Rock 'N' Roll Singer [LP]

This EP is the solo debut of Mark Kozelek, mastermind of California's Red House Painters, who quickly moved from lower-case American Music Club status to kings of the mope-rock roost. As evidenced by some of his previous artistic choices, Kozelek has a knack for carefully placed perversity and expertly veiled irony, and he continues that trend here.
As in the past, Kozelek makes some willfully bizarre choices of cover tunes, tackling no less than three AC/DC tunes and one by John Denver. The master stroke here is that when he applies his mournful Nick Drake-via-Tim Hardin voice and elegantly picked acoustic guitar to these songs, they sound completely at home in his repertoire. The three original tunes are fully up to the level of Kozelek's Red House Painters work, full of casual beauty, gracefully presented sadness, and artful fragility.