Calvin Johnson has made a 30 plus year career out of his endearing impulsivity and his do-what-feels-right mindset. The earliest Beat Happening songs sounded as if they might be totally improvised or at least that the singing and instrumentation came from a part of the spirit that channeled raw energy, unfettered by previous musical or social conventions. Johnson’s newest effort as The Hive Dwellers, Hewn from the Wilderness, out now on his own legendary label K Records, bears similar hallmarks of nonconformity and lives up to its name as an uninhibited and resolutely fun collection of songs.
Once you’ve seen Johnson dance, your life is never the same again. Hips shaking and rolling, snakelike gyrations, an ever-craning neck, and surfer-posed arms make the visual experience one impossible to forget. Johnson simply lets the music take his body where it will. Following in this vein, a similar approach is employed for the songwriting on Hewn. The first sounds on the record are sparse handclapping and stomping. Whether true or not, I believe that Calvin called some friends to meet him at his own Dub Narcotic Studios, and they dutifully showed up. “Okay, what’s going on?” drummer Evan Hashi might have inquired. Perhaps Calvin just pointed at the instruments, started the tape reel, and started stomping. Here we go.
Beyond its raw and at times off-kilter instrumentation, the songs are quirky meditations and oddball narratives. Johnson’s lyrics are sometimes clever as when he asks the patron saint of lost causes not to give up on him in album standout “The Dignity of Saint Jude”. Other times, they’re more directly silly, like track two, on which Johnson intones, “Lord gave me hell and a woman named Trudy,” in a kind of noir style that owes something to country lyricism. In any case, Johnson is the kind of guy who does what feels right at the exact moment, doesn’t look back, and just enjoys himself—and that fun is infectious. Impossible to ignore is Johnson’s baritone voice, which permeates the songs, creating droning melodies that provide a constant, playful cadence.
One of the most curious tracks is the longest, the sprawling jam “Get In,” on which Johnson rattles through an epic list of descriptors of people who might be considered social outcasts with interjections of a catchy, distorted, rock ‘n’ roll guitar chorus. He even throws out some eyebrow-raising terms like “negroid” and “lesbo,” but the song becomes clearer when Johnson sings proudly these anthemic lines:
All you fly m.f.ers who been on our case
We’re 95% of the human race
We got our own gang
You can join it too
Just color outside the lines
Though the song is at times crass, the sentiment encapsulates an inclusive and open-minded mentality that defines the spirit of K Records.
As strange as the songs are, you may tilt your head to one side on first listen, but an hour later you’ll find yourself singing them quietly as you try to hold back full on dancing in the middle of your place of work. The album is Johnson’s first effort of any kind since his 2007 solo album Calvin Johnson & the Sons of the Soil, and we’re glad he’s back. The Hive Dwellers have given us a record from the deepest part of Calvin Johnson’s spirit, unruly and unrestrained, truly Hewn from the Wilderness.
