Album Review: Jandek – “Toronto Sunday” – (Corwood)

By Luke Winkie

Ever since Jandek made his ever-so-precarious crawl from utterly unknown, near mythical status to somewhat unknown, somewhat mythical status (on the back of a small handful of previously unheard-of live shows each year since 2005) his presence and insanely-engaging mystery has become somewhat of a commodity. Documentaries have been made, shows have been recorded, and insider listeners were fully captivated by the long and storied lore of outsider musicians.

Toronto Sunday is another entry in a long line of concert albums in the spirit of Glasgow Friday or London Tuesday, and like those other performances, it’s a long-form series of 15-minute, highly improvisational, lyrically wailing, clattering, rattling, austere fucking art. There’s not a comfortable moment here — its Jandek lost in his own blacked-out weirdness. He’s sixty five years old, and still no one can even attempt to recreate his atonal bleakness. This is music at its most pretentious, and its most interesting – these things often go hand in hand.