Wild Combination - A Portrait Of Arthur Russell (Matt Wolf, 2008)
Documentaries about musicians can be tedious affairs, sometimes neglecting to include any examples of the music itself. Often, they serve merely to deify rather than to critique their subject matter. Matt Wolf’s debut film, about the songwriter and composer Arthur Russell, nimbly avoids these pitfalls.
Pre-release speculation suggested that Wolf’s film might falter due to a paucity of footage of Russell performing. This obstacle has, in the event, proved to be exaggerated, as Wolf’s combination of home video footage and solo recordings adds a sense of mystery that might have been lacking from more direct concert material. It contributes to the overall sense of sadness – emphasising the idea that Russell’s contemporary audience was far smaller than it should have been. Here was a man mainly creating music mainly for himself, simply because it was his life’s work to do so.
It’s significant that Wolf came to Russell’s music in the same way as most people – through the recent reissues that have come courtesy of the Soul Jazz and Audika labels. He’s not a lifelong Russell anorak – he’s simply recognised Russell’s musical significance and worthiness as a documentary subject. He’s managed to secure contributions from most of the significant figures in Russell’s life – including moving testimonies from his parents and his long term partner Tom Lee, in addition to the bewildering array of musical collaborators, admirers and former band-mates.
The film conveys a strong sense of Russell as an ambitious and committed musician, but one whose combination of revisionism and perfectionism often made him into an awkward person. The song that gives the film its title eventually appeared on the posthumous ‘Calling Out Of Context’ album – Russell had apparently worked on it for over five years. The need to be in control of every aspect of his work made him impossible to work with – he could be unreliable and frequently refused to co-operate with others. In some senses, it’s a shame that his theatre collaboration with Robert Wilson proved such a disaster, but it’s clear that Russell was never best suited to joint ventures.
This is just one sense in which the film refuses to portray Russell as anything other than deeply flawed. There’s a moving moment in which Tom Lee recounts discovering that Russell tested positive for HIV, whilst he had tested negative. ‘Of course this upset me’, he admits, ‘because I thought that we were totally monogamous but he must have been fooling around a bit. Sadly, it only takes one time…’
Wolf’s film is successful in presenting Russell as a confused, reflective person, desperate to escape the confines of his rural American upbringing, whose restless mind took him in countless different directions. Perhaps this explains both his apparent unfaithfulness and his commitment to explore all aspects of music, uninhibited by the narrow restrictions of genre. To Philip Glass, he was an eccentric member of an avant-garde community, whilst to Lola Love (who provided the demented vocal to Dinosaur L’s ‘Go Bang!’), he was ‘the funkiest white boy I ever saw’. Ernie Brooks of the Flying Hearts saw him as a songwriter to rival John Lennon. To himself, Russell must have been all of these things at once.
The film is mostly excellent in demonstrating Russell’s open-mindedness towards all forms of music. It goes some way in explaining how his different explorations – acoustic folk songs, disco tracks under a variety of monikers, instrumental compositions and performances with his electronically treated Cello - all fell under his broad category of sophisticated bubblegum. In all his forms, his strong sense of melody and harmony always cut through. Perhaps the film skirts over his composed work a little too quickly – we only hear a small segment of ‘Instrumentals’, and the significance of ‘World of Echo’ is probably understated too.
Despite these minor issues, the film still gives a powerful sense of Russell as a man for whom making music is the only priority. Lee admits that he effectively became the breadwinner in their partnership, with Russell mostly avoiding work in order to write and record music all day, every day, regardless of whether he would ever complete it. Seeing Lee trawling through the countless hours of tapes Russell left behind is undoubtedly touching, and provides evidence that the rediscovery of Russell’s music is a journey that has only just begun.
Like all good documentaries, Wolf’s film recognises that all this music was, in Keith Jarrett’s words, the end result of ‘a process that has nothing to do with music’. The film is excellent in recognising Russell’s physical awkwardness and the restrictions of his isolated youth, recounted with warm and sincere regret by his parents. The pull of the city represented dreams of freedom and liberation, an uninhibited desire to experiment expressed in Russell’s body of work as a whole. There’s also a powerful irony in the testimony that as he descended into AIDS-related illness and dementia, Russell’s musical gift continued to grow stronger.
Brilliantly edited, and combined with some poetic camerawork of Wolf’s own imagining, ‘Wild Combination’ explores how we can be most free and creative. Russell seemed to work best when he was purely self-directing – with no deadlines or commercial expectations. Sometimes he clearly ached to be successful – but was ultimately more interested in pure artistic expression for its own sake, simply following his mind wherever it took him. Yet there’s also something powerful in the film’s conclusion, which hints at Tom Lee’s burgeoning relationship with Russell’s parents, and his comfort in regularly visiting the rural land where Arthur grew up. Amusingly, the ‘Master Mix’ cap Arthur sports on the cover for ‘Calling Out of Context’ has nothing to do with DJing, but is rather advertising a mix of animal feed! Lee, an entirely devoted and genuine man, clearly feels most free and at peace returning to his lost lover’s roots.
At once celebratory and poignant, but careful and compassionate in recognising human and artistic failings, ‘Wild Combination’ is exactly what it purports to be – a portrait of its subject. Going well beyond the music, the film demonstrates how difficult, awkward people can so often seem so compelling and attractive. Counterfactual speculation as to what Russell might have achieved had he not died at 40 seems to miss the point, as his father observes sweetly – ‘well, we’d at least have had another 800 reels of tape…’
Monday, September 29, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
A Private Broadcast
Curios - Closer (Impure, 2008)
It’s probably testament to Tom Cawley’s talent and open-mindedness that his original writing and playing for Curios is so wildly at variance with his unbridled assault on his Nord Electro for Acoustic Ladyland. With ‘Skinny Grin’, I felt that group might have taken their punk-jazz schtik a little too far, removing much of the musicality in favour of cross-genre thrashing. By way of contrast, across just two albums, Cawley’s own group have demonstrated the extraordinary versatility of the Piano trio. Curios is a prime example of how considerable empathy between three players can result in music that more than defies its limitations.
For the most part, ‘Closer’ emphasises the group’s more measured, reflective and melancholy side. There are moments of playfulness and exuberance but most traces of fiery aggression have been tempered. It’s definitely steeped far more in the evolving European school than the American bebop tradition. The result is a thoughtful, wistful set filled with great warmth. The intimacy implied by the album’s title seems entirely apt. Cawley’s touch is as light as a feather, and these recordings capture the subtlety and nuance of his playing with elegance and precision. There’s a palpable and compassionate sense of the group playing in isolation but for the benefit of many. ‘Closer’ is like a series of private conversations revealed to the wider world.
A couple of features in Cawley’s writing strike me as particularly impressive. First, there’s the way he can take a simple phrase and extrapolate it into something bold and unpredictable. He builds a whole feature from a short series of notes on ‘Curious’, with 22-year old drummer Josh Blackmore contributing his own responses and a wealth of rhythmic intricacy. It veers seamlessly from a cool, spacey feel to an unexpectedly driving swing. Secondly, there’s the comfort with which he has absorbed such a wide range of influences. If anything, there’s as much Debussy as Keith Jarrett in his writing, and ‘The Tiling Song’ even resembles an East European classical dance. Perhaps the real hint is in ‘Bradford’, a piece recognising the pivotal influence of American pianist Brad Mehldau.
Equally significant is how the entire band put their technical abilities in the service of feeling and atmosphere rather than virtuosic showmanship. Whilst the combination of classical and jazz traditions can often seem studied and academic, Curios manage to be consistently engaging and stimulating. It’s not simply that the music is complex or polyrhythmic – it’s the way the band makes transitions that are so confident as to barely register an impact. Suddenly, the listener’s ear might awaken and realise the music has travelled to a completely new place. For example, the opening ‘Little Sharks and Baby Dolphins’ shifts effortlessly between a deceptively simple waltz theme and a more propulsive, but no less delicate exposition. It’s all guided calmly by Josh Blackmore’s varying cymbal patterns.
This is not, on the surface, accessible or populist music, but it appears to have found a reasonable audience by virtue of its sheer finesse alone. There is, it seems, as much excitement in Cawley’s expressive, lyrical themes as there is in the outlandish, more muscular improvisation emerging from the Loop Collective. That London-based jazz seems to be pulling in so many different directions at the moment is hugely exciting. This radical open-mindedness has revitalised the scene, and hopefully pointed out to those programmers who undermined Jazz broadcasting in this country how wrong-headed they have been. There is both the space and the appreciation for a great wealth of ideas to flourish.
