sense of cohesion winds up emphasizing Schwartzman's considerable skills as a pure pop craftsman -- in the late 2000s, there aren't many who match him -- and turn
Davy into a true delight. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine