Tweedy with the snooze rock

Driving east on Highway 16 in South Dakota, through the Black Hills, you can hear the sound of the highway. Every crack in the road and yellow line reflector ran over is accompanied by the wind whipping the car, treating the imported piece of metal like a plastic bag. Life is more pointless and impossible there than anywhere else in the world. \nIf that sounds like a suggestion as to what the Loose Fur album holds in store, it is. The band is a collaboration between Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy and drummer Glen Kotche with avant-garde pop composer and sometime Sonic Youth-member Jim O'Rourke. The trio was also mainly responsible for the miracle of last year's Wilco record, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. \nMeandering, dreamlike, precocious, and dull. These are adjectives you might see critics brand upon their debut release as Loose Fur.\nTheir formula is obvious and has been done to death: start off with a pretty melody and play it ad nauseum, let the other two go to work, see what happens. Since John Cage, Ornette Coleman or Sonic Youth itself has done this better and earlier, any innovation it might cast on neophytes can be chalked up to ignorance. \nPerhaps, though, with the indie-rock crowd and rock critics 'round the globe licking Jeff Tweedy's boots, this is his version of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music or Dylan's Self Portrait. Incomprehensible for the sake of incomprehensibility. But judging from his self important performance in last fall's Wilco movie, "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart," it seems unlikely.\nO'Rourke and Tweedy are too in love with melody to make the drastic art-rock statement they're aiming at, and the light feeling of Loose Fur recalls YHF in more ways than one. It's a grave fallacy to separate lyrics from the music and Tweedy had turned into one of the best ambiguous poets in rock. Loose Fur is devoid of the beautiful stories and passing imagery that clouded YHF. \nThe opening track, "Laminated Cat," is a song Wilco has been banging around since late 2000. In 2002 concerts the band had turned the song into a noise-rock freak out, which caused many a catcall from the audience. Even in Indianapolis the crowd shouted "play some rock and roll!" Like everything else on this record though, it has become a snoozer. Tweedy sings in his least impressive voice yet, a kind of let's-get-this-over-with monotonal intonation. \nEven Glen Kotche, who had brought some much needed energy to the latest Wilco lineup, sounds deliberate. When he's not glued to the 4/4, he could be mistaken for a Swedish free-jazz drummer at 22nd and Indiana in Chicago, who drops log chains on his snare and hits the cymbals with his elbow.\nBut at last, Loose Fur is nothing more than half-thought songs and musique concrete on conventional rock instruments. Wading through the sludge of random guitar on "So Long" reveals that this music is purposely obtuse, not to mention real laid back. At least Ornette Coleman's or Captain Beefheart's improvised schtick had a vitality and energy that gave it direction.\nWith only six songs and a disc of 40 minutes, this is what rock snobs would call a "heavy" record. Money and drugs usually create albums like this, but there is another culprit at hand: prog-rock. Wilco fans devoted to their alt-country period feared that YHF was a bit too artsy. They can relax though, this is a throw away disc created by friends having fun in the studio. The problem is, Loose Fur is not much fun at all.