It’s probably testament to Tom Cawley’s talent and open-mindedness that his original writing and playing for Curios is so wildly at variance with his unbridled assault on his Nord Electro for Acoustic Ladyland. With ‘Skinny Grin’, I felt that group might have taken their punk-jazz schtik a little too far, removing much of the musicality in favour of cross-genre thrashing. By way of contrast, across just two albums, Cawley’s own group have demonstrated the extraordinary versatility of the Piano trio. Curios is a prime example of how considerable empathy between three players can result in music that more than defies its limitations.
For the most part, ‘Closer’ emphasises the group’s more measured, reflective and melancholy side. There are moments of playfulness and exuberance but most traces of fiery aggression have been tempered. It’s definitely steeped far more in the evolving European school than the American bebop tradition. The result is a thoughtful, wistful set filled with great warmth. The intimacy implied by the album’s title seems entirely apt. Cawley’s touch is as light as a feather, and these recordings capture the subtlety and nuance of his playing with elegance and precision. There’s a palpable and compassionate sense of the group playing in isolation but for the benefit of many. ‘Closer’ is like a series of private conversations revealed to the wider world.
A couple of features in Cawley’s writing strike me as particularly impressive. First, there’s the way he can take a simple phrase and extrapolate it into something bold and unpredictable. He builds a whole feature from a short series of notes on ‘Curious’, with 22-year old drummer Josh Blackmore contributing his own responses and a wealth of rhythmic intricacy. It veers seamlessly from a cool, spacey feel to an unexpectedly driving swing. Secondly, there’s the comfort with which he has absorbed such a wide range of influences. If anything, there’s as much Debussy as Keith Jarrett in his writing, and ‘The Tiling Song’ even resembles an East European classical dance. Perhaps the real hint is in ‘Bradford’, a piece recognising the pivotal influence of American pianist Brad Mehldau.
Equally significant is how the entire band put their technical abilities in the service of feeling and atmosphere rather than virtuosic showmanship. Whilst the combination of classical and jazz traditions can often seem studied and academic, Curios manage to be consistently engaging and stimulating. It’s not simply that the music is complex or polyrhythmic – it’s the way the band makes transitions that are so confident as to barely register an impact. Suddenly, the listener’s ear might awaken and realise the music has travelled to a completely new place. For example, the opening ‘Little Sharks and Baby Dolphins’ shifts effortlessly between a deceptively simple waltz theme and a more propulsive, but no less delicate exposition. It’s all guided calmly by Josh Blackmore’s varying cymbal patterns.
This is not, on the surface, accessible or populist music, but it appears to have found a reasonable audience by virtue of its sheer finesse alone. There is, it seems, as much excitement in Cawley’s expressive, lyrical themes as there is in the outlandish, more muscular improvisation emerging from the Loop Collective. That London-based jazz seems to be pulling in so many different directions at the moment is hugely exciting. This radical open-mindedness has revitalised the scene, and hopefully pointed out to those programmers who undermined Jazz broadcasting in this country how wrong-headed they have been. There is both the space and the appreciation for a great wealth of ideas to flourish.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Radiance
Emmylou Harris, London Hammersmith Apollo, 14th September 2008
It’s taken me a while to get round to writing up my thoughts on my first Emmylou Harris concert experience, so I hope my recollections are not too hazy and distant. With this and last month’s disappointing Stevie Wonder concert, I’m left with very few living legends to see in concert, which hopefully means I’ll be able to restrict myself to reasonably priced gigs from now on.
There has been a lot of debate among Emmylou obsessives about the merits of this latest touring ensemble, The Red Dirt Boys, and her superb previous band Spyboy. It’s certainly true that this band doesn’t attempt to mimic Spyboy’s mysterious swampy grooves, neither do they benefit from a singular talent quite as striking as Buddy Miller. My girlfriend commented perceptively on the limitations of the drum arrangements – the influence of rhythms from around the world, presumably imposed on Emmylou’s music by Daniel Lanois and Malcolm Burn, is now largely absent. It’s arguably appropriate though, given the more tasteful, rootsy nature of Emmylou’s latest album (‘All I Intended To Be’), that The Red Dirt Boys are a group well grounded in the American folk tradition. The strongest link in the band is Rickie Simpkins, who plays a bewildering variety of instruments including mandolin, fiddle and banjo. He’s also a more than competent vocalist, providing strongly supportive harmonies and a memorable duet on ‘Old Five and Dimers Like Me’. The whole group are tasteful, sensitive players who complement Emmylou’s haunting voice, an instrument not just undiminished in its powers, but still developing.
Perhaps most interestingly of all, they play subtly redefined versions of the songs post-‘Wrecking Ball’. These versions go some way toward emphasising the continuity throughout her career rather than presenting that album schematically as a radical seismic shift. Yes, the new emphasis on production values found a new context for her voice – but these songs, including her own, have strong ties with the country tradition. As a result, the show coheres superbly, with Appalachian balladry, bluegrass stomp and, as Emmylou herself admits, a healthy dose of the blues.
It is surely the latter ingredient that is the most significant in her potent mix. Whether she’s drawing something from her own experience or interpreting the work of her most admired writers, there is always an aching sadness and poignancy at the core of her delivery. She admits that she had to exaggerate for ‘Red Dirt Girl’ as her childhood was never quite so painful but claims that the selected Merle Haggard’s beautiful ‘Kern River’ because it’s ‘just so unbearably sad’. After performing a distinctive reading of Townes Van Zandt’s ‘Pancho and Lefty’ (sharper and starker than the original), she quotes Townes’ view that ‘there are only two types of music – zip-a-dee-doo-da and the blues’. Unsurprisingly, she promises more of the latter.
It’s become a cliché to say this about the great interpreters – but Emmylou does indeed make every song her own. Even the Gram Parsons songs, which must come with weighty, personal memories for her, are imbued with fresh vigour. She does ‘Return of the Grievous Angel’ and ‘Wheels’ tonight, two of his most memorable songs, inverting them so that her harmony lines become the lead voice. This initially makes them sound unfamiliar and strange, but by the final verse of each, she has such total command that the original melody begins to sound weaker.
The most striking revelation of the night turns out to be Emmylou’s skill as a guitarist. Anyone expecting her to strum politely throughout would no doubt have left impressed by her graceful finger picking, particularly on a moving version of ‘Bang The Drum Slowly’. I found myself wondering whether this rendition of the song might have been even more effective had it been completely solo. The interjection of swirling synth pads during the choruses did seem a little obvious – a touch of emotional manipulation where evidently none was required.
Two further reservations – in not playing ‘Michelangelo’ or ‘Boulder to Birmingham’ she arguably omits her two finest self-penned songs. The show opening ‘Here I Am’ acts as the sole selection from ‘Stumble Into Grace’, which seems a shame given the rich seam of material that album might provide. This is of course a mere quibble given the show’s near two-hour running time. A more significant obstacle is the amount of reverb added to her voice – it’s a strong enough instrument not to need it, and the effect is to obscure her enunciation so some of the words become lost. With her great emphasis on story songs and personal narratives, the words are often as important as the melodies.
Still, for a woman who claims not to be religious, she sounds fervent and almost evangelical tonight. There’s a strong gospel power to the show’s final stretch, with a striking unaccompanied vocal harmony version of ‘Bright Morning Stars’ and a joyous and rousing ‘Get Up John!’. This starts to make the spiritual strain of her more recent material (especially ‘The Pearl’) begin to make more sense.
It’s also impossible to review an Emmylou performance without mentioning just how wonderful she looks, her angelic facial beauty well preserved and her stunning white hair seeming to flow seamlessly into a radiant white dress. It’s good to see she can still wear cowboy boots too.
It’s taken me a while to get round to writing up my thoughts on my first Emmylou Harris concert experience, so I hope my recollections are not too hazy and distant. With this and last month’s disappointing Stevie Wonder concert, I’m left with very few living legends to see in concert, which hopefully means I’ll be able to restrict myself to reasonably priced gigs from now on.
