Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Magic In The Night?

Bruce Springsteen - Magic

Getting straight down to business, I'd say it's pretty unlikely that this one will give Springsteen another In League With Paton album of the year gong, although I don't suppose the great man will care too much about that. Ultimately, I much prefer the outstanding Seeger Sessions band Live in Dublin set from earlier in the year. It's churlish to complain though when Springsteen is clearly a rejuvenated force. He'd virtually retired in 2001 when he felt compelled to respond to the tragic events of 9/11. Since then, he's barely paused for breath, touring 'The Rising' with the same hardworking spirit that informed the juggernaut 'Born In The USA' tour, completing the piecemeal 'Devils and Dust' solo set, forming The Seeger Sessions band for a foray into the American folk tradition and taking it to its logical conclusion on the ensuing tour, transforming his own back catalogue in the process. It's been the most productive phase of his career so far, with Springsteen crediting his audience with the intelligence to follow him on some of his less predictable journeys.

'Magic' is not one of those journeys though. It's a retreat to what is now the relative safety of the E Street Band, and a conscious effort to recapture the modernised rock sound of 'The Rising', whilst foresaking its weighty concerns in favour of a more concise, unburdened vision. At its best, this is no bad thing at all, and the album is blessed with a clutch of major songs. 'Girls In Their Summer Clothes' and 'I'll Work For Your Love' return to the Spector preoccupations that informed 'Born To Run' whilst 'Long Walk Home' and 'Gypsy Biker' are massive powerhouse anthems - the kind of song that would sound embarrassing in any other hands, but which Springsteen's grit and integrity manage to make genuine.

There's much less trickery and gimmickery here than on 'The Rising', in spite of Springsteen's decision to again employ Brendan O'Brien as producer. Whilst the sound is drier and more organic, there is still the sense that O'Brien is doing his level best to obscure the E Street Band as a unit, increasing the emphasis on thudding drums and rhythmically uninteresting strummed guitars at the expense of Roy Bittan's piano or Danny Federici's organ. 'Livin' In The Future' sounds entertaining and has a deliciously slinky chorus, but the production places it dangerously close to the MOR funk of Maroon 5. 'You'll Be Comin' Down' is somewhat underwhelming too, more than a little clunky and plodding. There's also not nearly enough of Nils Lofgren's expressive slide guitar, whilst Clarence Clemons is restricted to short but intense interjections on the saxophone. Strangely, 'Magic' actually sounds much closer to 'Lucky Town' (the more unfairly maligned of Springsteen's non-E Street albums of the early 90s) than any of the E Street albums. Some of these songs, particularly 'Long Walk Home', 'Gypsy Biker', 'Last To Die' and 'Radio Nowhere' are going to sound spectacular live, when the band is given more space to, ahem, work its magic.

The great variety and experimentation that characterised Springsteen's vocal performances on the Seeger Sessions album has also largely been abandoned in favour of a more stark contrast between belting with conviction and the more sombre tones of the title track or the uncredited 'Terry's Song' (a heartfelt tribute to his friend and colleague Terry McGovern who died recently). Springsteen sounds particularly stark and resigned on the title track, which is spare and beautiful.

It certainly isn't his greatest album lyrically either, occasionally sounding a little short on creative ideas. 'Radio Nowhere' is a great pop song, but it's hardly a new sentiment to lament modern American radio, and M Ward celebrated the golden era of radio with more insight on 'Transistor Radio'. It's brilliantly infectious though, and likely to provide Springsteen with his first real hit single in some time. Elsewhere, he occasionally seems stuck with benign platitudes or rather obvious statements, although I appreciate the melancholy sway of 'Girls In Their Summer Clothes' or the resigned longing of 'Long Walk Home'. Many criticised the apocalyptic and Biblical imagery of 'The Rising' as cliched and a means of avoiding challenging the more Patriotic element of his audience, but I'd take that dignified attempt at a poetic response over much of 'Magic'. 'Last To Die' may be the most adventurous moment lyrically here, but there's nothing close to his most recent masterpiece 'Long Time Comin' from 'Devils and Dust', with its rich, Cormac McCarthy-inspired manipulation of language.

The pre-release buzz for 'Magic' characterised it as a back-to-basics rock album and for once the press material is not entirely misleading. It's the most lightweight record Springsteen has made in some time, and far less concerned with contemporary context than his recent work. It doesn't quite have the playful zest of 'The River' though. For me, this album is at its best when it gets as soulful as it is hard-hitting. The slightly melancholy leanings of 'Girls In Their Summer Clothes' and 'Your Own Worst Enemy' invest them with greater emotional force.

The closing 'Devil's Arcade' is the only hint that Sprinsteen might ever return to the expansive, epic vision that informed 'Born To Run' and its flipside 'Darkness On The Edge of Town', but its a mesh of swirling atmospherics and meandering guitars rather than anything more focused or concerted. 'Magic' can be a little brutal and unsubtle at times, and there's certainly room for more light and shade. It is, however, easily digestible and occasionally fiery and thrilling.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Reports of the Death of Culture Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

NB: Personal View – not written in a work capacity.

Until next Monday morning, you can hear a rather excellent edition of the BBC World Service arts programme Culture Shock here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/culture_shock.shtml

I draw attention to this programme because of the presence of ‘Web guru’ Andrew Keen, who argues that various aspects of Web 2.0 (the Blogosphere, social networking websites, Wikipedia etc) are ‘killing our culture’ (whose culture specifically?). Obviously, as a keen blogger (no pun intended!), I have a clear interest to declare, but this doesn’t blind me to some of Keen’s more interesting statements.

