.RTS The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Tuesday, April 17, 2007 -11 Oberst turns'Eyes'to 'Eden' more cryptic horizons through By CAITLIN COWAN DailyArts Writer Conor Oberst has been given many titles: savior, genius, this generation's Bob Dylan and - less *** receptively - flat-out hipster. The work of Bright Eyes Oberst's musical Cassadaga vehicle, Bright Eyes, has been Saddle Creek as varied as his monikers. The 27-year-old Nebraska native has released an impressive six albums in fewer than 10 years, although each release has been of differing qual- ity. After releasing the acclaimed Fevers and Mirrors in 2000 and Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil in 2002, Oberst hit a plateau with the two discs released back-to-back in 2005, Digital Ash in a Digital Urn and I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning. His latest, Cassadaga, is another admirable attempt, but it lacks the dynamic highs and lows that made his previous work so skillful. The album is named after a 112- year-old spiritualist camp that boasts two dozen resident clair- voyants in Central Florida. Part answering machine message and part "Outer Limits" theme song, the first track, "Clairaudients (Kill Or Be Killed)," is another of Oberst's brilliantly strange intros. A clairaudient is someone who sup- posedly can hear sounds beyond the range of human perception. It looks like Oberst is sending us a message about his feelings and abilities - typical of his pretension to be sure. While the tempo picks up on the single, "Four Winds," the next few tracks are mostly unremark- able and often disappointing. What made Bright Eyes' albums extraor- dinary in the past was their begin- ning-to-end majesty. Oberst is typically very exacting, and doesn't waste a single second or word on his albums, but this time around nearly a third of his latest is made up of mediocre songs like the poky "If The Brakeman Turns My Way" and the banal "Classic Cars." There are, fortunately, some high points. The frantic strings on "Middleman" lend the track a kind Doesn't that haircut look familiar? of Celtic-meets-country sound. The soprano moans and eerily beautiful lyrics on "No One Would Riot for Less" comprise one of the album's highest points. "Help is coming / You kiss my mouth / Help is here," he sings. "Make aPlanto Love Me"is asad, endearing song about unrequited love that's destined for someone's MySpace profile. At first this seems like a romantic ballad, but Oberst is older and more jaded on this album, and after a few verses the song's bit- ter center becomes apparent. 'Clairaudience' and other refined pretense. Oberst mixes in Eastern flavors on "Coat Check Dream Song," and cryptic, imagistic lyrics like "Stuck on a ladder to heaven /On trial way back in The Hague /Lullaby sounds from the engine / In my Styrofoam coffin," crafting a kind of pastiche that's reminiscent of his stronger earlier work. For established fans there are still a number of positive aspects to Cassadaga: Oberst's lyrics and his enchanting voice, with equal parts gravel and sugar, are as good as they've ever been. But from some- one with so much evident talent it feels like Oberst is holding back. For all of his emphasis on oth- erworldliness, clairaudience and moving beyond the secular, Cas- sadaga flies astonishingly low to the ground. a lens Lyle Gomes reexamines man and nature By ABIGAIL B. COLODNER Daily Fine Arts Editor "Little will be required from the hand of art ... Nature has already done almost all that is required," I in wrote Massachu- magnin setts congress- Eden: man Edward Everett in 1832. Co Clecing He was speaking Landscapes of a secluded plot of land slated to Through June 3 become an idyl- Athe UMMA lic cemetery. His statement Offsite Gallery is in ways dated - it precedes the institution of public urban parks, cemeteries being a more common place for recreation in his day, and his "Nature" entity is 19th century romance epitomized. Everett's sentimental reasoning seems to echo through the misty black-and-white photographs by contemporary artist Lyle Gomes NOW YOU CAN GET GOOD MONEY FOR YOUR BOOKS AND IT'S PAINFULLY EASY FREE PICK-UP IN ANN ARBOR Lyle Gomes's photography is consistently ethereal and beautiful - a quiet documentation of man and nature. in UMMA-Offsite's new exhibit, "Imagining Eden: Connecting Landscapes,"runningthroughJune 3. The California artist treks out to hunting grounds, golf courses and gardens in Europe and America in the early morning hours when fog still lingers and the paths are empty of pleasure-seekers. His panorama shots, heavily cropped to a horizontal frame, are well-suited to the kinds of land- scapes he visits. Gomes looks at spaces molded in a landscape tra- dition which takes rationality and harmony as guiding principles. His fairly open spaces are punctu- ated by arcades of trees or stone. The landscapes glow, their edges blurred into a bright haze like the face of a 1930s film starlet in soft focus. His, camera never inserts itself into the underbrush or low-hang- ing branches, refusing to get up close the way a wandering human might. Instead, it seems to hover over the scene. Often Gomes pho- tographs from a seemingly impos- sible spot, such as the middle of a pond or on the railing between a ledge and a valley, and his extreme cropping of the lower section of the view gives an eerie sense of waft- ing a couple feet above the ground. This technique makes Gomes' viewers incorporeal. He doesn't take the perspective of the British nobility and San Francisco city folk for whom they were designed, but of the scene's natural surrounding fog. The quotes Gomes includes with several of his photographs seem particularly pointed next to these images. Many of the quotes come from19th-centurylandscape archi- tects and urban officials who speak affectionately of the way humans can mold nature's quirky elegance to serve their aesthetic preferenc- es. Gomes's camera has the same slightly detached tone. It places the spaces on a pedestal and shows them in their preserved and pris- tine state, before the public gets its hands on them for the day. A placard introducing the works speaks of landscapes that form a "reconciliation of man's paradise in nature," referringtothe Edenofthe exhibition's title. The title suggests the primary use of these spaces is inhabitation, an earthly garden.we haven't (yet) been booted from. But Gomes shows these spaces before inhabitation, elevated above that of any human who might wander in in search of peace and quiet. AT SOL I L I a 120 JOBS THAT WON'T CHA N .YOU TO YOUR DESI( 120 JOBS THAT WON'T CHAIN YOU TO YOUR DESK 978-0-375-76598-8 .$16.95 FINDING YOUR DREAM CAREER OUTSIDE AN OFFICE - BEST ENTRY 978-0-375-7 Find profiles of the top 101 grads at cool companies li VH1, and Goldman Sach what it tat Profiles and practical advice on launching an unorthodox career- everything from wedding planning to tiger taming. Best Entry-Level LEVEL JOBS 6599-5 " $16.95 0 jobs for recent , - ____ ike AmeriCorps, is-and find out kes to get hired. ' GUIDE TO YOUR CAREER 978-0-375-76561-2 . $19.95 240 comprehensive industry profiles and a career indicator quiz to help you discover your passion and find a job in it too! c ud o u Caree TTe Available wherever books are sold or at Princeton www.PrincetonReview.com Review