After offering up a lush one-man show on Mobilize two years ago, Grant-Lee Phillips opted to play with others for his third solo release, Virginia Creeper, due February 24th.

"It was a delight to create an album like Mobilize," Phillips says. "In the end you reap a different kind of reward. You can stand back and say, 'Yes, every bolt is in place.' But goodness, I wish it wasn't so exhausting. Because I won't be able to listen to it for a while."

Phillips says that Creeper -- which has an organic looseness full of acoustic guitars, fiddles, with the occasional ukulele and accordion -- reminds him of some of the music created by his Nineties band, cult favorite Grant Lee Buffalo. "It's stripped back, a stark kind of affair," he says. "But it doesn't have the bombast that our band was capable of. It's more about sustaining a mood and telling a story. Virginia Creeper is probably more in keeping with the kind of albums that I've held onto over the years -- both my own and others that I've grown up listening to."

With the exception of just a few overdubs, Phillips recorded most of the album live over three days, with violinist Eric Gorfain, bassists Sheldon Gomberg and Sebastian Steinberg, drummer Kevin Jarvis, pianist Zac Rae and singer Cindy Wasserman. Longtime collaborators Jon Brion and Bill Bonk also dropped in to add some color. "The production comes down to the casting," he says. "That and cutting it virtually live and letting all the barbs and thorns be."

Loose and unfussy, Creeper offers some of Phillips more delicate songwriting ("Waking Memory"), as well as uptempo fare like "Wish I Knew," a jazzy shuffle that simmers almost to a Grant Lee Buffalo-ish boil. "That's one where I sort of sat on the bed with a newspaper and tried to unravel a song," Phillips says. "It really grew out of my travels. The song has this effect of snowballing, the lyric and tempo just keeps toppling end over end. The imagery was born out of that. Being out of control."

Virginia Creeper track list:

Mona Lisa
Waking a Memory
Lily-a-Passion
Dirty Secret
Always Friends
Calamity Jane
Josephine of the Swamps
Far End of the Night
Susanna Little
Wish I Knew
Hickory Wind

ANDREW DANSBY
(January 13, 2004)