There has been a lot of debate among Emmylou obsessives about the merits of this latest touring ensemble, The Red Dirt Boys, and her superb previous band Spyboy. It’s certainly true that this band doesn’t attempt to mimic Spyboy’s mysterious swampy grooves, neither do they benefit from a singular talent quite as striking as Buddy Miller. My girlfriend commented perceptively on the limitations of the drum arrangements – the influence of rhythms from around the world, presumably imposed on Emmylou’s music by Daniel Lanois and Malcolm Burn, is now largely absent. It’s arguably appropriate though, given the more tasteful, rootsy nature of Emmylou’s latest album (‘All I Intended To Be’), that The Red Dirt Boys are a group well grounded in the American folk tradition. The strongest link in the band is Rickie Simpkins, who plays a bewildering variety of instruments including mandolin, fiddle and banjo. He’s also a more than competent vocalist, providing strongly supportive harmonies and a memorable duet on ‘Old Five and Dimers Like Me’. The whole group are tasteful, sensitive players who complement Emmylou’s haunting voice, an instrument not just undiminished in its powers, but still developing.
Perhaps most interestingly of all, they play subtly redefined versions of the songs post-‘Wrecking Ball’. These versions go some way toward emphasising the continuity throughout her career rather than presenting that album schematically as a radical seismic shift. Yes, the new emphasis on production values found a new context for her voice – but these songs, including her own, have strong ties with the country tradition. As a result, the show coheres superbly, with Appalachian balladry, bluegrass stomp and, as Emmylou herself admits, a healthy dose of the blues.
It is surely the latter ingredient that is the most significant in her potent mix. Whether she’s drawing something from her own experience or interpreting the work of her most admired writers, there is always an aching sadness and poignancy at the core of her delivery. She admits that she had to exaggerate for ‘Red Dirt Girl’ as her childhood was never quite so painful but claims that the selected Merle Haggard’s beautiful ‘Kern River’ because it’s ‘just so unbearably sad’. After performing a distinctive reading of Townes Van Zandt’s ‘Pancho and Lefty’ (sharper and starker than the original), she quotes Townes’ view that ‘there are only two types of music – zip-a-dee-doo-da and the blues’. Unsurprisingly, she promises more of the latter.
It’s become a cliché to say this about the great interpreters – but Emmylou does indeed make every song her own. Even the Gram Parsons songs, which must come with weighty, personal memories for her, are imbued with fresh vigour. She does ‘Return of the Grievous Angel’ and ‘Wheels’ tonight, two of his most memorable songs, inverting them so that her harmony lines become the lead voice. This initially makes them sound unfamiliar and strange, but by the final verse of each, she has such total command that the original melody begins to sound weaker.
The most striking revelation of the night turns out to be Emmylou’s skill as a guitarist. Anyone expecting her to strum politely throughout would no doubt have left impressed by her graceful finger picking, particularly on a moving version of ‘Bang The Drum Slowly’. I found myself wondering whether this rendition of the song might have been even more effective had it been completely solo. The interjection of swirling synth pads during the choruses did seem a little obvious – a touch of emotional manipulation where evidently none was required.
Two further reservations – in not playing ‘Michelangelo’ or ‘Boulder to Birmingham’ she arguably omits her two finest self-penned songs. The show opening ‘Here I Am’ acts as the sole selection from ‘Stumble Into Grace’, which seems a shame given the rich seam of material that album might provide. This is of course a mere quibble given the show’s near two-hour running time. A more significant obstacle is the amount of reverb added to her voice – it’s a strong enough instrument not to need it, and the effect is to obscure her enunciation so some of the words become lost. With her great emphasis on story songs and personal narratives, the words are often as important as the melodies.
Still, for a woman who claims not to be religious, she sounds fervent and almost evangelical tonight. There’s a strong gospel power to the show’s final stretch, with a striking unaccompanied vocal harmony version of ‘Bright Morning Stars’ and a joyous and rousing ‘Get Up John!’. This starts to make the spiritual strain of her more recent material (especially ‘The Pearl’) begin to make more sense.
It’s also impossible to review an Emmylou performance without mentioning just how wonderful she looks, her angelic facial beauty well preserved and her stunning white hair seeming to flow seamlessly into a radiant white dress. It’s good to see she can still wear cowboy boots too.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Norman Whitfield RIP
Yet another legend has passed away this week - Motown producer and songwriter Norman Whitfield. Although Whitfield is less well known than Stax counterpart Isaac Hayes (he didn't enjoy such a fruitful solo career), his influence and style are pretty similar. His songwriting partnership with Barrett Strong mirrored the collaboration between Hayes and David Porter at Stax. His production style, creating what has since been dubbed 'psychedelic soul' must surely have informed Hayes' work on the Shaft soundtrack.
Whitfield was responsible for writing one of the most enduring songs of the Motown era - 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine'. The song was immortalised by Marvin Gaye's extraordinary delivery (and the exquisite orchestration on that version), but was also recorded by many other groups Whitfield was involved with, including The Temptations and The Undisputed Truth.
His production work for The Temptations still sounds imaginative today and has been hugely influential. Tracks like 'Psychedelic Shack', 'Ball of Confusion' and 'Papa Was A Rolling Stone' took them well beyond the conventional limitations of the soul vocal group.
The Undisputed Truth, very much a Whitfield project, have been less fondly remembered and remain criminally underrated. 'Smiling Faces (Sometimes)' and 'You Make Your Own Heaven and Hell (Right Here On Earth)' remain two of the most potent examples of Whitfield's skill with prodution and arranging - the mood of both is palpably threatening.
Whitfield was responsible for writing one of the most enduring songs of the Motown era - 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine'. The song was immortalised by Marvin Gaye's extraordinary delivery (and the exquisite orchestration on that version), but was also recorded by many other groups Whitfield was involved with, including The Temptations and The Undisputed Truth.
His production work for The Temptations still sounds imaginative today and has been hugely influential. Tracks like 'Psychedelic Shack', 'Ball of Confusion' and 'Papa Was A Rolling Stone' took them well beyond the conventional limitations of the soul vocal group.
The Undisputed Truth, very much a Whitfield project, have been less fondly remembered and remain criminally underrated. 'Smiling Faces (Sometimes)' and 'You Make Your Own Heaven and Hell (Right Here On Earth)' remain two of the most potent examples of Whitfield's skill with prodution and arranging - the mood of both is palpably threatening.
Daylight Robbery
There's always a lot of fuss about a 'new' Bob Dylan release, however much it scrapes the barrel for previously unreleased recordings. The latest volume in the Bootleg Series, 'Tell Tale Signs' is no different - but much of the fuss this time has been generated by those fans refusing to purchase the set. Sony's marketing strategy for this release is at best bizarre and at worst a total insult. They are releasing the collection in three versions - a single disc, a double disc and an inevitable limited edition 3CD set with deluxe booklet. The complete version costs....well, what would be reasonable? At the absolute top end, I'd say £39.99. This turns out to be very wide of Sony's valuation, which puts it at £101.49!!
Is the packaging made of the rarest diamonds?! This is three times the face value of a ticket to see the man himself in concert! There are many other Dylan 3CD compilations in circulation (the first Bootleg Series set vols 1-3, Biograph, various budget packages of the original albums) and none of them cost even close to this exorbitant asking price. It is no surprise that many fans are pledging to download the third disc illegally from torrent sites but this relies on someone being generous enough to shell out for the set and upload it, or for a very unscrupulous journalist to make a political stand.
What do Sony stand to gain from valuing the bonus disc at an additional £80? Is it the best material Dylan has recorded? This seems highly unlikely, however rejuvenated a force he has been since 'Time Out Of Mind'. One wonders what Dylan himself makes of all this, and whether or not he has any kind of control over it. This label is constantly milking the Dylan catalogue for a quick buck. Last year's 'Dylan' best of (also released in 2CD and 3CD versions) made little improvement on 'Biograph' save for some inclusion of later material, including some very peculiar selections. This has just taken the worship of Dylan into the realms of the ridiculous. I shall not be buying the set.
Is the packaging made of the rarest diamonds?! This is three times the face value of a ticket to see the man himself in concert! There are many other Dylan 3CD compilations in circulation (the first Bootleg Series set vols 1-3, Biograph, various budget packages of the original albums) and none of them cost even close to this exorbitant asking price. It is no surprise that many fans are pledging to download the third disc illegally from torrent sites but this relies on someone being generous enough to shell out for the set and upload it, or for a very unscrupulous journalist to make a political stand.