He’s absolutely right to argue for personal responsibility online in the same way that we (should) expect it offline, and his argument that ‘we have to shape technology as much as it shapes us’ is powerful and important. Most of us are indeed aware that the internet is a very diverse space, awash with as much spin, opinion and disinformation as it is with useful resources. It’s also particularly vulnerable to extreme expressions, frequently without the backing of academic research. Wikipedia is an insightful example, as anyone who has seen some of the maliciously edited entries will no doubt testify.

He also had an interesting, if flawed, point to make about ‘anonymity’. His statement that ‘anonymity’ (neglecting the fact that complete anonymity on the web is next to impossible for anyone who isn’t a mastermind hi-tech criminal) ‘is a kind of theft’ is particularly audacious. By writing without declaring their true identities, bloggers and volunteer Wikipedia editors are taking without giving anything back, assuming kudos and expertise that they have not necessarily earned or proved. Well, perhaps, but an individual need not necessarily provide their name and address to demonstrate their credentials, even if only in the interests of personal security. Keen argues from this that ‘permissiveness about intellectual property is a vital social question.’ He doesn’t, however, discuss any practical questions about how we might restrict citizens’ contributions to the internet. He also doesn’t attempt to argue why the democratic ideal of freedom of speech should not also apply in the online realm.

It is also a massive logical leap between these positions and the alarmist notion that a ‘cult of the amateur’ is undermining expertise. I’m sorry to disappoint Keen, but I don’t believe that all professional journalists are corrupt rogues being bribed by PR companies or political interest groups. I do believe, however, that they have jobs to do, with specific audiences, business interests or shareholders in mind. This is not to say that any of this is inherently evil, just that it’s worth recognising the factors that may shape the work of professional journalists and experts. The word ‘amateur’ needn’t be negative. In my case, I hope it simply means that I’m not writing with a specific audience in mind; that I don’t have to write about a particular record simply because someone has been ‘kind’ enough to send me a free copy and that I’m relatively unconcerned about backing something that might turn out to flop. I can write about a wider range of music and film, focussing on aspects of art and culture for which I have genuine enthusiasm, thus aiming for a more positive approach.

Of course, I’m free to get things wrong without discipline or censure (and regular readers will hopefully recognise that I usually correct myself when I do) – but I’m also free to correct inaccuracies and errors in the professional media when I spot them. For a recent example, the NME (not a paper particularly respected for its journalists’ knowledge of jazz) reported the sad death of Joe Zawinul, but its news item was riddled with errors, not only claiming that Miroslav Vitous was a guitarist (in fact, he’s one of the greatest acoustic bassists in the world), but also claiming that he and Jaco Pastorius were members of Weather Report simultaneously – an interesting prospect that never actually happened (Vitous left in 1974, replaced by Alphonso Johnson, Pastorius didn’t join until 1976)! Why Keen thinks a professional news reporter for the NME is intrinsically more likely to have ‘expertise’ than me (an individual passionate about a massive range of music), I find a little baffling. Keen talks about individual amateur writers needing to be held to account, but one of our roles can be holding those professionals who fail to check their facts to an appropriate level of accountability themselves!

It’s also worth noting that the lines between ‘professional’ and ‘amateur’ may not be as clearly demarcated as Keen implies. A number of professional journalists also maintain blogs, where they have more space to exposit their thoughts (no word limits!) and more freedom to express individual views that veer away from a particular editorial line. For anyone interested in music, I would heartily recommend John Mulvey’s Wild Mercury Sound blog at the Uncut magazine website (which very successfully helps promote the magazine whilst challenging some of its limitations), Simon Reynolds’ blissblog or Marcello Carlin’s fascinating and inspired Church of Me as great examples of this.

Keen’s most contentious point is that blogs ‘collectively confuse popular opinion’. This is a wholly misguided statement in my view. Firstly, blogs are by their nature not a collective enterprise but rather the expression of individual views, some more carefully justified than others. In his response to Keen, trend tracker Tim Jackson argued that the phenomenon of blogging allowed individual voices to share some of the power traditionally held by employers, pressure groups, institutions and corporations. Can Keen really suggest that blogs are more influential in influencing public opinion than the tabloid press or broadcast media? This would assume that blogs are far more widely read than they actually are!

Rather flippantly, Keen states that ‘if culture is free then you get what you pay for and it’s usually crap.’ Keen has much of value to say, and his argument that the future of the web should depend more on expertise than hearsay is convincing. Yet his assumption that permissiveness always breeds decline and degradation is dangerous, and fails to credit individual internet users with enough intelligence to select which blogs to read and to corroborate whatever information they may find with other sources. It’s rather frustrating that, in the interview at least, Keen fails to differentiate between those bloggers with clear passion and enthusiasm for their subject, and those self-interested writers simply looking to promote themselves. I don’t feel that by writing and publishing this website, I’m somehow participating in a devaluation of culture, rigour and expertise. Instead I hope I’m helping to challenge commonly held assumptions about where expertise might lie, and perhaps even aid cultural discourse. It’s a fascinating debate, and it seems entirely appropriate that the BBC should give voice to someone emphasising rigour, fact-checking and expertise, important elements in the wider virtue of impartiality. However, the idea that ‘professional’ always equates with qualified and ‘amateur’ always means ignorant is itself misleading.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Tending To The Flock

Iron and Wine - The Shepherd's Dog

Perhaps I’ve waxed lyrical about Iron and Wine more than enough on these pages already but I can’t help feeling that ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’ deserves special attention as the first Iron and Wine album to explore the full possibilities of an ensemble sound. Most likely inspired by the outstanding collaboration with Calexico from a couple of years ago (indeed, Joey Burns and Paul Niehaus from that wonderful group both appear here), Sam Beam has now delivered rich and inventive arrangements to match his deeply compelling songs.

