Khartoum (album)

Infobox Album |
Name = Khartoum
Type = Album
Artist = Jandek


Released = October 2005
Recorded = 2005
Length = 52:13
Label = Corwood Industries
Producer = Jandek
Reviews =

Last album = "Raining Down Diamonds"
(2005)
This album = "Khartoum"
(2005)
Next album = "Khartoum Variations"
(2006)

Khartoum is the fourth and final album released in 2005 by Jandek. Released, as usual, by Corwood Industries, it is catalog (#0781), and his 43rd release overall. It finds the Corwood Representative back on solo vocals and acoustic guitar.

Overview

Those looking to define any political nature in the name of this album will have a difficult time doing so. Returning to the open-tuned acoustic guitar and a sound similar to "I Threw You Away", "Khartoum" moves the artist away from the mostly-devotional songs of "Raining Down Diamonds" to return him to the "real world", a place he's having trouble with. Opening song "You Wanted to Leave" appears to be a statement of purpose: She (perhaps the girl from the "relationship albums?") wanted to leave because she wanted excitement and he wanted "the spirit world." Even more than that, he now understands that he caused her pain because, after the initial thrill went away, he realized how boring his life must be to anybody else: "It really was a boring life/then you lost your excitement/but the breeze blows through the trees/the birds sing their song of songs/the clouds weave their patterns/I’m not so different from them."

After such a moment of self-acceptance, the rest of the album finds the artist returning to the troubles of loneliness, depression, and dealing with a fast-paced world that has left him behind. "Fragmentation" begins, "The form of a corporation is delimited/why is it so vernacular" (in lyrics spoke/sung in a rather ironic sense), and he seems to be wondering how to keep up the "image" of a working man. "I Shot Myself" is either darkly humorous, intensely harrowing ("I shot myself/I can't get up/I'm beyond repair") or simply more reflection on the death of a relationship ("your mercy abounds/from where you forgave me/until the ice of your catapult").

He later confronts his emotional loss, going back a bit on the initial lyrics ("all the spirits in the spirit world/don't equal you...I took you for granted...I miss you") and the title track may be a metaphor for his romantic vs spiritual conflict - a civil war where nobody can win.

In the end he's alone, wondering "what kind of vacuum/took my enthusiasm?" Neither comforted by the spirits or a woman, he claims "my house is dead," and notes that "if you see a fork in the road/and you go one way/I go both ways everyday/there is no distinction." This split seems a mirror to his life, where he must be a "regular guy," a lover, a musician, a believer, etc. In trying to be everything he winds up exhausted, sitting in a familiar chair, not quite ready to give up.

Track listing

#"You Wanted To Leave" – 6:36
#"Fragmentation" – 5:53
#"I Shot Myself" – 4:44
#"New Dimension" – 5:16
#"Khartoum" – 9:43
#"In A Chair I Stare" – 5:50
#"Move From The Mountain" – 7:55
#"Fork In The Road" – 5:40

Album Cover Description

Another portrait of the "pious" Jandek, this time surrounded by a blue haze, and with the eyes so mysteriously "blacked out."