These albums push Kozelek’s spoken-word style to its extreme. Universal Themes is fragmented and abrasive, featuring a 15-minute rant about a broken luggage wheel. Common as Light… is a double-album sprawling over 2+ hours, with jazz-tinged backing tracks and endless tangents about Uber drivers, racial politics, and vegan burritos. There are moments of brilliance, but the lack of editing makes them exhausting. For completists only.
Albums like This Is My Dinner (2018), I Also Want to Die in New Orleans (2019), and Lunch in the Park (2021) continue this trend of hyper-prolific, diary-style output. sun kil moon albums
The album is a masterclass in atmosphere. It bridges the gap between the slow, droning melancholy of his previous band and a newfound appreciation for Americana and folk. The centerpiece, "Duk Koo Kim," is a fourteen-minute epic that references the real-life boxer who died after a fight with Ray Mancini. It showcases Kozelek’s obsession with the tragic figures of the sporting world—a theme he would revisit later in his career. These albums push Kozelek’s spoken-word style to its
After the dissolution of his seminal slowcore band Red House Painters, Kozelek debuted Sun Kil Moon in 2003. The early albums felt like a natural extension of his previous work but with a more refined, folk-oriented lens. There are moments of brilliance, but the lack