Lyrically, Beam continues to look like a true original and a master of language. His images are at once elusive and pure (‘love was a promise made of smoke in a frozen copse of trees’) and he has a peculiar knack for unusual juxtapositions (‘Cain got a milk eyed mule from the auction, Abel got a telephone’ or ‘springtime and the promise of an open fist’). Somehow, these words always seem to flow softly and elegantly (no doubt Beam’s beautifully understated delivery helps in this regard) and always evoke feelings rather than obscuring them.

Those who, like me, deeply admire Beam’s talent for composing ballads in the true sense of the term – long, storytelling songs with languid melodies – may be disappointed that his masterful song ‘The Trapeze Swinger’ is rarely used as a template here. There is the gorgeous ‘Resurrection Fern’, which closely resembles that song, albeit in far more concise form. Its chorus is almost unspeakably beautiful (‘we’ll undress beside the ashes of the fire/both our tender bellies wrapped around in bailing wire/all the more an underwater pearl than the oak tree and its resurrection fern’), bolstered by Paul Niehaus’ subtle but stirring pedal steel. The closing ‘Flightless Bird, American Mouth’ also has something of a soulful lilt to it, and is characteristically tender and affecting.

For most of ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’, though, Beam explores the more rhythmically driven, bluesy aspects of his work, to increasingly powerful effect. I think I credited Beam with pioneering something approaching an ‘American folk minimalism. This felt like a neat categorisation at the time but now seems hopelessly inadequate. ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’ is Beam’s most brazenly percussive work to date, both in terms of its deployment of a range of percussion instruments (but never a conventional drum kit) and in the style of guitar playing Beam deploys throughout. As a result, ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’ achieves much in retracing some of the lost connections between Appalachian blues and African desert music. ‘House By The Sea’ sounds closer to Ali Farka Toure than Bob Dylan (albeit with a hint of Roger McGuinn in the guitar solos), and there are echoes of the repetitive, hypnotic grooves of the Touareg masters Tinariwen, particularly on ‘Wolves (Song of the Shepherd’s Dog)’ or first single ‘Boy With A Coin’.

Somehow I hadn’t quite latched on to just how many of these songs Beam performed at his special show at the Spitz a couple of months ago. As a result many of the melodies and lyrical ideas already seem recognisable, but the overall sound of the record is somewhat unexpected and fascinating. This makes for an enchanting combination of distance and familiarity. There are all manner of sounds that seem alien to the trademark Iron and Wine sound – cello, soulful Wurlitzer, scratchy guitars, the delightful honky tonk piano on ‘The Devil Never Sleeps’, perhaps what might even be the odd intervention of electronics. The deep connection with the blues is still at the heart of this music, but the feel is now less rustic and more elastic.

Beam is an extraordinary songwriter capable of vivid, dreamlike songs that conjure their own weird combination of romanticism and danger. He would still be a significant artist even were he content to continue simply as an acoustic troubadour. That he has found new contexts for his elegiac words and melodies makes hiw work all the more expressive and powerful.

Ghosts in the Machine

PJ Harvey's 'White Chalk'

PJ Harvey clearly has little care for continuity. With each new album, she has reinvented herself. She indulged her fiery rage and righteous hatred on ‘Rid Of Me’, explored erotic mysteries on ‘To Bring You My Love’ and ‘Is This Desire?’, ventured into relatively conventional rock terrain for the Mercury winning ‘Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea’ and vented uncomplicated aggression on ‘Uh Huh Her’. Her latest venture, ‘White Chalk’, may well represent her most audacious transformation yet. It’s certainly the least commercial record she’s made in some time, in a career where commercial concerns rarely, if ever, seem to have been a significant factor.

At just 36 minutes long, one might be forgiven for inserting it into a CD player and expecting a set of snappy pop songs. Polly Harvey rarely takes such a comfortable route though of course. ‘White Chalk’ is in fact as confrontational and austere a record as I’ve heard this year. The majority of these songs were composed at the piano, and feature Polly pushing, occasionally straining, into the upper reaches of her vocal register. Formally trained pianists may wish to turn away now, for Polly is undoubtedly something of a novice at the old ivories, and much of the touch here is rather plinky-plonk.

There is, however, something eerily appropriate about this approach, particularly in the way it has directed Harvey towards a kind of chamber-noir sound. For much of ‘White Chalk’, Polly seems to be revelling in nostalgia for old lands, old times and a child’s loss of innocence. This being a PJ Harvey album though, it’s not the heart-warming, or even the melancholy form of nostalgic reverie. There’s a simmering malice and macabre chill throughout ‘White Chalk’ that creates unresolved tensions of the most cloying and uncomfortable kind. The skeletal piano and Yoko Ono-esque vocals serve to heighten and emphasise this discomfort.

