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The intersection of hope and resignation can be a disarming place but also incredibly beautiful. It’s where Oh Smokey, the tenth Clem Snide album, spends a lot of its time. Eef Barzelay, the songwriter behind the name since time immemorial, describes Oh Smokey as “slow, sad songs about God and death,” knowing full well that he’s being technically accurate but wryly incomplete. Like a sleepy late-night road trip conversation about a near-death experience, the record makes space for some intimate contemplation of what lies beyond.
Barzelay wrote these eight songs while upending much of his life. His 25-year marriage dissolved, he parted ways with his longtime manager, and he left his Nashville home after two decades. If you look at it one way, he’s been almost cosmically unlucky in the business, with a big break always around the corner that doesn’t exactly materialize. Seen from another angle, he’s built a dedicated fanbase person by person by creating an improbably timeless body of work, playing living rooms, and even writing personal songs for individual fans.
This collection of songs was brought to life with longtime Clem Snide fan Josh Kaufman (Bonny Light Horseman, Craig Finn, Hiss Golden Messenger). Kaufman added color and texture to Barzelay’s compositions, from the gentle sonic shrapnel of album opener “Free” to the organic hum that “At Your Command” rests on to the swelling expansiveness of title track “Smokey,” which was inspired by Eef’s fleeting collaboration with another Clem Snide fan: pop star YEBBA. With 30 years now of rising and falling Clem Snide emerges from the ashes, once again, with Oh Smokey. Still committed to loving the unknown, but with a more empathetic and mature appreciation for the bruises that come along with it.
Named for a William S. Borroughs character, Clem Snide first emerged from Boston as a three-piece in the early 1990’s, and the group would go on to become a cult and critical favorite, picking up high profile fans from Bon Iver to Ben Folds over the course of three decades and more than a dozen studio albums. NPR highlighted the Israeli-born Barzelay as “the most underrated songwriter in the business today, with a sneakily firm grasp on poignancy and humor,” while Rolling Stone hailed his songwriting as “soulful and incisive,” and The New Yorker praised his music’s “soothing melodies and candid wit.”
Barzelay currently resides in Nashville, TN.
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