After a career spanning more than ten years and 4 critically acclaimed albums as the frontman of Manchester 3-piece Doves, Jimi Goodwin has been waiting quite a while before indulging in his first solo release. Taking direction from mix tapes that used to circulate between Goodwin and his friends, Odludek is a fiery and unpredictable album that embraces the eclectic collection of clashing genres that mix tapes offer. Some of the songs on Odludek have been on the backburner for years, with the sublime "Didsbury Girl" having been aired live over the past few years, while others cover new territory.
The album title is loosely translated as the Polish word for recluse or loner, and even though this is the first time Goodwin has gone it alone in recording an album, he enlisted the help of Elbow frontman Guy Garvey as backing singer and co-writer on a number of the tracks and Simon Dine, formerly of Adventures in Stereo, is also name checked. Far from sounding like the tame recordings of a frontman-gone-solo, Odludek is teeming with jazz-infused musicianship and blaring, ferocious blasts as alarming as a lion's roar right from opening track "Terracotta Warrior". Make no mistake: from the very beginning of Odludek you're in for an interesting, abrasive listen.
Odludek is a fluid collection of contrasting songs. "Didsbury Girl" is the lilting acoustic number, "Hope" is the uplifting reaffirming chant, while "Man V Dingo" is a jazzy, almost dizzying track with some ambitious brass blasts. The album does not lose speed, going from ferocious to subdued in a few short minutes. Tellingly, Goodwin skilfully delivers in every one of these guises. As the earnest folk singer on "Panic Tree", exploring the relationship between father and son, "And I’ve shaken free the fruit from every bough/My father and his father’s name are carved into the bark/I think I’m gonna cut the fucker down", Goodwin delivers a wistfully beautiful and melodic tune. As the middle-aged lamenting and reflective drinker in the harmonicas-and-all whoosh of "Oh! Whiskey", a seemingly boundless reign of creativity is ever present. From lyrics concerning the sudden impasse adulthood creates on "Didsbury Girl" to the abstract and plucky glut of lightening fast lyrics on "Man V Dingo", Goodwin doesn't disappoint.
Where in his his former role of Doves frontman every album was a cohesive and carefully structured collection of songs, Odludek instead has the sound of a musician pouring out a million different ideas at once and trying to catch and keep them all. There isn't any direction in the album, but maybe there doesn't need to be. The whirring prowess of the bolshier tracks beside earnest, emotive paeans is endearing and at points surprising - like all of the best mix tapes.