The wonderful ‘Silence’, perhaps the album’s best track, begins ‘All those places where I recall/The memories that gripped me and pinned me down’. It sets the scene for the intense drama that plays out in the rest of the song, and also neatly summarises the album’s distinctive themes. Memory here has an inevitable, unavoidable force but is also stifling and disconcerting.

Both the title track and ‘Grow Grow Grow’ seem to revisit childhood. The latter is clearly an exploration of burgeoning child sexuality (‘Teach me Mummy how to grow, how to catch someone’s fancy beneath the twisted oak grove’), delivered almost as a fairytale. There are echoes of Angela Carter’s ‘The Company of Wolves’ here, with its Freudian take on the Little Red Riding Hood story. ‘White Chalk’ itself is one of the more immediately appealing songs in this set, and one of the few to favour the rustle of an acoustic guitar over the more weighty backing of the piano. Harvey sings of ‘white chalk, sticking to my shoes, playing as a child with you’ and, rather more chillingly, claims that ‘these chalk hills will rot my bones’. There’s a majestic flow to the song that builds as it progresses.

Elsewhere, there’s an unrestrained longing that frequently boils over into desperation, from the malevolent cry at the heart of ‘The Devil’ (‘Come! Come! Come here at once!’) to the burning desire of ‘The Piano’. Much of this is reinforced by the stately yet quietly terrifying arrangements of these songs, from vivid vocal harmonies to soft, rustling percussion. Nick Cave’s ‘The Boatman’s Call’ has been cited as an obvious reference point, but where that album largely saw Cave abandon his trademark menace for more spiritual and romantic concerns, ‘White Chalk’ is as unsettling and troubling a record as Harvey has yet produced. Similarly, comparisons with Tori Amos and Kate Bush are largely unhelpful. There is mercifully nothing of Amos’ forced kookiness here, and if ‘White Chalk’ echoes some of Bush’s recent preoccupations with nature, that is only in the propensity of the natural world to evoke feeling and prompt memory. ‘White Chalk’ occupies its own peculiar space – a world that is creepy and bleak but thoroughly bewitching. On the surface, it’s completely uninviting, but ultimately it’s irresistibly tempting.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Spaced Oddity

Elmore Judd - Insect Funk

Elmore Judd are an unusual group comprising some of North London’s finest musicians, including the superb drummer Tom Skinner and keyboardist-songwriter Jesse Hackett, with whom I used to attend Ian Carr’s jazz workshops at the WAC Performing Arts and Media College. Hackett has been both shrewd and fortuitous in making useful friends through his participation in Damon Albarn’s Mali Music project. The result was a deal with the excellent Honest Jon’s label (so far mainly responsible for the rediscovering of soul legends such as Candi Staton, Bettye Swann and Willie Hightower), in which Albarn has a stake.

The group have already been acclaimed as ‘genuine innovators’ by Blues and Soul magazine, although they undoubtedly wear their influences rather proudly. What is most interesting about Hackett’s approach is the way that he has conducted something of a smash-and-grab raid on recent musical history. The opening ‘Pirate Song’ sounds like a Tom Waits song, and could have fitted comfortably on Hal Wilner and Gore Verbinski’s ‘Rogue’s Gallery’ pirate compilation from last year. ‘Dead Men Walk In A Straight 9’, with its rather bizarre oom-pah backing, mines similar ground. Skinner’s drums, emphasising beats against the main pulse, pull it in other directions, creating a perplexing, perhaps drunken sense of creeping unease.

Elsewhere, the sound is deliberately skeletal, somewhere close to Hot Chip (particularly on the synth-heavy erotic squelch of ‘Funky Nerd’) but with the dry, ironic humour extracted. ‘Disco in 4 Time’ and ‘We Float In Time’ have a similarly relentless four-to-the-floor backbeat to that deployed by LCD Soundsystem and many of the other DFA acts. By way of contrast, though, the title track is radical and off-kilter, with peculiar interlocking cartoonish vocals. ‘Ultra Busy’ has a disorientating, sub-aquatic feel that may well have been influenced by ‘Bitches Brew’ era Miles Davis. They are both perverse delights.

Although Hackett, his brother Louis and drummer Skinner are all virtuosic talents, there’s more creativity than showmanship on display on ‘Insect Funk’ and it’s all the more successful because of this commendable restraint. The group dynamic involves exploring the full possibility of sound and its manipulation and there is an extraordinary attention to detail on display here. Few bands vary their texture so greatly simply through the drum sound for example – there are lightly brushed drums, electronically manipulated, flat-sounding drums, and intricate, expressive percussion tracks. The guitar and keyboard lines are carefully mapped too, always simple and adding something to the atmosphere or the groove. Hackett is not so techinically gifted as a singer, but he achieves a mysterious quality through his breathy falsetto and enigmatic murmurings. ‘Insect Funk’ is slippery but insidious and undoubtedly impressive. It would be great to see this band break out of the restrictive London bubble.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Some Of The Dates Have Been Changed...

