Chloë and the Next 20th Century [2xLP]

Singer-songwriter Josh Tillman reaches far, far back to the golden age of Hollywood for a dreamy, lushly orchestrated, wryly comic collection of vignettes that all depend upon the timelessness of a love song.

Here we have Chloë and the Next 20th Century, from the mind of an auteur who specializes in oneiric theory and mid-century film scores. His latest album is another collection of story-song vignettes arrayed in loose opposition to the pointless absurdity of modern society; or it’s an elaborate study in the life of a sad sack helplessly ensnared in doomed romances with a whole series of women, starting with Chloë, an unfeeling socialite whose previous boyfriend met a mysterious end in the first of, by my count, six tragic deaths in 51 minutes; or it was a dream all along.