Most Valuable Player

Editors’ Notes Nat Baldwin is one of many Brooklyn musicians to recently emerge from the insular hothouse of the resolutely avant-garde into the more commercial territory of skewed and adventurous, but nonetheless accessible, pop music. Baldwin plays the contra-bass as a melodic lead instrument, plucking, bowing, and otherwise abusing his instrument to create a surprisingly gentle yet forward thinking series of songs simultaneously reminiscent of Arthur Russell at his most reflective, and Morrissey at his most well mannered. On Most Valuable Player Baldwin revisits some of his most successful compositions enlisting a number of talented Brooklyn musicians, foremost among them David Longstreth of the Dirty Projectors, to lend added texture to his already lush sonic palette. Baldwin’s songs have the classical simplicity of soul ballads, yet the instrumental work on otherwise traditionally structured songs like the gentle waltz, “One, Two, Three,” is fearlessly unorthodox. Most Valuable Player is easily Nat Baldwin’s most rewarding and fully realized work, and is as exciting and innovative as the work of his more heralded collaborator David Longstreth.