Comedy equals tragedy plus time, but for Josh Tillman, comedy is always tragic, and the world is one big comedy sketch. This is the idea that kickstarts the intellectual roller coaster of cynicism laid out on his newest album, “Pure Comedy.” While this is his eleventh album, it is his third released under the moniker, Father John Misty. As the pseudonym might suggest, Tillman’s focus here is on headier topics, and without reservation when something might border on insensitive.

 

Throughout the record, there is a judicious magnifying glass held up to religion, but not necessarily faith, as it becomes clear how important a level of hopeful optimism is to Misty. The verse-less title track wastes no time in establishing this comic scrutiny, and from a kind of bird’s-eye-view, from which Tillman is “just waiting for the part where they start to believe/ that they’re at the center of everything/ and some all-powerful being endowed this horror show with meaning.” The horror show, being the natural world that wrought the human existence, where “the only thing that seems to make them feel alive is the struggle to survive.” Misty consistently sets up these kinds of ironic descriptions of observation, which all contribute heavily to his thesis of global comedy as “something that a madman would conceive.” 

 

Religion of course, in Tillman’s eyes, is just one of the many solutions people have come up with to try to mitigate the reality of the human experience, and not the solution with which he has a problem. The second track on the album, “Total Entertainment Forever,” shifts the focus onto society’s technological escapes, and with a rather funny image of “bedding Taylor Swift/ every night on the Oculus Rift.” But rather than just humorous is more so an example of how pathetic an attempt it is to try to remedy the disparity of experience by disseminating the same experiences to everyone, “rich or poor” whose “channels are all the same.” While historians may find us “in our homes/ plugged into our hubs” with “a frozen smile on every face,” the truth is that none of this escapism is a path to a kind of transcendental satisfaction Misty addresses later the album.

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Musically, Father John Misty is relatively unique, especially as it relates to his artistry. There is often an establishing piano or guitar, which is further decorated by many other stringed or woodwinds nuanced throughout. However, there are clear influences of his generally folk-rock style, bleeding into mild electronica at times, during songs like “Two Wildly Different Perspectives” where the dreamscape suggests an artificiality, to support the theme of futility as it relates to human conflict. Much of the album is reminiscent of Elton John (although vocally nothing alike), but certain tracks like “Ballad of the Dying Man” resemble something that could fit on a Billy Joel album, and “Birdie” sounds like Jason Mraz at the peak of his songwriting finesse.

 

About halfway through the album, Tillman loses a bit of philosophical steam, as he seems to be reiterating himself topically, but with further inspection, it’s clear that Tillman is working towards a fully-formed expression of his thoughts, treating the project a bit like a college thesis. One of the most appealing aspects of Misty’s delivery, as he builds his case, is how he employs his dry, stark humor against the backdrop of his ‘oh my god the world is f***ed’ mentality. At one point, within several observations of human narcissism, he notes that “the miracle of birth leaves a few issues to address/ like, say, that half of us are periodically iron deficient.” Meanwhile, “in twenty years [or so] this human experiment will reach its violent end,” and “if everything ends with a photo then [Misty is on his] way” out. In his mentioning of these small insignificant things, the joke is how they function as devices of humor. Iron deficiency being of more importance than a common distaste for photographs at the end of gatherings, but not receiving the justified emotional response logic would warrant it. 

 

Josh Tillman has a twisted sense of humor, and in some ways, it is a personal solution he has concocted for his own management of the human condition. Which is why it is under an equally critical magnifying glass as every other aspect of human behavior mentioned on the album, because he knows that the comedic view of life can inspire detachment from his fellow (wo)man. He, too, is victim to buying into one of the “Two Wildly Different Perspectives” where “only the armed or the funny make it out alive.” Misty moves swiftly onto the (aforementioned) transcendental satisfaction, and appropriately timed on the album duration, for otherwise the project would have become overwhelmingly depressing. The satisfaction he details is social interaction and harmony. Which is probably a tad cliché, but for Tillman, it exists as a notion separated from any extreme belief, and is therefore supported by neutrality. “Smoochie” makes the case for it, with a narrative where someone (who is likely a romantic partner) is Misty’s source of relief “when his personal demons are screaming” and his “door of madness is half-open,” as they say, “something perfect” that only someone other than Tillman could say, “like, ‘concealment feeds the fear.’” Those four words are truly the most succinct way Father John Misty’s ideological message to humanity can be dictated. And dictated like an angel “suspended in the dark,” from which nothing is concealed: “there’s nothing to fear,” or “regret/ for a speck, on a speck, on a speck.”