Nevermind US sub-prime mortgages - it was next Monday's album releases that were the most likely cause of financial disaster for me. Luckily, things are looking a little more staggered now. Here's an updated schedule for the next few weeks:

Sep 24th

Iron and Wine - The Shepherd's Dog
PJ Harvey - White Chalk
Bettye Lavette - Scene Of The Crime
Manu Katche - Playground

Oct 1st

Bruce Springsteen - Magic
Steve Earle - Washington Square Serenade (moved from Sep 24th)
Scott Walker - And Who Shall Go To The Ball? And What Shall Go To The Ball? (moved from Sep 24th)

Oct 8th

Supersilent - 8 (moved from Sep 24th)
Band Of Horses - Cease To Begin (moved from Oct 1st)
Robert Wyatt - Comicopera (already reviewed here!)

Languages of Love

Sylvie Lewis - Translations

Can I really be in love with a woman I’ve not even seen in person let alone met? Not really of course, but there’s certainly something rather enchanting about Sylvie Lewis. Born in Britain but now living in Rome, Lewis has led a remarkably itinerant lifestyle, including four years at the prestigious Berklee School of Music. This college is famous for having produced a number of quality jazz musicians, but its considerably rarer to find singer-songwriters among its alumni (and they tend towards the intellectual end of the spectrum – Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen for example).

Lewis’ lovely second album ‘Translations’ is loosely themed around complexities of language and communication and it has a delicate, old-time feel evidencing her formal training. Whilst there are elements of folk and classic pop, there are also strong hints of the jazz tradition, cabaret and show-tunes thrown into a thoroughly beguiling mix. In its deft handling of a variety of old-fashioned styles, it’s not a million miles from the recent explorations of Erin McKeown or Jolie Holland but there’s such a lightness of touch here that Lewis stands in a class of her own. Her consummate delivery is relaxed, effortless and commendably understated. There’s no attempt whatsoever to admonish the listener with crass dexterity or virtuosity, but rather a completely natural command of both phrasing and melody.

The delicate, playful quality of these songs will no doubt mean that appreciation depends on the individual listener’s tolerance for whimsy. Personally, I find these songs whimsical in the most delightful way – charming, graceful, insightful and spellbinding. It’s not just a collection of great songs, but also packed full of captivating moments too, such as the coda to ‘Cheap Ain’t Free’, where the music suddenly veers away from jaunty barroom jazz to pure Burt Bacharach-meets-Karen Carpenter schmaltz. Alternatively, there’s also ‘Starsong’, which begins with a lushly romantic voice and guitar introduction before moving into a light-hearted ragtime bounce. There are also lovely touches in the instrumentation too, with the focus shifting between softly strummed acoustic guitar to subtle piano. Richard Swift provides entrancing swathes of mellotron on a handful of tracks, and there are some very canny arrangements for strings, brass and woodwind.

‘Translations’ is an apt title for this record in so many ways, not only dealing as it does with communication and the language of love, but also capturing shared experience between a variety of different situations. This is an open-minded collection of songs where a variety of narratives intertwine, with a handful of the songs seemingly written in character from a male perspective. Lewis’ lyrics are mostly direct and unpretentious, sometimes exploring a casual manipulation of language. The opening lines to ‘Say in Touch’ are particularly charming: ‘He’s got a lover in New York/Likes to mention her in casual talk/Whenever they meet, they don’t speak much/When they meet they say in touch.’ Throughout, there’s a strong sense of wisdom gained through experience, although it’s consistently delivered in an entertaining, playful spirit.

These songs conjure a plausible world where conventional impressions of beauty can be both inspiring and oppressive, and Lewis subtly manages to challenge these conventions in the process on songs such as ‘Cheap Ain’t Free’ and ‘Death By Beauty’. On ‘Happy Like That’ she perceptively observes the flirtations of married men in late night bars (‘You want to be wanted, just a taste/But you push it to the edge because you know that you’re safe’) and, by way of contrast, there’s also the wonderfully breezy settle-for-singledom charm of ‘If It Don’t Come Easy’, with its insistent handclaps and chiming guitars. ‘Old Queens, Monet and Me’ doesn’t just dare to rhyme ‘Dubonnet’ with ‘Monet’ but also comes with a healthy dose of irony (‘as for music, all the good songs are covers anyway!’).

The album’s centrepiece is a splendid piano-laden love ballad in waltz time called ‘Of Course, Isobel’ which comes with just enough ambiguity to withstand a number of possible interpretations. It starts off sounding like a heartfelt plea from father to daughter (‘you don’t write you don’t call….Three women in my life I have loved well/My mother, my wife and, of course, Isobel’), but it could even be a love song to an estranged lover (‘when I tell my side, you made a plaything of my heart/You make love entertainment when for me love is art!’). Either way, it’s an exquisite and beautiful song, satisfying in its conventional resolutions.

Whilst this album has a very pure and comforting sound, the fact that it ends on its most elusive and mysterious song (‘Your Voice Carries’, more reliant on atmosphere than melody) suggests that there are other directions in which Lewis could travel, should she opt to follow these paths. For now, though, ‘Translations’ is an invigorating breath of fresh air.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Old Friends, Sat On A Park Bench Like Bookends

Kevin Ayers - The Unfairground
Robert Wyatt - Comicopera

It’s a special couple of months that sees these two pioneering collaborators (both Soft Machine alumni) both releasing new albums. Wyatt’s output has stayed restlessly creative over recent years, with a series of largely home-recorded albums demonstrating the continued flowering of his remarkable genius. As a composer, he is continually pushing himself in new directions, and he remains one of the most insightful and inventive of pop writers. ‘Cuckooland’ and now ‘Comicopera’ may show him becoming increasingly accessible but he is still completely fearless in his themes and juxtapositions, far from any comfortable or classifiable terrain. Yet, in some ways, it’s the Ayers album, whilst decidedly more conventional, that is the more unexpected. It’s this hermetic figure’s first recording for over fifteen years, and it is a remarkably dignified and unassuming disc. Wyatt himself is among the numerous guests on ‘The Unfairground’, billed amusingly as The Wyattron, although it’s not clear exactly what his contribution entails.

