CAT#: ULY032
ARTIST: David Michael Moore
TITLE: Lunch is Having Lunch
DATE: 08/02/2024
FORMAT: Digital
PRICE: $7
‘Lunch is Having Lunch’ was recorded across three decades before David Michael Moore finally declared it complete in 2012 —uploading it to CDBaby and slapping it onto CD-R. On its fading jet-printed back cover, the dates 1987, 1997, 2005, 2010, and 2012 are included next to the copyright. So in one way, this recording goes the furthest back among our David Michael Moore archival series. In another way, it’s the most recent album we have.
But we’re burying the lede. What we might draw your attention to here is the introduction of David’s voice and singular songwriting on a handful of these songs — “Worm Ladies,” “Little Skipper,” “Orion’s in the Bucket,” “Across the Field” and the ghostly, sensual “Rosie,” wherein he borrows from and expands upon William Blake’s short poem ’The Sick Rose.’
A sole muted zither is used to create “Rosie”’s house-y pulse, its spare melody and between verse fills — a perfect sort of hay bed for David’s plaintive voice. “The invisible worm/That flies in the night/In the howling storm/Has found out thy bed/Of crimson joy/And his dark secret love/Does thy life destroy,” David croons before bringing Blake’s words to the Delta. “Two dove on her tombstone/And a treble clef with wings/Shacking up with Jesus/I can still hear her sing.” This poem — with love as the wrecking ball; love as an instrument of death and decay — pulled like taffy across the centuries and made so very earthen that even we rapt listeners get some dirt under our fingernails. All delivered in David’s elegant style, untethered from any ego. Ladies and worms, this is wholesale genius.
Elsewhere, we have “Orion’s in the Bucket,” (featured on our 2022 compilation, Flatboat River Witch) a clever observational and gentle lounge number that would/could/should be a Vince Guaraldi classic. Only on the stillest of nights could one recognize the reflection of a constellation in a bucket of water, note dog lapping up said constellation — and then let the mind wander to Moloch, the ancient deity associated with child sacrifice. It’s blissful river music. On “Across the Field” and “Worm Ladies” David approaches gypsy jazz and something near to Joséphine Baker — or maybe even Radiohead’s “Life in a Glass House.” The latter tune might remind one of M. Doughty/Soul Coughing (or maybe even David James Matthews?!) and ties a nice thematic bow around the collection when considering the aforementioned “Rosie.”
But it’s not all about the vocal songs. No, sirree bob. The instrumental prowess we’ve come to know and love from David is here too and firinig on all cylinders. On the astounding, nearly 12-minute “Donny Quixote,” David vamps on piano across a delicate jazz that sounds almost Malian. It’s out of time but feels wound into one’s very DNA. On “Arpeggiated Improvisation,” shit gets downright toejazz. ‘Lunch is Having Lunch’ sounds like a man who might be Alone in the Universe and Marooned in his Skull if not for literature, poetry and philosophy; if not for his profound relationship to nature; and if not for the relentless churning of his own creativity.
