When Hollywood actors venture forth onto the rocky terrain of pop music, the results are very rarely favorable and occasionally even disastrous. Dogstar, (otherwise known as The Band Keanu Reeves Plays Bass For) and Russell Crowe’s bland astral-blues outfit 30 Odd Foot of Grunts are both fine examples of largely harmless and forgettable musical excursions by celebrities. But that’s no reason to ignore Vincent Gallo, the antic star and director of the cult hit Buffalo ’66, who’s been composing film scores and experimental music off and on for the last 20 years. With a heady new album, When, out on the British label Warp, and a compilation of his original film music due in spring from the same label (which is best known for releasing serious electronic-based works by Aphex Twin and Squarepusher), Gallo seems poised to establish himself as a cult hero in another corner of the underground.
Back in the ’80s, he made a name for himself as a painter, along with his bohemian friend (and one-time bandmate) Jean-Michel Basquiat. Yet just as he was beginning to attract the fawning attention of the New York art world, he dropped his brush and began acting, taking on roles in GoodFellas and the indie sleeper Palookaville. He also lent his gaunt features and hollow blue eyes to a successful 1996 Calvin Klein ad campaign shot by Richard Avedon. Nevertheless, his successes have merely contributed to his insider/outsider status. Somewhat extreme in conversation as well as in temperament, Gallo is a perpetually wired teetotaler, an openly egomaniacal talent reminiscent of the troubled character he plays in Buffalo ’66. Routinely trashing stars in interviews hasn’t made him popular in La-La Land either. And his self-inflated remarks have only fed the ire of his already vocal detractors.
For a self-described "genius" accustomed to running off at the mouth, though, he takes a decidedly minimalist approach to songwriting on When, a tender, lo-fi solo album that was recorded at his home studio in the Hollywood Hills. When’s atmospheric instrumentals and sparsely appointed love ballads are the work of an introspective artist baring his soul. They’re also a showcase for Gallo’s artlessly pretty singing voice, a naive and effeminate croon that brings to mind Chet Baker.
The hypnotic opener, "I Wrote This Song for the Girl Paris Hilton," is anchored by little more than a husky saxophone loop plus a few chimy meanderings on guitar and vintage keyboard, all of which create an intimate and mysterious atmosphere. Gallo reveals a cinematic sensibility even when it comes to his sonic creations, and the instrumentals here, especially the pulsing loop in "I Wrote This Song for the Girl Paris Hilton," have a cool visual effect. "Paris Hilton" could easily accompany the slow-motion image of smoke curling from the tip of a cigarette in the dusky light of a club at 4 a.m. And the melodic bass line and the faint strumming on "Cracks" have the feel of a long, lonely drive. The gloomy "Was" and the trip-hop-flavored "My Beautiful White Dog," on the other hand, are outright dirges that evoke loss, regret, and melancholy.
When he sings, Gallo’s quiet, modest, high-pitched delivery becomes an appropriate vehicle for the naked emotion embodied in his bare-boned lyrics. The ballads all appear to be about a departed girlfriend, some thwarted intimacy, or the singer’s pain and loneliness. ("When you come near to me/I go away," he purrs on the sullen title track.) Taken at face value, the lyrics to "Honey Bunny" and "Laura" seem cliché’d and sentimental. (Just try singing "Honey bunny/Sweetheart/My sugar girlfriend/Where are you/Eyes of blue, dear" with a straight face.) Yet the intricate settings for these snapshots of heartache — delicate guitar chording and somber bass runs — make the boilerplate verbiage palatable as long as you can, as they say in the cinema, suspend your disbelief.
Gallo’s strength as a composer is his ability to create gauzy soundscapes for the bluest moods. The ambient ballads "Apple Girl" and "Yes I’m Lonely" work because they build a structure of feeling — fragility and yearning, respectively — with the lightest of vocal embellishments. What doesn’t work is the seven-minute "A Picture of Her," a collage of analog sounds and absent-minded guitar that is more Etch-a-Sketch on a four-track than musical portraiture. Still, an album as emotionally rich as When doesn’t need Gallo’s celebrity attached to it in order to find an audience, however small. It has enough spare beauty to be recommended on its own merit.