The play on words in Ayers’ chosen title is so obvious that it’s difficult to believe it hasn’t been used before. In fact, it neatly sums up the directness and clarity of this deceptively simple collection. Ayers’ vocal style is delicate, clear and almost conversational, and his melodies take a while to ingrain themselves in the mind. Repeated listens to ‘The Unfairground’ reveal numerous pleasures in its elaborate arrangements and old fashioned dusty shuffles. There’s also something hugely endearing about its ruminative and reflective mood.

Ayers may have been passing the time drinking wine in the South of France, but he clearly hasn’t closed his ears to contemporary talent. Among the guests on this beguiling record are indie-jazz pianist Bill Wells, various members of The Ladybug Transistor, former Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci singer Euros Childs and one of the greatest songwriters of the past 20 years in Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake. The songs all benefit from detail in the arrangements, including strings, brass and harmony vocals. These never feel tacked on after the event, but are rather innate contributing factors to the relaxed, lightly entertaining feel of the music.

The jauntiness of the opening ‘Only Heaven Knows’ or the delightfully infectious ‘Walk On Water’ border on twee, but never quite stray into that unpleasant pastiche territory coveted by Belle and Sebastian in their recent work with Trevor Horn. There’s also an important counterweight to be found elsewhere in the murky, dense trudge of ‘Brainstorm’ or the charming Cajun melancholy of ‘Baby Come Home’. The feel of much of this music is restrained and subtle, from the dusty shuffle of ‘Shine A Light’ to the multi-faceted rhythmic adventures of the title track, which bears a strong resemblance to Bob Dylan’s ‘Mozambique’.

Much of ‘The Unfairground’ deals with disappointment and uncertainty, and how age and experience do not by themselves bring greater insight. These are quite brave themes, although the reflective, whimsical humour with which Ayers confronts these subjects ensures that these songs are not overly weighty. Indeed, far from it, for there’s an admirable lightness of touch throughout the album. The resignation of ‘Cold Shoulder’ might be merely weary, or it might be wise (‘old shoulders become cold shoulders, nothing left to lean on’), whilst ‘Friends and Strangers’ neatly encapsulates the difficulties when the boundaries between friendship and love become blurred (‘funny how a situation changes, love can turn the best of friends into strangers’).

Those familiar with the oddball quirkiness Ayers displayed on albums like ‘Whatevershebringswesing’ might well find the relative straightforwardness and unashamed whimsy of ‘The Unfairground’ underwhelming. I have a clear sense that this is one of those delightfully modest albums that is all too easy to underestimate. It’s lovingly crafted, with an intriguing set of guests who have real empathy with Ayers’ unassuming approach.

Robert Wyatt claims that ‘Comicopera’ is about ‘the unpredictable mischief of real life’ and what greater, more sophisticated backdrop for an artistic statement could there be? He also claims that he doesn’t like to limit himself through prior planning or conceptual restrictions, although ‘Comicopera’ is an intelligently structured work neatly divided into three acts. Wyatt has a unique ability to make his work sound simultaneously both unfinished and utterly complete – there is as much space in this music as there is sound, and the low key production values allow for imperfections and real feeling.

So much has been made of Wyatt’s obfuscation or the challenge his music poses to ears more attuned to conventional pop music. His name has even become a verb – to ‘Wyatt’ now refers to the act of deliberately selecting the most outrageous or provocative track on a pub jukebox. Listening to ‘Comicopera’, though, I don’t feel that Wyatt’s music is without broader appeal. Whilst he’s undoubtedly preoccupied with sound in the broadest sense, and also with the traditions of improvisation and harmonic extension not usually explored in conventional pop writing, he has such a sensitive ear for melody and elegant chord progressions that much of the music here is both touching and approachable. Take the brief but charming ‘A Beautiful Peace’ for example, its delicate rustle and strum having an effortless charm. The music on ‘Comicopera’ is also subtle and considerably nuanced however, and therefore lacks the insistence or immediacy of much mainstream pop music. Like the best composition in any genre, it demands close attention, and rewards the effort handsomely.

Much of Wyatt’s last album (the outstanding ‘Cuckooland’) was fuelled by audacious examinations of the Middle East situation. ‘Comicopera’ advances this preoccupation by pivoting on the most original and intelligent expression of anger at the Iraq war any musician has yet mustered. Its second act sees Wyatt playing opposing roles, as a gung-ho bomber and an innocent victim of bombings. Then, in the album’s third (and most unconventional) act, Wyatt abandons the English language for Italian and Spanish, an expression of his perceived political and cultural alienation from the Anglo-American axis. This is a much more lucid, nuanced and powerful expression of dislocation than the uncontrolled anger Neil Young indulged on the massively overrated ‘Living With War’ album last year.

