Palms & Runes, Tarrots & Tea: A Michael Penn Collection forgoes the traditional "best-of" compilation route by including demos, alternate takes, and newly recorded versions of past classics. This is both a triumph and a shame, as the meticulous
Penn has spent the last 20 years earning himself a bust in the esteemed hall of "smart, sepia-tone underground pop songwriters," and a straight-up collection would have been a nice entry point for the uninitiated.
Palms & Runes, Tarrots & Tea does succeed in rounding up some of the singer/songwriter/producer's better moments -- album versions of "Coal," "Out of My Hands," "Brave New World," "Walter Reed," and "No Myth" sound as good as they did the first time around -- but this is an anthology for
Penn completists. Alternate versions of "Lucky One" from 2000's
MP4: Days Since a Lost Time Accident and "Try" from 1997's
Resigned are stripped of some their gloss, a style that
Penn applies to all of the re-recordings as well. For the most part, they sound as good or better that the originals, though a chamberlain- and accordion-accompanied version of Free-for-All's "Long Way Down (Look What the Cat Drug In)" has lost all of its desperation and bite. The rest is a little hit-or-miss (a languid, folkie take on "Bunker Hill" is surprisingly poignant, while a demo version of "Me Around" sounds like just that: a demo version), and it's hard not to mourn the fact that some of
Penn's best tunes, like "Half Harvest," "Strange Season," "Small Black Box," "Cover Up," "Perfect Candidate," and "On Automatic," are missing out on all of the fun. That said, two records from the notoriously busy but low-yield artist in question in just over a year is worth the occasional oversight. ~ James Christopher Monger