Ezra Furman

Ezra Furman & the Harpoons' extremely unpolished, wild-eyed and open-hearted debut. At twenty years old, having performed exclusively in environments where I had to scream to even hear myself, I went into a beautiful and expensive studio with my college friends and made this album in five days. That seemed to me, at the time, like a weirdly long time to spend on it, if that gives you an idea of my standards back then. I just wanted to play the song and belt out the lyrics and not think about it. Which is pretty much what we did.

The vibe is acoustic-electric frenzy. What the songs lack in craft and focus they make up for with the sheer energy of alienated youth and desperation to connect. You kind of can’t tell if the kid’s gonna break down in a panic attack or have an ecstatic mystical experience. The Harpoons know how to bring a song across with the tools of simple rock’n’roll recorded in one live take. Many of the songs end by collapsing into a clatter of noise. Producer Brian Deck expertly captured it all, conveying the raw untutored passion and making sure it all sounds as urgent as it felt to me.