Music: Mike Gordon: Inside In

Trey Anastasio and Phish must cast a large shadow. Bassist Mike Gordon must need a tan. Badly. That's one way of explaining his first four-year-in-the-making solo release, Inside In. Phish fans all around, take a deep breath now.... Ready? It's been a long summer.

Now don't hang me all that quickly. Inside In is a funny, good listen with talent brimming and spilling over in sloppy bass note buckets, but that's exactly it. It's spilt milk, or rather a funky overflow of jambandarino hash and peyote juice united under a tongue-and-cheek loose vision of something comedic, wry and trademark Phish silly. It'll leave you begging to hot box your deadhead friend's Volvo in a heart-beat just to make the lacking vocals and strangely nonsensical lyrics seem coherent.

 If you're still hesitant about unscrewing that sink screen, listen: "He had no horse but he had a saddle/ He had no time but he went for a ride," he croons on "The Beltless Buckler." I had an eighth grade English teacher once who said if it doesn't make sense, that's just poetic expression.

 Yes. Expression.

 Well, if you've listened closely to Phish there's a tyrant named Wilson, lizard people, a multibeast and a mockingbird that gets rubber banded to a stick so it can't help save the Helping Friendly Book.

 So yes. Expression.

 Give the man some deserved credit, he's spent years putting this album together and it certainly shows the effort. It doesn't bear the sloppy tendencies of most jam-band creations; there's a deliberate construction in there (somewhere) and in certain moments when it peaks through, a moment of clairvoyance blooms. But that moment wanes as only a shadow under the greater triumphs of Phish.

 There is redemption. In 2002, Gordon collaborated with guitar great Leo Kottke. That album, Clone, is as unique and fresh an accomplishment as any to come along. Kottke's fingerpicking guitar style reacts with Gordon's funk-driven bass for a whole new substance--it's bloody alchemy! That transformative album does Mike Gordon much more justice than Inside In and explores an actual departure from the now age-old granite stylings of Phish. Pick that one up instead and give Gordon his overdue week at the beach.