Derek Baron - The Holy Restaurant

Derek Baron
The Holy Restaurant
Recital
USA, 2025
LP

A simply beautiful new album by Derek Baron, their second for the Recital label. As described by the label, “The album is built from years of miniature transcriptions of improvisations . . . Half-thoughts and mistakes are revisited, gilded, and illuminated.”

If that sounds a bit academic, the result is quite the opposite. Like Baron’s previous Recital outing, Curtain, the musical content feels collaged or embroidered, the edges frayed like the gorgeous scraps that adorn the cover art and accompanying booklet. Like all things handmade, the music has a worn-in coziness, which is deepened and complicated this time around by a wider range of domestic and found sounds: clatter, chat, the earnest banality of the TV set. These things mostly hang in the background, but occasionally come to the fore, as in the interview with humble casket makers that runs throughout “Our Lady of the Mississippi” or the slightly out-of-sync chorus of speaking voices on “The Holy Restaurant” reading an unassuming text written by Baron’s grandfather.

It’s honestly a bit disorienting to encounter music both this modest and well-crafted. I’ve played it back a bunch of times and still find myself picking at the stitches, marveling at the craft of it. Perhaps it’s better just to settle in. Drape it over the back of the couch; it doesn’t have to be too neat—you’ll be reaching for it frequently.