Darkness And White

By Lizz Kannenberg in Arts & Entertainment on May 8, 2008 8:53PM

"‘Transnormal skiperoo' is a name I invented to describe a strange new feeling I've been experiencing after years of feeling lost and alone and cursed," writes Southern Americana balladeer Jim White in his bio. "Now, when everything around me begins to shine, when I find myself dancing around in my back yard for no particular reason other than it feels good to be alive, when I get this deep sense of gratitude that I don't need drugs or God or doomed romance to fuel myself through the gauntlet of a normal day, I call that feeling 'transnormal skiperoo.’"

So integral was the term to White's newfound outlook that he named his fourth album after it. Transnormal Skiperoo is full of ballsy, humorous, self-aware song-telling about the characters that White himself has embodied during his long, strange trip of a life: a taxi driver, a fashion model, a pro surfer, and a pentecostal minister…to name just a few. It’s a lilting, sometimes pretty, darkly sexy and unselfconscious trip through the underbelly of the American South, and it’s not to be missed. Neither, we hear, is his live show.

Stream Transnormal Skiperoo in its entirety here.

Photo from the artist's Myspace page.

Jim White plays the Old Town School of Folk Music tomorrow night, 8:00 p.m., $20