Works (in) Progress Administration
Artist: Bill Mallonee 

I’ve loved all things Bill Mallonee since I first heard Audible Sigh in 2001.  Let me make that disclaimer.  I’m unable to be unbiased, but frankly, who is when it comes to Mallonee?  Whether with the Vigilantes of Love or in his solo gigging, Mallonee always draws controversy, whether it is the subject matter of his songs, his divorce, his conversion to Roman Catholicism, it all seems to get people talking faster than a rumor at a Wednesday night prayer meeting.
 
It is curious, then, that Bill Mallonee has wandered in obscurity so long.  (Though I realize I’m probably preaching to the converted here at The Phantom Tollbooth.)  It becomes all the more curious considering that both World Magazine and Christianity Today ran articles on Mallonee recently.  It’s as if everyone in the know were trying to keep him hush-hush – or everyone that got the recommendation couldn’t pick a good song out of the air if it tapped them on the shoulder.
 
Whoever dropped the ball along the way in getting the word out becomes irrelevant eventually.  You chalk it up to providence, and you move on.  In this case, without a record label, Bill Mallonee continues to do the only thing that is logical: keep making music no matter the cost.  That’s what he was made to do, and he’s sticking to it.
 
There’s little secret that Mallonee has sold gear to continue to make music, and you can arrange him to play in your humble home for a song these days – literally, almost.  In this, Bill Mallonee embodies very nearly what many of us consider to be the most pure motive for making music: the need of the soul and the ear of the listener.
 
Without coin and with conscience, he has embarked on the raggedy Works (in) Progress Administration.  I mean no disrespect in labeling such an undertaking “raggedy”.  WPA is raggedy in the sense of the teddy bear your mother saved from your childhood, the one you wouldn’t let go of for bath time, and you’d be darned if anyone – including grandma and grandpa – were to try and pry it from your fingers.  That lovable object of familiarity was gloriously raggedy.
 
The WPA is not one album but a series of EPs, numbering two currently, that Mallonee has recorded in the simplest form possible.  If percussion is needed it’s basic.  Vocals are warm but blurry occasionally, and guitars sound thin as if recorded to a four track like you did back in high school.  This back to basics approach that has worked for such acts as The Mountain Goats and Bright Eyes also works for Mallonee.
 
You can accuse Bill Mallonee of many things but trickery, dishonesty, and artifice won’t make the list.  While Mallonee’s lyrics at times can be confusing, he never hides behind them.  Mallonee is synonymous with heart-on-sleeve songwriting and WPA continues such a tradition.
 
Luke Johnson
Lukeisawriter.blogspot.com