Ultimately, though, ‘Comicopera’ is as much personal as it is political, and even its most confrontational moments build broad pictures from individual perspectives. Wyatt and his wife and co-lyricist Alfreda Benge may be rivalled in 2007 only by Bjork and Feist for their insight into human behaviour. There are love songs here, but they are free from the burden of sentimentality and rarely predictable in their outlook. Sometimes, as much of the emotion and feeling is hidden as it is revealed (I particularly like ‘A.W.O.L’ with its lyrics about ‘thinking in riddles and waving to trains that no longer run’). Yet occasionally, Wyatt and Benge manage to be strikingly direct, as on ‘Just As You Are’ which manages to revisit that well-worn theme of constancy in love without sounding tired or jaded.

This album is so stylistically diverse and scattershot that it shouldn’t hang together nearly as coherently as it does. Its overarching themes and musical preoccupations provide a consistent thread, and there’s an engaging mystery neatly introduced by the eerie interpretation of Anja Garbarek’s ‘Stay Tuned’.

The three act scheme also helps to add shape and form, even if it was, as Wyatt suggests, an afterthought. The first act, subtitled ‘Lost In Noise’ is notable for its smoky, entrancing arrangements focussing on trumpet and saxophone. These performances are not just lovingly arranged (particularly the wonderful ‘Anachronist’ which is both hypnotic and discomforting) but also carefully recorded, capturing the natural live sound and tone of these instruments.

The first part of the middle act most explicitly conjures the comic mood the album’s title suggests. This being a Robert Wyatt album, however, the humour is particularly dry. On the quirky deconstructed blues ‘Be Serious’, he quips ‘how can I express myself when there’s no self to express?’, a peculiar inversion of existentialist philosophy. The act ends with the album’s most politically confrontational material, but is glued together by the endearingly ramshackle instrumental ‘On The Town Square’, essentially an extended improvisation for saxophone and steel pan over just one insistently repeated guitar chord. ‘A Beautiful War’ is devastating in its sardonic cynicism in the face of war, Wyatt playing the role of gleeful bomber privileged with a promise of freedom and security denied to his targets (‘I open the hatch, and I drop the first batch/It’s a shame, I’ll miss the place, but I’ll get to see the film within days…the replay of my beautiful day’). Immediately afterwards, on the brilliantly disorientating ‘Out Of The Blue’, Wyatt switches roles to play the part of the beleaguered victim of war (‘Beyond all understanding you’ve blown my house apart/You set me free…You’ve planted all your everlasting hatred in my heart’). It sounds appropriately confusing and terrifying, but also underlines a sense of anger and fearless righteousness.

The final act, subtitled ‘Away With The Fairies’ seems to enter another world completely, a land that is both romantic and disconcertingly dark, with Wyatt both forsaking the English language and veering into his most inventive musical terrain. ‘Cancion de Julieta’ might be the album’s most difficult moment but it’s also a clear highlight, setting a Lorca poem to appropriately dramatic and evocative music. It builds from just Wyatt’s uniquely conversational intoning set against a discreet double bass glide, into a swirling, malevolent concoction in asymmetrical time. The take on Orphy Robinson’s ‘Pastafari’ is equal parts Steve Reich and Lionel Hampton, far more engaging than a simple interlude. After ‘Fragment’ echoes some of the themes from the first act, the album ends with the Latin-tinged ‘Hasta Siemore Comandante’, which manages to be at once elusive and forthright, foreboding and celebratory.

It would be easy to take Wyatt for granted because he consistently produces music that is this weird and wonderful – it is exactly what his audience expects from him. But let’s be clear – there is no other male solo artist working on this level and nobody this unafraid to combine ideas and sounds that might otherwise be assumed to be in conflict with each other. ‘Comicopera’ is yet another vivid masterpiece in a career that has not yet produced anything less.

Reunion Madness

How unfortunate that the Led Zeppelin reunion has directly coincided with the release of Robert Plant's rather excellent new record with Alison Krauss. Given that Page and Plant performed Led Zep material together, somewhat indifferently, as recently as the late 90s (the only difference now being the participation of John Paul Jones), I'm actually surprised that demand for the reunion show has been quite this massive. People seem perfectly prepared to pay the outrageous asking price (£150 + for one concert is simply obscene), whilst also paying the additional costs involved in travelling substantial distances.

At least with Led Zep, there still seems to be some kind of bond of friendship and mutual empathy between the main parties. The Police reunion hardly seems to have quashed the antipathy between Stewart Copeland and Sting, who seem to have set aside their considerable differences purely for the purpose of making some cold, hard lucre.

Now comes the most ridiculous of them all - the Sex Pistols reuniting yet again! Can there be any spirit of rebellion left in these craggy old rockers? Another trudge through 'God Save The Queen' and 'Anarchy in the UK' at half the original tempos? No thanks. The most galling aspect of this particularly reunion for this writer is its timing - neatly coinciding with yet another anniversary reissue of 'Nevermind The Bollocks...' I still view this as one of the most overrated records of all time - profoundly uninteresting both musically and lyrically, and nowhere near as significant as John Lydon's later work with PiL, which was far more creative, challenging and unexpected. To my ears, the Pistols' music remains stodgy, soulless and ugly. It's no wonder it inspired Noel Gallagher. The assumption that 1976 was the year of punk, and that the Sex Pistols were at its vanguard is a massive assumption that still remains unchallenged. The protest spirit that catalysed punk surely began in the US with Iggy and The Stooges and arguably even The MC5. On this small island we seem obsessed with our capacity for musical and cultural innovation - yet it's so often based substantially on myth-making and distortion. I want to hear something original, fresh and exciting from these shores, not another trip down a memory lane almost entirely devoid of cultural value.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Community Spirit!

