Listening to Willis Earl Beal’s debut Acousmatic Sorcery for the first time in a while, a decade after its release, is like watching a mad genius at work developing the blueprint for The Better Mouse Trap. Beal’s voice — whether it’s laid over layered vocals and robotic clacking drums or whispered over pillowy guitar — is impossible to ignore. Equal parts Captain Beefheart, Daniel Johnston, and Tom Waits, the songs, as broken and sometimes discordant as they can be, are beautiful and dark pieces of loneliness and love-lost. As a calling card for everything Beal can do with his voice and the elements immediately around him (highlights include the lullabye-like “Evening’s Kiss” and “Swing On Low”’s nursery rhyme-delivery over clinking glasses and chunky guitar) it is a name pinned to the wall and never forgotten.