What do Sony stand to gain from valuing the bonus disc at an additional £80? Is it the best material Dylan has recorded? This seems highly unlikely, however rejuvenated a force he has been since 'Time Out Of Mind'. One wonders what Dylan himself makes of all this, and whether or not he has any kind of control over it. This label is constantly milking the Dylan catalogue for a quick buck. Last year's 'Dylan' best of (also released in 2CD and 3CD versions) made little improvement on 'Biograph' save for some inclusion of later material, including some very peculiar selections. This has just taken the worship of Dylan into the realms of the ridiculous. I shall not be buying the set.
Friday, September 12, 2008
It's Not Even Summer, Is It?
Stevie Wonder, London O2 Arena, 11th September 2008
On one level, it seems completely churlish to complain about Stevie Wonder’s performance at the O2 last night. Mercifully, we *are* treated to many of the highpoints of his back catalogue (‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered’, ‘My Cherie Amour’, a huge chunk of the ‘Innervisions’ album, ‘Superstition’, ‘Sir Duke’, ‘Knocks Me Off My Feet’, ‘I Wish’ amongst others). He has a huge band supporting him onstage and from the back of the hellish O2 it’s frequently difficult to determine precisely who is doing what. Does he really need two other keyboardists in addition to himself? Two percussionists and a drummer?!
Unfortunately, though, I could only leave ‘A Wonder Summer’s Night’ (a bit of a crass and unimaginative name for a tour) with a heavy heart and a feeling that this once great artist no longer has any interest in being original or challenging. The show is so poorly sequenced as to be interminably disengaging for substantial chunks of its epic duration. His opening rendition of Miles Davis’ ‘All Blues’ is unexpected and pleasing – but a little odd for an audience who will not associate the piece with the performer on stage. In fact, Wonder’s still dazzling piano playing demonstrates a consistent jazz influence throughout the show, although it is often refracted through a prism that magnifies the schmaltz at the expense of the substance. The rest of the show suffers from disorientating lurches in pace and style – he’ll play an upbeat funk gem from his golden period and then immediately follow it with a sentimental ballad or an aimless jam.
Even at its best, the music is arranged and performed in a manner that is unsuitably slick. These hard-hitting, technically proficient gospel rhythm sections appear to be de rigeur these days – but as impressive as they are, they are musically one-dimensional (the whole show lacks dynamic or textural variety) and often boring as a result. The appeal of Wonder’s fantastic run of albums from Music of My Mind to Songs In The Key of Life during the 1970s was that there was a certain sloppiness to the sound as well as precision to the rhythm – it’s this tension that provided the invigorating groove and the palpable sense of soul. Both are sadly absent in this concert. There’s a fairly uninspired Latin groove over which Wonder introduces his entire band and lets every musician take a solo – but even this seems to have had any sense of spontaneity surgically removed.
Lamentable inconsistency has been Wonder’s Achilles Heel since 1975 (‘Songs in the Key of Life’ favoured his sentimental side, although he got away with it then through the sheer verve and spirit of that music). As he has become less prolific, his lapses of taste and decency have become all the more startling. Personally, I could have done without the excruciating extended version of ‘Ribbon In The Sky’ (one of many moments when he gets a bit ambitious with his demands in terms of audience participation) and the mid-section of the set that favours ballads with Wonder at the piano could have happily been curtailed. I suspect everyone could have done without the spiel about his mother dying and inspiring him to return to music too, but he has always been a painfully sincere and earnest artist. His request for a minute's silence on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks was handled with more sensitivity and restraint, and I found myself rather angry with the morons who broke it with shouts of 'we love you Stevie!'
Whilst it’s great to see Wonder visibly enjoying his time on stage and treating fans to a generous set, the moments of audience participation and playfulness seem rambling and unfocused. There’s a moment when he sings ‘Hello London’ through a vocoder and you hope it’s going to meld into one of this 70s classics, but it never arrives anywhere at all. Sometimes he just stops completely and tries to engage the audience in call-and-response sessions but at the back of the venue, we’re just too detached from any kind of atmosphere to engage. There are so many moments when people drift to the bar and for once I find myself understanding the motivation to get a drink – I just wish he’d get on with it!
Vocally, Wonder is now a little vulnerable. The upper end of his register is still very strong, but at the lower end he seems to have lost power and volume. Sometimes his voice cracks or he doesn’t quite hit the right note, odd for a musician with such a capable ear. There are some songs (‘Knocks Me Off My Feet’ and ‘Visions’ particularly) where he seems to be struggling with the control of his voice and some of the lines are noticeably wayward as a result.
In spite of all this, the show certainly has its moments. ‘Higher Ground’ is as passionate and invigorating as ever, perhaps given fresh political resonance by Wonder’s passionate support for Barack Obama. Some lesser material from ‘Hotter Than July’ (including an enjoyable ‘Masterblaster’) stands up surprisingly well. ‘Don’t You Worry About A Thing’ and ‘Living For The City’ are also welcome treats, although, in his unwillingness to play the full seven minutes of the latter, the tempo is subjected to a bizarre and inappropriate acceleration. Similarly, whilst it’s good to hear the gorgeous ‘Visions’ amongst the ballads, its new soft rock coda is ill-judged, particularly when one of the guitarists begins shredding gratuitously to no discernible emotional impact.
Like Prince at his shows at the same venue last year, Wonder treats some of his greatest songs with far less respect than they deserve. An invigorating ‘Uptight’ is cut short and merged into a grotesque mass singalong of ‘I Just Called To Say I Love You’. I have never met anyone who has admitted liking the latter song, yet it remains Wonder’s biggest UK hit and gets the biggest ovation of the night. Frankly, who can blame Wonder for all his cheesy indulgences tonight when his paying audience are so undiscerning? It’s great to hear ‘I Wish’ and ‘Isn’t She Lovely?’, but frustrating that they are edited and merged together in a hurried medley. We needed more of this material earlier in the show!
Even tonight, there’s still plenty of evidence that Wonder is a master musician – the better of his ballads are intricate and intelligent, with harmonic complexity rarely found in pop music. His groove based music remains peerless, and even the treatment handed out to it by this mercilessly rehearsed band of session musos can’t really diminish that power. So, the final half hour of the show is at the very least entertaining. Better still, that pure and clear sound he gets from the harmonica remains one of the most beautiful sounds on earth. I would have liked to hear more of it.
On one level, it seems completely churlish to complain about Stevie Wonder’s performance at the O2 last night. Mercifully, we *are* treated to many of the highpoints of his back catalogue (‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered’, ‘My Cherie Amour’, a huge chunk of the ‘Innervisions’ album, ‘Superstition’, ‘Sir Duke’, ‘Knocks Me Off My Feet’, ‘I Wish’ amongst others). He has a huge band supporting him onstage and from the back of the hellish O2 it’s frequently difficult to determine precisely who is doing what. Does he really need two other keyboardists in addition to himself? Two percussionists and a drummer?!
Unfortunately, though, I could only leave ‘A Wonder Summer’s Night’ (a bit of a crass and unimaginative name for a tour) with a heavy heart and a feeling that this once great artist no longer has any interest in being original or challenging. The show is so poorly sequenced as to be interminably disengaging for substantial chunks of its epic duration. His opening rendition of Miles Davis’ ‘All Blues’ is unexpected and pleasing – but a little odd for an audience who will not associate the piece with the performer on stage. In fact, Wonder’s still dazzling piano playing demonstrates a consistent jazz influence throughout the show, although it is often refracted through a prism that magnifies the schmaltz at the expense of the substance. The rest of the show suffers from disorientating lurches in pace and style – he’ll play an upbeat funk gem from his golden period and then immediately follow it with a sentimental ballad or an aimless jam.
Even at its best, the music is arranged and performed in a manner that is unsuitably slick. These hard-hitting, technically proficient gospel rhythm sections appear to be de rigeur these days – but as impressive as they are, they are musically one-dimensional (the whole show lacks dynamic or textural variety) and often boring as a result. The appeal of Wonder’s fantastic run of albums from Music of My Mind to Songs In The Key of Life during the 1970s was that there was a certain sloppiness to the sound as well as precision to the rhythm – it’s this tension that provided the invigorating groove and the palpable sense of soul. Both are sadly absent in this concert. There’s a fairly uninspired Latin groove over which Wonder introduces his entire band and lets every musician take a solo – but even this seems to have had any sense of spontaneity surgically removed.
