Chicago music scene staple Tim Kinsella has been cobbling together awkwardly controversial phrasings and cerebral guitar noodlings for over a decade under the Joan of Arc guise and during that whole time about the only element of consistency in his sound has been out there song titles (“9/11 2,” “A Tell-Tale Penis”). With the just released Boo! Human, however, Kinsella’s starting to sound settled for the first time in JOA’s history, even though the band’s lineup still isn’t. The latest edition of Kinsella and co. includes a different guest musician on every track, with collaborators of totally dissimilar artists such as Iron & Wine saddling up amongst seasoned JOA regulars. Despite the barrage of guests – 14 musicians appear on Boo! - the album flows together seamlessly with little of the shockingly uncomfortable yelping and fragmented sound collaging that previously seemed to be Kinsella’s forte.

Listen to "A Tell-Tale Penis" from Boo! Human

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll readily admit to being a Kinsella devotee. I adored (and still do) the primitive yelping that drove his teenage band Cap’n Jazz during the mid 90s. I continued to follow JOA’s various offshoots in the ensuing years, from the experimental Califone-aided Friend/Enemy to the more concise and charismatic Owls. I absorbed every manic impulse Kinsella succumbed to throughout Joan of Arc’s highly divisive discography, from the earliest electronic avant-garde pop in A Portable Model of… and How Memory Works  to the more caustic and theatrical experiments of Live in Chicago 1999  and The Gap. I waited with bated breath for 2003’s low-key and meandering So Much Staying Alive and Lovelessness and its grandiose mutant cousin, 2004’s Joan of Arc, Dick Cheney, Mark Twain.

As critics lined up in droves to bash Kinsella, I stood by him, enthralled because his music always managed to feel at once intimate and otherworldly, defiantly honest and absurdly abstract, I loved Kinsella’s refusal to play by anyone’s rules but his own. Hopefully Boo! Human will help others give Kinsella another chance. Boo! Human charms without prodding – it allows Kinsella’s voice to shine without its warble and cracks distracting from the gorgeous melodies underneath, which alternate between methodically layered and seemingly improvised. Every transition on Boo! Human feels natural and evenly placed, from the brisk “The Surrender #1” to the droning “Vine on a Wire.” Stylistically, it’s the least gimmicky album in the band’s catalog, incorporating various elements Kinsella has been perfecting over the years: the angular electric guitars of Make Believe, the quiet reflection of the past two JOA releases, and the uproarious symphonics of numerous prior projects. Kinsella has always followed his instincts and with Boo! Human they’ve served him well. The record also marks a shift in direction unbeknownst to the Joan of Arc name until now: looking to its past to find a footing for itself in the future.