Light in the Aisles

Album Review

It's hard not to like Brooklyn's T. Griffin and his "porch techno." Favorably compared to Chris Knox, Tom Waits, Vic Chesnutt, and Elliott Smith, he really reminds you more of Joe Henry, if Henry had more of a wee hours, dusky, tired, personal vibe. Like his first LP, Tortuga, Griffin records instantly, spontaneously, on a power book and a mini-disc player — this time all over the country and from every guest bed he flopped on while apartment hunting in New York. Griffin reckons that aspect gives this LP its spooky dislocation vibe, but it's probably more his seat-of-the-pants ability to write and tinker with unearthly but private sounding songs on the spot. He keeps the tribal percussion (or no percussion) coming underneath a humble melody, a near-whispered vocal, and haunting bits of piano and eerie organ, xylophone, or simple, quiet guitar (or, when it suits him, a friend's trumpet or violin). Unassuming and friendly in a weary kind of way, Light in the Aisles is indeed "porch," as in "welcome family and plenty of time to sit a spell on a cloudless, windless, 70° night."