Lamentable inconsistency has been Wonder’s Achilles Heel since 1975 (‘Songs in the Key of Life’ favoured his sentimental side, although he got away with it then through the sheer verve and spirit of that music). As he has become less prolific, his lapses of taste and decency have become all the more startling. Personally, I could have done without the excruciating extended version of ‘Ribbon In The Sky’ (one of many moments when he gets a bit ambitious with his demands in terms of audience participation) and the mid-section of the set that favours ballads with Wonder at the piano could have happily been curtailed. I suspect everyone could have done without the spiel about his mother dying and inspiring him to return to music too, but he has always been a painfully sincere and earnest artist. His request for a minute's silence on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks was handled with more sensitivity and restraint, and I found myself rather angry with the morons who broke it with shouts of 'we love you Stevie!'
Whilst it’s great to see Wonder visibly enjoying his time on stage and treating fans to a generous set, the moments of audience participation and playfulness seem rambling and unfocused. There’s a moment when he sings ‘Hello London’ through a vocoder and you hope it’s going to meld into one of this 70s classics, but it never arrives anywhere at all. Sometimes he just stops completely and tries to engage the audience in call-and-response sessions but at the back of the venue, we’re just too detached from any kind of atmosphere to engage. There are so many moments when people drift to the bar and for once I find myself understanding the motivation to get a drink – I just wish he’d get on with it!
Vocally, Wonder is now a little vulnerable. The upper end of his register is still very strong, but at the lower end he seems to have lost power and volume. Sometimes his voice cracks or he doesn’t quite hit the right note, odd for a musician with such a capable ear. There are some songs (‘Knocks Me Off My Feet’ and ‘Visions’ particularly) where he seems to be struggling with the control of his voice and some of the lines are noticeably wayward as a result.
In spite of all this, the show certainly has its moments. ‘Higher Ground’ is as passionate and invigorating as ever, perhaps given fresh political resonance by Wonder’s passionate support for Barack Obama. Some lesser material from ‘Hotter Than July’ (including an enjoyable ‘Masterblaster’) stands up surprisingly well. ‘Don’t You Worry About A Thing’ and ‘Living For The City’ are also welcome treats, although, in his unwillingness to play the full seven minutes of the latter, the tempo is subjected to a bizarre and inappropriate acceleration. Similarly, whilst it’s good to hear the gorgeous ‘Visions’ amongst the ballads, its new soft rock coda is ill-judged, particularly when one of the guitarists begins shredding gratuitously to no discernible emotional impact.
Like Prince at his shows at the same venue last year, Wonder treats some of his greatest songs with far less respect than they deserve. An invigorating ‘Uptight’ is cut short and merged into a grotesque mass singalong of ‘I Just Called To Say I Love You’. I have never met anyone who has admitted liking the latter song, yet it remains Wonder’s biggest UK hit and gets the biggest ovation of the night. Frankly, who can blame Wonder for all his cheesy indulgences tonight when his paying audience are so undiscerning? It’s great to hear ‘I Wish’ and ‘Isn’t She Lovely?’, but frustrating that they are edited and merged together in a hurried medley. We needed more of this material earlier in the show!
Even tonight, there’s still plenty of evidence that Wonder is a master musician – the better of his ballads are intricate and intelligent, with harmonic complexity rarely found in pop music. His groove based music remains peerless, and even the treatment handed out to it by this mercilessly rehearsed band of session musos can’t really diminish that power. So, the final half hour of the show is at the very least entertaining. Better still, that pure and clear sound he gets from the harmonica remains one of the most beautiful sounds on earth. I would have liked to hear more of it.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Club Uncool
Kurt Wagner, Cate Le Bon, James Blackshaw - The Borderline, London 10th September 2008
Every so often London blesses us with a club night that has been intelligently programmed, with three interesting acts that make sense lined up next to each other. Last night’s Club Uncut was one of those rare and highly enjoyable evenings – and one which came with the added bonus of a very joyous and positive atmosphere.
Proceedings were opened by the prodigious guitarist James Blackshaw, a descendent of the Takoma school of playing strongly influenced by the likes of Robbie Basho and John Fahey. Blackshaw’s compositions are dense and long, drawing every ounce of potential from each and every theme or motif. His playing is technically accomplished and impressively dexterous, but his use of open tunings means his music is characterised most by warmth and intimacy. It’s hard to describe exactly what is so satisfying about his performance – he sits legs crossed and performs without much in the way of personality or charisma. The impact comes exclusively from the hypnotic power of his music. What a shame he couldn’t have been given a little more time.
I know very little about Cate Le Bon other that she is a Welsh associate of Gruff Rhys and is currently performing as part of the Neon Neon project. Her first song tonight seemed a little clunky to me – the chords strummed a fraction too heavily and her voice seeming somewhat mannered. She eased into her performance though, and within a couple of songs communicated a personality and musical vocabulary that seemed distinctive and refreshing. Many of the songs seemed to be about murdered animals, but the assured quality of her delivery transported her songs beyond the realms of whimsy.
Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner began his quite wonderful solo set by bellowing what he described as a ‘hogcall’ from within the audience, eventually completing the job from the stage. He then sat down with his guitar and performed a superb rendition of Bob Dylan’s ‘You’re A Big Girl Now’. It’s rare to hear a Dylan song covered and forget there was ever a Bob Dylan version – but Wagner inhabited and controlled this song so completely that he made it his own.
The rest of his set consisted entirely of material from the new Lambchop album ‘OH(Ohio)’, the result being a revelatory glimpse at how brilliant that album could have been. With the focus now on his soulful, idiosyncratic guitar playing and unusual vocal phrasing, and with the words once again clearly audible, the songs revealed themselves as humane narratives, full of wit and insight. I found myself once again moved and stirred by the imaginative poetry of this compelling everyman.
Wagner himself was a genial figure on stage – revelling in the comic potential of the solo performance, and again demonstrating himself to be one of the most amiable, gentle and modest of songwriters. ‘I’m not here trying to be like Neil Young breaking away from Crosby, Stills and Nash’ he declared, ‘I’m just trying to become a better person – oh, and the rest of the group are busy with the Silver Jews thing too.’
He may however have been working to a strict contract, employing one bemused audience member to watch an egg timer throughout the whole set to ensure he didn’t extend his allotted time. As a result, the performance was frustratingly brief. Some parts of the audience may well have appreciated a smattering from the back catalogue, although that was clearly not the purpose of this show, and Wagner’s refusal to play ‘a song called Up With People’ was understandable.
He ends with a hoary old country standard ‘I Believe in You’ which may be now be responsible for one of the most straightforwardly romantic moments in my life so far. By his own admission, it’s ‘sappy’ and defiantly ‘uncool’, but it’s also sweet-natured and positive and it’s refreshing that Wagner is unafraid to express the value of good old fashioned human compassion.
My feeling now is that by drifting into ever more tasteful and restrained arrangements, Lambchop as a group has probably exhausted its potential. The band will probably not make a clearer, more articulate statement of dignified minimalism than ‘Is A Woman’ and will definitely not make a record as lush and invigorating as ‘Nixon’. On this evidence, the greater mystery and drama now resides in Wagner as a solo singer-songwriter, although he seems far too humble to pursue this path any time soon.
Every so often London blesses us with a club night that has been intelligently programmed, with three interesting acts that make sense lined up next to each other. Last night’s Club Uncut was one of those rare and highly enjoyable evenings – and one which came with the added bonus of a very joyous and positive atmosphere.
Proceedings were opened by the prodigious guitarist James Blackshaw, a descendent of the Takoma school of playing strongly influenced by the likes of Robbie Basho and John Fahey. Blackshaw’s compositions are dense and long, drawing every ounce of potential from each and every theme or motif. His playing is technically accomplished and impressively dexterous, but his use of open tunings means his music is characterised most by warmth and intimacy. It’s hard to describe exactly what is so satisfying about his performance – he sits legs crossed and performs without much in the way of personality or charisma. The impact comes exclusively from the hypnotic power of his music. What a shame he couldn’t have been given a little more time.
