Joe Pernice: It Feels So Good When I Stop (RedEye/Southbound)

Most of us will be at a disadvantage when it comes to this album by Joe of the very fine Pernice Brothers: these are songs to accompany his debut novel of the same name -- and my guess is it will go largely unread other than by his Serious Fans.

No matter perhaps, this should work as a stand-alone item (different idiom) and it largely does as a lowkey, highly melodic collection of unexpected covers which somehow relate to the text.

For example towards the end he reads a fragment entitled Todd Rundgren's Fault and follows it up with a nice treatment of Runt's Hello It's Me.

It is all quiet and gentle (a useful approach if you are expecting people to maybe read along?) but it is the choice of soings which makes you think the book must be quite unusual: a beautiful treatment of Del Shannon's I Go To Pieces, the classic I'm Your Puppet (by Spooner Oldham and Dan Penn); Sammy Johns' Chevy Van; Lou Barlow's Soul and Fire; Chim Cheree . . . 

This is hardly essential listening but the consistency of approach from the band and Pernice's vocal intimacy will have you hitting the repeat play button quite a lot, especially on material like I Go To Pieces, his fluid take on his own instrumental Black Smoke (No Pope) with its lovely organ part, Tom T Hall's That's How I Got To Memphis . . . .

Small but consistent pleasures.