With Dean Wareham treating me to a test-pressing of his new solo album ‘I Have Nothing To Say To The Mayor of L.A.’, I’ve been fortunate enough to be hearing the record for several months before its release.

While many will attempt to draw similarities to his 2014 self-titled album, I can assure you, this is a much different and worthy adventure.

While Dean’s initial release introspectively stepped outside of the boundaries of the music he’s known for with the band Luna, this outing manages to fall right down the middle, harking back to that first release, yet with more refinement and guitar structures, though still belaying his sense of wit, history and his place within the grand scheme of things. Surprisingly, on numbers such as ‘Robin & Richard’ and the wonderful ‘Corridors of Power’, it’s easy to imagine Luna defying gravity while preforming both of these tracks. Dean claims that first single ‘The Past Is Our Plaything’, recorded in 2020, grew out of his observations by writer Julian Barnes in the book ‘The Man In The Red Coat’, concerning dandies, drug addicts, artists and writers’ carrying-ons in belle époque France and England just after World War I, where Dean dons his professor’s hat and frock, bringing these grand deviant images to life.

Side two offers up something very special with the songs ‘Red Hollywood’, ‘Duchess’ and ‘Why Are We In Vietnam’ nearly blending as a single nearly romantic track that unfolds and ebbs slowly, while disappearing in haze just as easily as it began. There’s much to hold your attention here, and nothing you’re not going to enjoy if you allow Mr. Wareham to bend the rules and show you things in a different, if not eschewed manner. It’s suggested that people are either left-brained or right-brained, meaning that one side of their brain is dominant. If you’re mostly analytical and methodical in your thinking, you’re said to be left-brained. If you tend to be more creative or artistic, you’re thought to be right-brained. That said, ‘I Have Nothing To Say To The Mayor of L.A.’ goes to define this special artist as being of equal parts art and analysis, one of the too few walking the planet.

*** The Fun Facts: There were a total of 10 test-pressings of this record which is housed in a white paper sleeve with an affixed sticker from from the record plant, the approved date in red and the tracking information taped to the reverse side. The runout groove holds the following info; for Britta, MASTER SH, V1274298A, V1274208B, LP-DBL-0018A and LP-DBL-0018B

Jenell Kesler

Dean Wareham – ‘I Have Nothing to Say to the Mayor of L.A.’ (Releases October 15, 2021 via Double Feature)