I know very little about Cate Le Bon other that she is a Welsh associate of Gruff Rhys and is currently performing as part of the Neon Neon project. Her first song tonight seemed a little clunky to me – the chords strummed a fraction too heavily and her voice seeming somewhat mannered. She eased into her performance though, and within a couple of songs communicated a personality and musical vocabulary that seemed distinctive and refreshing. Many of the songs seemed to be about murdered animals, but the assured quality of her delivery transported her songs beyond the realms of whimsy.
Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner began his quite wonderful solo set by bellowing what he described as a ‘hogcall’ from within the audience, eventually completing the job from the stage. He then sat down with his guitar and performed a superb rendition of Bob Dylan’s ‘You’re A Big Girl Now’. It’s rare to hear a Dylan song covered and forget there was ever a Bob Dylan version – but Wagner inhabited and controlled this song so completely that he made it his own.
The rest of his set consisted entirely of material from the new Lambchop album ‘OH(Ohio)’, the result being a revelatory glimpse at how brilliant that album could have been. With the focus now on his soulful, idiosyncratic guitar playing and unusual vocal phrasing, and with the words once again clearly audible, the songs revealed themselves as humane narratives, full of wit and insight. I found myself once again moved and stirred by the imaginative poetry of this compelling everyman.
Wagner himself was a genial figure on stage – revelling in the comic potential of the solo performance, and again demonstrating himself to be one of the most amiable, gentle and modest of songwriters. ‘I’m not here trying to be like Neil Young breaking away from Crosby, Stills and Nash’ he declared, ‘I’m just trying to become a better person – oh, and the rest of the group are busy with the Silver Jews thing too.’
He may however have been working to a strict contract, employing one bemused audience member to watch an egg timer throughout the whole set to ensure he didn’t extend his allotted time. As a result, the performance was frustratingly brief. Some parts of the audience may well have appreciated a smattering from the back catalogue, although that was clearly not the purpose of this show, and Wagner’s refusal to play ‘a song called Up With People’ was understandable.
He ends with a hoary old country standard ‘I Believe in You’ which may be now be responsible for one of the most straightforwardly romantic moments in my life so far. By his own admission, it’s ‘sappy’ and defiantly ‘uncool’, but it’s also sweet-natured and positive and it’s refreshing that Wagner is unafraid to express the value of good old fashioned human compassion.
My feeling now is that by drifting into ever more tasteful and restrained arrangements, Lambchop as a group has probably exhausted its potential. The band will probably not make a clearer, more articulate statement of dignified minimalism than ‘Is A Woman’ and will definitely not make a record as lush and invigorating as ‘Nixon’. On this evidence, the greater mystery and drama now resides in Wagner as a solo singer-songwriter, although he seems far too humble to pursue this path any time soon.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
A Presidential Election
Calexico - Carried to Dust (City Slang, 2008)
Lambchop - OH(Ohio) (City Slang, 2008)
If I see the words ‘return to form’ used in reference to either of these two albums one more time I think I’m going to throw a hissyfit. John Mulvey at least admits the term is a ‘dread phrase’ in his blog about ‘OH(Ohio)’ on the Uncut website but it’s still a contestable claim that either band ever really lost form. Lambchop albums have perhaps become more slippery and elusive since ‘Is A Woman’, but ‘Damaged’ had a rather creeping, insidious effect on me that I came to admire. As for Calexico, their tentative venture into rockier territory on ‘Garden Ruin’, rightly acclaimed in reviews at the time, has now been condemned as a mis-step in retrospect. Regardless of what one thought of that attempt to diversify, the mini album with Iron and Wine ‘In The Reins’ remains to my mind one of the great unsung masterpieces of the decade so far. Critics are fickle beasts!
‘Carried to Dust’ certainly ought to please those Calexico admirers who would prefer them not to change too much. The mariachi horns return, there are plenty of lush strings and border-evoking brushed drums. Yet to suggest the group have completely abandoned the map they began charting with ‘Garden Ruin’ is a little misleading. There are some dramatic guitar atmospherics on the restless ‘Writer’s Minor Holiday’ particularly and a number of other tracks are not easy to pigeon-hole as border music. The slow building tension of ‘Man Made Lake’, for example, crafted with sustained piano chords and some unrestrained guitar howling, would not have been a feature of the Calexico sound before ‘Garden Ruin’. If Arcade Fire borrowed some of Calexico’s stylings for their majestic ‘Ocean of Noise’ (by some distance the best track on ‘Neon Bible’ for me), Calexico now return the compliment by using a distinctly Arcade Fire-esque backbeat and slow building tension on ‘Two Silver Trees’.
Elsewhere, the sound is more comforting and familiar, the Spanish language collaboration with Amparo Sanchez on ‘Inspiracion’ taking many of Calexico’s preoccupations to their logical conclusion. There’s that deliciously dusty quality to many of the songs, with the lightly rolling rhythms, evoking, it must be admitted, images of horses and wagons, they deploy so effortlessly. One can hardly blame the group for returning to these well worn tropes when they are so adept at executing them. Best of all is when they apply a new and unexpected nuance to these characteristic features. The superb ‘Fractured Air (Tornado Watch)’ benefits from some echo effects on the horns more common to dub reggae than American or Mexican folk music. Together with some syncopated rhythm guitar, it makes for something lithe and funky.
I’ve seen some reviews that suggest the songwriting on this album fails to match the impact of the group’s instrumentals. I have to disagree quite strongly with this, as ‘Carried to Dust’ is certainly Calexico’s most immediate collection so far (if not necessarily their best). Some of their songs are admittedly more about mood than melody (‘Bend to the Road’) but ‘Carried to Dust’ has more than its fair share of stirring creations. ‘Slowness’, featuring the delightful vocals of Canadian Pieta Brown, is particularly glorious, subtle and restrained but also with some kind of gently hymnal quality to the performance. ‘Victor Jara’s Hands’ and ‘News From William’ are the kind of compelling narratives we’ve come to expect from the group. Perhaps least predictable is the hazy, eerie, partially electronic ‘Contention City’, a journey into dreamlike fantasia the band handle remarkably well.
As is often the case with Calexico, there’s quite a lot to absorb within this album’s fifteen tracks (sixteen if you get the iTunes bonus track) but it’s too easy to take this group for granted. They remain musicians who luxuriate in every slight detail – the effect created by a single hit on a cymbal bell, or exploring the interplay between guitars and pianos, a frequent feature of this collection. I suspect this is something a little more than just another good Calexico album.
The extent to which ‘OH (Ohio)’ represents a diversion from Lambchop’s most recent work has arguably been overstated. It’s more skeletal, with the florid string flourishes of ‘Aw, C’Mon/No You C’Mon’ now firmly jettisoned, but 2006’s excellent ‘Damaged’ had already initiated that process. It shares with its predecessor a tendency to divest Kurt Wagner’s idiosyncratic voice of personality, his croaky mumble too often obscuring his strange and original lyrics. His words can as a result fall into the background, carefully enmeshed in what is undoubtedly a very lovely, mostly sedate sound.
For me, Lambchop tracks were always more powerful when they made a triumphant virtue of Wagner’s vocals and lyrics. ‘Nixon’ worked as much because of the extraordinary, piercing attack and surprise of that falsetto, as much as through its lavish arrangements. The best songs on ‘How I Quit Smoking’ (‘Theone’, ‘The Man Who Loved Beer’) saw Wagner embracing melody as well as acute-angled phrasing. Whilst some found the smoky ambience of ‘Is A Woman’ detached and unemotional, I found both lyrical and musical poetry within it, given investment of the necessary time and effort. Whilst there are plenty of moments on ‘OH(Ohio)’ that are tender and pleasant, there is nothing here that really moves me quite as palpably as those highlights from their back catalogue.
Where the band would previously delve into a nimble and funky soul groove, the emphasis on ‘Ohio’ is more on gently plucked guitars, Tony Crow’s piano now providing subtle shading rather than dominating proceedings as it did on ‘Is a Woman’. Typical are the title track, ‘Of Raymond’ and ‘Slipped, Dissolved and Loosed’. The latter is easily the most memorable thing here, its cooing backing vocals almost sounding comic but also providing a smooth counterpoint to Wagner’s staccato bursts. The opening title track is irresistibly cute (with its central refrain of ‘green doesn’t matter when you’re blue’) but, with its Jobim-tinged arrangement, it’s perilously perched on the precipice between tasteful delight and background or lounge music.
