Sometime after the release of 2003's sparse and slightly chilly
Luxor,
Robyn Hitchcock attended his first
Gillian Welch show. Impressed by the duo's rootsy adherence to the organic -- two guitars, two voices -- he approached the longtime fans --
Hitchcock unknowingly signed
David Rawlings' guitar at a Boston in-store in 1989 -- and exchanged digits. The unlikely partnership came to fruition at Nashville's Woodland Studios a few months later, and in just six days the lovely, intimate, and typically eccentric
Spooked was born. Produced by
Rawlings and culled from hours of off-the-cuff originals,
Dylan songs, and general weirdness,
Spooked harks back to his mercurial
I Often Dream of Trains period. References to fungus and food abound, but wrapped in the wooly blankets of
Rawlings' signature picking and
Welch's winsome harmonies, they take on a fireplace warmth that renders them amiably nostalgic rather than blatantly surreal. On the dew-soaked opener, "Television,"
Rawlings lays down a beautiful descending lead that wouldn't have sounded out of place on the duo's debut, and its juxtaposition with
Hitchcock's "bing a bon a bing bong" vocal entrance is jarring, but when the three of them come together mid-song to harmonize, the results are quietly majestic. Much of the record revisits -- musically at least --
Hitchcock's colorful past. "Everybody Needs Love," with its breathy urgency and electric sitar, sounds like something off of
Element of Light, and the lurching "Creeped Out" -- featuring
Welch on drums -- could have been the B-side to 1985's "Brenda's Iron Sledge." This is
Hitchcock's most rewarding and creative endeavor since 1993's
Egyptian-led
Respect, and the fact that
Rawlings and
Welch are there as eager tools to flesh out his English netherworld makes the fellowship feel even more collaborative. It's a testament to both camps' willingness to try anything -- hearing
Welch and
Rawlings repeating "crackle, crackle, pop" beneath
Hitchcock's spoken word sales pitch to extraterrestrials looking to vacation on Earth is a pretty good example -- that ultimately succeeds in making
Spooked the left-field gem that it is.