I mentioned this album by David Garland a couple weeks back. Finally got around to giving it some more listening time and, while I still wouldn't recommend it overall, there are aspects that have ingratiated themselves into my brain. Given that he's doing "songs", the structures are eely and amorphous, not fixed enough on the one hand given their generally melodic nature, not free enough on the other. His lyrics are intensely personal and idiosyncratic which can work on occasion, on others seem coy or sentimental. But....when he nails it, he does so well. The title cut is a wonderful piece, concerned with the emotional importance of sound. Here's the lyrics:

Noise In You

I’ve heard that there’s a noise in you,
and I know that I’m noisy, too.

Composer John Cage, the sonic sage,
told of the time when silence rang.
Inside an anechoic chamber at Harvard,
as sound-proof a room as had ever been made,
a long, low drone, and another up high,
seemed to disprove the soundproof design.
But, he was told, the sound he heard was
himself.

Low note: blood flow; high note: nervous system.

I’ve heard there’s a noise in you,
and I know that I’m noisy, too.

Out in the woods, by the lake,
far from New York and the noise it makes,
things still aren’t quiet yet, sounds still abound.
They bang in my head and they ring in my ears.
A long, harsh note, and some shrill ones up high,
fill in the silence with noise from inside.
Blood and nerves — and something more.

Please don’t leave me, then I’d be alone.
Please don’t leave me, then I’d be alone.
Please don’t leave me, then I’d be alone.
Please don’t leave me, then I’d be alone.

I’ve heard that there’s a noise in you,
and I know that I’m noisy, too.
I’ve heard that there’s a noise in you,
and I know that I’m noisy, too.

(Incidentally, this is sung in a quasi-neo folk fashion, not "noisy" at all. Synchronistically, I was reading "Silence" this morning when the song came on)

In general, I'm frustrated because I get the sense he's capable of creating some very interesting music but for the time being and, I guess, the foreseeable future, it'll be oddball, once in a while brilliant, pop songs.