Tracker Gives Voice to Graphic Novel

Forget Chris Carrabba.

Craig Thompson has stolen the melancholic spotlight with Blankets, a semi-autobiographical graphic novel that brings back the subtleties of love and the formless grief all youth have known. Realizing his own penchant for writing lyrical sorrow, Thompson asked Portland, Ore. ambient band Tracker to write a score that would compliment Blanket’s 600 pages.

It’s a stunning collaboration in both forms, together and alone.

Tracker’s John Askew assembled his songs much like Thompson approached his own work: haphazardly, like the non-sequential steps of a first love. The xylophones in “The Flurry” makes for a blissful listen; it’ll make the child in you spin in drunken circles, much like the dream state Thompson depicts in Blankets. The vocals on “Everything is Beautiful,” calm the listener, who is exiled in Craig’s heartache- the indie world’s answer to a spiritual renewal, a tearful goodbye-hello to the incandescence of cyclical pain.

Thompson’s illustrative frames are specialized and contain emotional baggage that you don’t to overlook. Same goes for Tracker. Askew takes you from season to season, from “Snow” to “Marathon Stirring Furnace.” Drumbeats act as prodding footsteps; minor guitar chords string along vulnerable embraces. Blankets and Tracker compliment each other’s woes, but they evoke sensibility all by themselves.

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