Papa M: Ballads of Harry Houdini review – committed to evolution

Papa M is David Pajo, a spotlight-shy figure who also releases under his own name and Aerial M. Since his seminal Slint days, Pajo has become a cult hero of left-field guitar with a long-running side hustle as a star sub. His highest-profile gigs include Billy Corgan’s Zwan (2001-3), the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (2009) and Interpol (2010); he is now filling in for the late Andy Gill in Gang of Four. Mental health issues and a motorcycle accident have made the past few years of Pajo’s output all the more emotionally resonant – and sometimes more stylistically varied (see his 2018 cover of Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spegiel).

This latest outing to feature Pajo’s voice unites a few varied approaches. Two longer, more on-brand instrumentals, People’s Free Food Program and Thank You For Talking to Me (When I Was Fat), place his core talents – anchoring repetition and thematic evolution – front and centre. (There’s a very Slinty passage midway through Barfighter too.) The closest thing to an actual ballad is Ode to Mark White, which finds Pajo husking like Tom Waits on a song that would not sound out of place in an Irish saloon. Its central lyric? “Always be making something you love.”