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Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Unexpected Pleasures

Robert Plant/Alison Krauss - Raising Sand

It’s difficult to admit it now, but one of my earliest infatuations as a teenager was with Led Zeppelin. Not so much the quasi-mystical nonsense of ‘Stairway To Heaven’, but rather the primal rush of ‘Communication Breakdown’ or the effortless and thoroughly peculiar melding of Eastern strings and pounding drums on ‘Kashmir’. Since those days, I’ve rather fallen out of love with their considerable legacy and can’t bring myself to care much about the imminent reunion gig, even if Dave Grohl does attempt to fill John Bonham’s enormous drum shoes. Foolishly, I opted to watch Page and Plant’s indulgent tedium over the Super Furry Animals at 1998’s Reading Festival, and much of Robert Plant’s solo work has left me rather cold. ‘Raising Sand’ therefore comes as a curious and entirely gratifying surprise.

It’s not a Plant solo album as such, but rather a collaboration with the extraordinarily popular bluegrass singer Alison Krauss, about whom I am usually very much agnostic. Her own music has tended to sound overly polite and sanitised, the songs often sounding forced rather than hard-lived. Yet her soft, somewhat vulnerable tones here provide a sterling foil for Plant, who is uncharacteristically restrained throughout. Indeed, it’s only on ‘Fortune Teller’ that he even comes close to resembling the sexualised urgency of his Zeppelin vocal performances. There’s only one Plant original here (‘Please Read The Letter’), and even that is cribbed from the Page/Plant album ‘Walking Into Clarksdale’. This is mainly a somewhat studied, but thoroughly easygoing foray into American roots music, neatly melding country, blues and soul into a delicately enchanting and hypnotic hybrid.

Sometimes the sound is comfortingly familiar, with swathes of pedal steel guitar and lightly brushed drums, but in places they veer into unusually eerie, gothic territory. ‘Polly Come Home’ doesn’t sound a million miles away from the harmony-directed minimalism of Low, although the slightly Irish lilt to the melody lends it an additional timeless quality. The superb opener ‘Rich Woman’ crackles and bristles with an oddly reserved energy, whilst Krauss handles the melodic line of ‘Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us’ with masterful subtlety.

The percussion throughout sounds particularly otherworldly and transcendent, perhaps slightly reminiscent of Malcolm Burn’s production work for Emmylou Harris on ‘Red Dirt Girl’ and ‘Stumble Into Grace’, particularly on the haunting take on Tom Waits’ ‘Trampled Rose’. The loose-limbed clatter that glues these songs together also prevents this from being too academic or reverential an exercise.

There’s a relaxed, consummate alchemy between Plant and Krauss that is thoroughly unexpected. Whilst it’s not quite as pure and original a partnership as that of Gram Parsons and Emmylou, it’s both respectful of that particular heritage and keen to develop it in unpredictable directions. The effortless grace of their harmony singing on ‘Stick With Me Baby’ is sublime.

What a shame therefore that Plant is undermining the promotion of this satisfying record by submitting to corporate pressures for a one-off Led Zeppelin reunion show. At least it looks unlikely to become a behemoth tour in the manner of this year’s other reunions (Genesis, The Police). I would rather focus on the quiet and intoxicating majesty of this beautiful record.

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Belated Mercury Musings

I've been out of the loop a bit due to having spent the last few days on an intensive and highly fulfilling residential music course in an isolated property on the coast of Devon. So I missed yesterday's Mercury announcement completely.

I guess Klaxons are exactly the sort of over-hyped media fodder regular readers of this blog might expect me to rail against venomously, but I actually think they have some merit. Not, I must concede, because they are doing anything especially original (to me they sound more like early Super Furry Animals than a 'rave' band) but because some of the songs are clever, punchy and viscerally exciting.

Yet the nagging question remains - is this really the best record a British artist can come up with? Will it be remembered as a classic, pioneering achievement in even 10 years' time? Frankly, I doubt it. Like previous winners Franz Ferdinand and Arctic Monkeys, Klaxons seem designed far more for instant thrills than serious longevity. What has happened to the long term career trajectory in this country's fractured and damaged music industry? When exactly did it become a common assumption that artists make their most radical and innovative statement with their debut albums, leaving them nowhere left to go?

Surely the strident leap in delivery and sheer quality Amy Winehouse has made between her first and second albums deserved some recognition, in spite of her turbulent lifestyle? If her first album suffered a little from overbearing force of personality, this album amply demonstrated her sheer class as a performer and artist. Has there been a better collection of songs with such timeless quality released in the past twelve months? Plus it's now been five years since PJ Harvey was the last woman honoured with the award.

Alternatively, when will this prize actually justify its existence by selecting one of the 'token' nominations as a winner? The most subtle, inventive and engaging album in the shortlist by some distance was Basquiat Strings, misguidedly presented as a nomination for drummer Seb Rochford, rather than for the group's leader and composer, the highly talented cellist Ben Davis.

So it's been yet another missed opportunity for this beleagured cultural institution and with every year the judges strip away yet more value from what was initially a worthwhile and important concept.