Red Whips and Miracles

It's clear by now that Robert Pollard doesn't need a collaborator to come up with scads of great songs. It should also be clear, however, that the right collaborator can certainly help that process. Look no further than to Pollard's work with guitarist Doug Gillard. More than just his musical foil in Guided by Voices, Gillard has proven to be a talented, valuable teammate for Pollard, someone whose ideas seem to spark some of Uncle Bob's most compelling creativity.

In addition to the pair's work together during the final third of GBV's career, Gillard and Pollard collaborated on two discs that found Gillard providing all of the music and Pollard creating vocals and melodies to go over top. It's the same format he used on discs with Superchunk's Mac McCaughn, former GBV guitarist Tobin Sprout, Tommy Keene and others. The best of these collaborations begin with solid songs. There has been a tendency to throw experimental, half-finished fragments at Pollard to see what he can make, and the results have been interesting. But real songs lacking only words and melody have yielded the best results in these exchanges, and Gillard has come through with several gems.

He does so with "Red Whips and Miracles" from the duo's second collaboration disc (this one under the name Lifeguards). Mist King Urth isn't as immediately poppy as its predecessor, Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department, but it is more musically interesting. "Red Whips" is a big reason for that. Setting aside his guitar for much of the song, Gillard instead creates a jaunty songbed with piano, drums and a punchy bass. Pollard sings one of his most straight-forward melodies here, the song loping along with little dynamic shift for about four minutes. Then the vocals drop away, as do the drums and bass. Gillard's piano line continues, then expands as he adds slight embellishments to it. Soon keyboards wash in to add color as things wind down in anticipation of the inevitable slow build. When it comes, with Gillard strapping on his guitar to lay down a minute or so of psychedelic guitar, it's a sweet catharsis that offers a fitting close to the album. At more than eight minutes, it's one of the longest songs in Pollard's cannon, but it never drags.

While it has been interesting to see how Pollard works alone or in concert with new uber-producer Todd Tobias, one hopes he and Gillard return to the studio some day to further explore this partnership.