Description
Bonnie “Prince” Billy (or Will Oldham) may still not be a person you can name-drop at parties to get the head nods and recognition of your peers, but he’s still a rare and important breed in the world of indie rock. Pond Scum isn’t a new record by Oldham. If you’re on the lookout for a crop of new songs and won’t be satisfied by anything else, this may not be your bag. Instead, it’s a compendium of some of Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s Peel Sessions. Oldham’s style really doesn’t change even though the collection spans a decade of musical development. His style of writing would feel a bit strange if it were constantly evolving though. Its sparseness is precisely its charm to begin with. It doesn’t matter what he plays on his guitar so much as what he sings. His poetry comes through as—if not more—beautifully and poignantly on these versions as it does on the originals. You’re basically getting treated to a live solo performance on record, and that seems like the ideal forum for his songs.
