Vincent Gallo’s “When” is an album with a sound that is very much a product of the materials with which it was made. A self-described hustler, yet best known as an actor and filmmaker, Gallo also is an obsessive collector of antique and primitive recording tools and, as this album proves, a master at manipulating those tools to create a warm and grainy aesthetic.
The album was recorded at Gallo’s The University for the Development and Theory of Magnetic Tape Recorded Music Studios and released in 2001 by Warp Records, a label whose roster reads like a who’s who of electronic music and includes Aphex Twin, Squarepusher and Prefuse 73. Like his labelmates, Gallo relies heavily on technology (or in this case anti-technology) to shape the music’s sound. The sound, when combined with his feminine vocals, brings to mind a 1970s 8mm movie of a lonely Los Angeles afternoon, one in which the colors of the scenery are faded by the smog and sunlight.
On the first track — titled with the brilliantly pretentious “I Wrote This Song for the Girl Paris Hilton” and written years before any home sex videos and Fox reality shows — a slow jazz beat oozes through the speakers with a drowsy swagger, setting the mood for the rest of the album.
Every song conveys a similar theme and tone, and there is no emotional rise and fall, but each escapes being repetitive. The album’s title track is characterized by Gallo singing a cascade of dooo-do do-do do-dos that seem to belong to a heartbroken woman. On “Honey Bunny” he sings “Honey bunny, my baby girlfriend / sweetheart, my sugar girlfriend … Oh darling, you’re my darling” and makes it sound depressing and beautiful rather than sappy and vomit-inducing.
There is a reason for the cult following of Gallo’s work. This record, like the movie “Buffalo ’66,” demonstrates that he’s in top form when in control of every aspect of a project. Both show a man with clearly defined artistic sensibilities and an understanding of the importance of fine details. This album is a well-guided trip into Gallo’s dreamy vision.