Perhaps there are two points of significant departure here – the use of two producers (regular contributor Mark Nevers and Roger Moutenot, who has worked wonders in the past for Yo La Tengo and Sleater Kinney amongst others) and the occasional deployment of uncharacteristically brisk, driving rock backbeats. These tracks, both superbly titled (‘National Talk Like A Pirate Day’ and ‘Sharing a Gibson with Martin Luther King Jr.’), arguably sound incongruous in context, but they at least provide a very welcome distraction from the familiar dignified restraint on offer elsewhere. ‘National Talk Like A Pirate Day’ is superbly arranged, with Byrdsian jangly guitars and a potent counter melody from the bass.
A number of the tracks here seem to be more subtle and stately takes on familiar Lambchop modes. The lovely ‘A Hold Of You’ veers close to the country soul template they perfected on ‘Nixon’ but seems, perhaps rather self-consciously, to make sure the lid stays firmly on. Some of the songs seem to drift or meander rather lazily, sometimes outstaying their welcome a little. Perhaps the clearest example of this here is the lengthy ‘Popeye’, where Wagner’s words are at their most buried, the harmony seems to repeat a familiar Lambchop sequence, and everything just seems to run on without much purpose (at least until it suddenly veers into a loose-limbed funky coda). It all makes for a very appealing late night or early morning listen – mostly relaxed and elegant but never quite completely awake. Perhaps this is the same criticism that many used against ‘Is A Woman’, but I felt the consistent languid mood of that album serviced its unusual and idiosyncratic songs well. Also, Wagner’s vocals, although abandoning the falsetto, remained striking and incisive on that record.
As ever with Lambchop, the track titles are a veritable treasure trove of imagination in themselves and Wagner’s ruminations on the nature and limitations of masculinity remain transfixing and illuminating. Yet there’s an increasing sense that Lambchop albums now require a quite substantial investment of time and effort from their audience. I’m sure the dignified, tasteful songs on this album will continue to grow on me but I can’t quite escape the sense that this is basically just another good Lambchop album and nothing more, nothing less.
Lambchop - OH(Ohio) (City Slang, 2008)
If I see the words ‘return to form’ used in reference to either of these two albums one more time I think I’m going to throw a hissyfit. John Mulvey at least admits the term is a ‘dread phrase’ in his blog about ‘OH(Ohio)’ on the Uncut website but it’s still a contestable claim that either band ever really lost form. Lambchop albums have perhaps become more slippery and elusive since ‘Is A Woman’, but ‘Damaged’ had a rather creeping, insidious effect on me that I came to admire. As for Calexico, their tentative venture into rockier territory on ‘Garden Ruin’, rightly acclaimed in reviews at the time, has now been condemned as a mis-step in retrospect. Regardless of what one thought of that attempt to diversify, the mini album with Iron and Wine ‘In The Reins’ remains to my mind one of the great unsung masterpieces of the decade so far. Critics are fickle beasts!
‘Carried to Dust’ certainly ought to please those Calexico admirers who would prefer them not to change too much. The mariachi horns return, there are plenty of lush strings and border-evoking brushed drums. Yet to suggest the group have completely abandoned the map they began charting with ‘Garden Ruin’ is a little misleading. There are some dramatic guitar atmospherics on the restless ‘Writer’s Minor Holiday’ particularly and a number of other tracks are not easy to pigeon-hole as border music. The slow building tension of ‘Man Made Lake’, for example, crafted with sustained piano chords and some unrestrained guitar howling, would not have been a feature of the Calexico sound before ‘Garden Ruin’. If Arcade Fire borrowed some of Calexico’s stylings for their majestic ‘Ocean of Noise’ (by some distance the best track on ‘Neon Bible’ for me), Calexico now return the compliment by using a distinctly Arcade Fire-esque backbeat and slow building tension on ‘Two Silver Trees’.
Elsewhere, the sound is more comforting and familiar, the Spanish language collaboration with Amparo Sanchez on ‘Inspiracion’ taking many of Calexico’s preoccupations to their logical conclusion. There’s that deliciously dusty quality to many of the songs, with the lightly rolling rhythms, evoking, it must be admitted, images of horses and wagons, they deploy so effortlessly. One can hardly blame the group for returning to these well worn tropes when they are so adept at executing them. Best of all is when they apply a new and unexpected nuance to these characteristic features. The superb ‘Fractured Air (Tornado Watch)’ benefits from some echo effects on the horns more common to dub reggae than American or Mexican folk music. Together with some syncopated rhythm guitar, it makes for something lithe and funky.
I’ve seen some reviews that suggest the songwriting on this album fails to match the impact of the group’s instrumentals. I have to disagree quite strongly with this, as ‘Carried to Dust’ is certainly Calexico’s most immediate collection so far (if not necessarily their best). Some of their songs are admittedly more about mood than melody (‘Bend to the Road’) but ‘Carried to Dust’ has more than its fair share of stirring creations. ‘Slowness’, featuring the delightful vocals of Canadian Pieta Brown, is particularly glorious, subtle and restrained but also with some kind of gently hymnal quality to the performance. ‘Victor Jara’s Hands’ and ‘News From William’ are the kind of compelling narratives we’ve come to expect from the group. Perhaps least predictable is the hazy, eerie, partially electronic ‘Contention City’, a journey into dreamlike fantasia the band handle remarkably well.
As is often the case with Calexico, there’s quite a lot to absorb within this album’s fifteen tracks (sixteen if you get the iTunes bonus track) but it’s too easy to take this group for granted. They remain musicians who luxuriate in every slight detail – the effect created by a single hit on a cymbal bell, or exploring the interplay between guitars and pianos, a frequent feature of this collection. I suspect this is something a little more than just another good Calexico album.
The extent to which ‘OH (Ohio)’ represents a diversion from Lambchop’s most recent work has arguably been overstated. It’s more skeletal, with the florid string flourishes of ‘Aw, C’Mon/No You C’Mon’ now firmly jettisoned, but 2006’s excellent ‘Damaged’ had already initiated that process. It shares with its predecessor a tendency to divest Kurt Wagner’s idiosyncratic voice of personality, his croaky mumble too often obscuring his strange and original lyrics. His words can as a result fall into the background, carefully enmeshed in what is undoubtedly a very lovely, mostly sedate sound.
For me, Lambchop tracks were always more powerful when they made a triumphant virtue of Wagner’s vocals and lyrics. ‘Nixon’ worked as much because of the extraordinary, piercing attack and surprise of that falsetto, as much as through its lavish arrangements. The best songs on ‘How I Quit Smoking’ (‘Theone’, ‘The Man Who Loved Beer’) saw Wagner embracing melody as well as acute-angled phrasing. Whilst some found the smoky ambience of ‘Is A Woman’ detached and unemotional, I found both lyrical and musical poetry within it, given investment of the necessary time and effort. Whilst there are plenty of moments on ‘OH(Ohio)’ that are tender and pleasant, there is nothing here that really moves me quite as palpably as those highlights from their back catalogue.
Where the band would previously delve into a nimble and funky soul groove, the emphasis on ‘Ohio’ is more on gently plucked guitars, Tony Crow’s piano now providing subtle shading rather than dominating proceedings as it did on ‘Is a Woman’. Typical are the title track, ‘Of Raymond’ and ‘Slipped, Dissolved and Loosed’. The latter is easily the most memorable thing here, its cooing backing vocals almost sounding comic but also providing a smooth counterpoint to Wagner’s staccato bursts. The opening title track is irresistibly cute (with its central refrain of ‘green doesn’t matter when you’re blue’) but, with its Jobim-tinged arrangement, it’s perilously perched on the precipice between tasteful delight and background or lounge music.
Perhaps there are two points of significant departure here – the use of two producers (regular contributor Mark Nevers and Roger Moutenot, who has worked wonders in the past for Yo La Tengo and Sleater Kinney amongst others) and the occasional deployment of uncharacteristically brisk, driving rock backbeats. These tracks, both superbly titled (‘National Talk Like A Pirate Day’ and ‘Sharing a Gibson with Martin Luther King Jr.’), arguably sound incongruous in context, but they at least provide a very welcome distraction from the familiar dignified restraint on offer elsewhere. ‘National Talk Like A Pirate Day’ is superbly arranged, with Byrdsian jangly guitars and a potent counter melody from the bass.
