Dean Wareham is cult to the extreme. Those who came to his most cult band, Luna, have followed him since, as eccentric singer-songwriter, as half of a male-female pop crooner duo . . . and now here he is, pairing with Ralph Porpora (dressed up as Cheval Sombre) to evoke ten prairie western remakes. It’s twangy and echoing and high-voiced and . . . well, it’s weird as all heck. Saving the day is the pair’s intrinsic melodic sense and the loping musicality of the arrangements. Too much of a curio to end up on anyone’s 2018 Best Of list, I nonetheless enjoyed the gorgeous sound, familiar yet transgressive. Check out the weird, stately opener, a version of Marty Robbins’ “The Bend in the River,” then the sepulchral piano-and-acoustic-guitar pleas of The Magnetic Fields’ “Grand Canyon,” and then, if that hasn’t put you off, head for the strangest, part-whistled arrangement of “Wand’rin’ Star” (I still remember seeing Lee Marvin singing it!) you’ve ever heard. Somehow slightly more than the sum of its odd parts, this album is worth examining.
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