Once again, after a gap of years, Papa M just rolls up and shows us how it’s done. This time, with a fresh, fine set of songs. And just six of them, so you know they’re some groovers. After Slint’s disbandment, David Pajo whiled away the 1990s playing with literally everybody who asked, pausing long enough here and there to start his own band, called M. One awesome single later, he tells the Drag City label, “I have an album, but now I’m gonna call the band Aerial M.” One insanely great album and an (also amazing) remix album later, he’s like, “The next record is gonna be credited to Papa M.” And there the label were with a thousand promotional Aerial M beer mats ready to go. Two epic / classic albums and a forbiddingly large, outstretched palm of singles (eventually collected into another epic fulllength) later, David was looking a bit green around the gills. It’d been five years of Papa-ing off; time to do something / anything else for a while. Twelve long years go by before he sends in ‘Highway Songs’. Then ‘A Broke Moon Rises’ in 2018. Seemed like things were looking up, and then nothing, until now, when we get ‘Ballads of Harry Houdini’. Following the path of M records from Aerial to Papa, David recorded ‘Ballads of Harry Houdini’ on his own, receding deep inside himself and taking the time for ideas new and old, from soup to nuts, et al. Having his fun before spitting it all out onto the world – setting down some tracks, getting lit, grabbing a guitar, getting a sound going, and soloing over them. With a bit of singing here and there too. Everything that’s meant to be in the picture is in there. Frankly, the amount of hip-shaking sleaze oozing out of these pieces blows the idea that these are simple ad-hoc assemblies right the funk out of the water. As ever, it’s mixed extra-crispy, with earworms and easter eggs and lots of other surprises (like Sweet Peach coloured vinyl) that’s bound to change your whole personality.