A number of the tracks here seem to be more subtle and stately takes on familiar Lambchop modes. The lovely ‘A Hold Of You’ veers close to the country soul template they perfected on ‘Nixon’ but seems, perhaps rather self-consciously, to make sure the lid stays firmly on. Some of the songs seem to drift or meander rather lazily, sometimes outstaying their welcome a little. Perhaps the clearest example of this here is the lengthy ‘Popeye’, where Wagner’s words are at their most buried, the harmony seems to repeat a familiar Lambchop sequence, and everything just seems to run on without much purpose (at least until it suddenly veers into a loose-limbed funky coda). It all makes for a very appealing late night or early morning listen – mostly relaxed and elegant but never quite completely awake. Perhaps this is the same criticism that many used against ‘Is A Woman’, but I felt the consistent languid mood of that album serviced its unusual and idiosyncratic songs well. Also, Wagner’s vocals, although abandoning the falsetto, remained striking and incisive on that record.
As ever with Lambchop, the track titles are a veritable treasure trove of imagination in themselves and Wagner’s ruminations on the nature and limitations of masculinity remain transfixing and illuminating. Yet there’s an increasing sense that Lambchop albums now require a quite substantial investment of time and effort from their audience. I’m sure the dignified, tasteful songs on this album will continue to grow on me but I can’t quite escape the sense that this is basically just another good Lambchop album and nothing more, nothing less.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
'We Are R.E.M. and This Is What We Do'
R.E.M., Twickenham Stadium, 30th August 2008
When REM announced that the UK leg of their tour to promote ‘Accelerate’ would feature stadiums, I felt the group’s management and promoters were being a touch ambitious. No number of silly ‘return to form’ reviews is going to turn around the band’s commercial decline overnight, particularly given that ‘Accelerate’ is hardly a return to the southern gothic folk sound that characterised the band’s years of multi-platinum sales. With the Cardiff show downgraded to an Arena and the entire top tier of Twickenham’s seating completely empty, this feeling proved to be correct.
Still, it’s hard to envisage how this superb show would have worked in a smaller venue. Having reinvented themselves some time ago as a touring act par excellence, the group have really pushed the boat out with this tour. I’ve seen REM some six times since 1995 and this really was by some distance the best performance I’ve seen them give – muscular, charismatic and, ingeniously, providing mass entertainment whilst being firmly uncompromising. Every aspect of the show’s design – including visuals and lighting – had been carefully prepared and orchestrated to enhance the atmosphere.
The sheer brilliance of their set merely heightened the torture of watching support act Editors. Dismissing them as a poor man’s Interpol really is too kind to this wretched band. Their four to the floor beat (constantly pushed ahead of the actual pulse by an aggressive and unsubtle drummer) is relentless rather than insistent (it pounds rather than grooves), the music is arranged with little or no imagination (simply adding some echo effects to the guitars does not make them innovative) and overall the group simply take themselves far too seriously. The earnestness is intolerable, and the whole experience is like being treated as a punch-bag. It left me with a severe headache. Their popularity really is hard to fathom.
This is the fiery, politicised REM that Michael Stipe promised during the pre-release campaign for ‘Around The Sun’. When that album proved to be subdued and mostly soporific, it unsurprisingly provoked a reaction that was somewhat nonplussed. Today, REM are dedicating a storming ‘Man Sized Wreath’ to the memory of Martin Luther King, calling for a sea-change to ‘get the Bush administration the fuck out of office and the Obama administration the fuck into office’, before launching into a visceral, vitriolic ‘Ignoreland’ and admitting ‘we’re kinda political’.
The verbal exhortations are more than matched by the righteous fury of the music, which has been amplified and toughened up. The tracks from ‘Accelerate’ work much better in a live context, sounding genuinely thrilling when stripped of Jacknife Lee’s irritating production techniques. The back-to-basics sound also leads them into unexpected and fruitful corners of their back catalogue, with thunderous versions of ‘Disturbance at the Heron House’ and ‘Exhuming McCarthy’ (the latter interspersed with soundclips from the McCarthy hearings) being particular highlights.
Luckily, there’s also a good deal of charm and humour to the show, with the comic book graphics emphasising the band’s occasional tendency towards goofiness (ending songs with words like ‘wow!’ and ‘yeah!’. Quite brilliantly, Stipe dedicates ‘Walk Unafraid’ to a particular group of people – “we call them redheads, I think you call them ‘ginge’ – but they’re the most beautiful people in the world”. He then asks the crowd to raise their hands if they have a special ginger in their lives and a surprisingly large number of hands go up. Finally, there’s a brilliant moment when someone puts MORE on the camera lens in Scrabble tiles before the encore.
The set-list is an extremely effective and careful selection that spans their entire career. It’s a shame that there’s nothing from ‘Reckoning’ or ‘Fables of the Reconstruction’ this time, but few people could really mourn the absence of any material from ‘Around the Sun’. Clearly the memory of that album has now been excised. Every other album is covered though – most unpredictably ‘Murmur’ is represented with a lovely rendition of the ballad ‘Perfect Circle’, with Mike Mills at the piano.
The opening triple salvo of ‘Living Well is the Best Revenge’, a slower but more mercurial ‘These Days’ and a strident version of ‘The Wake Up Bomb’ makes for a remarkably confident start. Sometimes bands take a while to hit their stride, but REM leap straight in on this occasion, and the intensity never really lets up. Ken Stringfellow is oddly absent from this tour (perhaps he’s busy with Big Star, but that can hardly be as much of a moneyspinner) and the band compensate for the occasional absence of keyboard shadings by beefing up the guitar assault. For ‘The One I Love’,
As usual, Michael Stipe commands the stage with his deranged dancing, limbs and hands flailing – but it’s also notable that his voice seems in considerably better shape on this tour, less gravely than in previous years. This is particularly welcome on the moments of levity – ‘I’ve Been High’ (a more straightforward, less mesmeric version than on ‘Reveal’ but delivered with real tenderness by Stipe) and ‘Let Me In’, performed in a group circle in a new acoustic arrangement. Stipe’s reading of it, enhancing the melody, is majestic.
The generous half-hour encore not only features the aforementioned ‘Perfect Circle’ but also a haunting, very powerful performance of ‘Country Feedback’, which remains a firm favourite both with fans and the group themselves. The regulars are also saved for the end – ‘Losing My Religion’, ‘It’s The End Of The World (As We Know It)’ and ‘Man On The Moon’ round off proceedings. It still seems staggeringly inappropriate that Stipe does a meet and greet with the crowd during a mass singalong of ‘Losing My Religion’, surely one of the most emotionally articulate and painful songs ever to have become an uplifting stadium anthem, but his generosity with the audience helps reduce the distance between band and audience that can sometimes be a major obstacle with huge shows like this.
So, scrub out what I said in my lukewarm review of ‘Accelerate’. These days, it hardly seems important what REM commit to disc in the studio. It’s extraordinary that 28 years into their existence, they continue to get better and better as a live proposition, still filled with vigour, enthusiasm, a desire to communicate and a sense of fun. That, frankly, is enough of a purpose, and their continued existence remains absolutely vital.
When REM announced that the UK leg of their tour to promote ‘Accelerate’ would feature stadiums, I felt the group’s management and promoters were being a touch ambitious. No number of silly ‘return to form’ reviews is going to turn around the band’s commercial decline overnight, particularly given that ‘Accelerate’ is hardly a return to the southern gothic folk sound that characterised the band’s years of multi-platinum sales. With the Cardiff show downgraded to an Arena and the entire top tier of Twickenham’s seating completely empty, this feeling proved to be correct.
Still, it’s hard to envisage how this superb show would have worked in a smaller venue. Having reinvented themselves some time ago as a touring act par excellence, the group have really pushed the boat out with this tour. I’ve seen REM some six times since 1995 and this really was by some distance the best performance I’ve seen them give – muscular, charismatic and, ingeniously, providing mass entertainment whilst being firmly uncompromising. Every aspect of the show’s design – including visuals and lighting – had been carefully prepared and orchestrated to enhance the atmosphere.
The sheer brilliance of their set merely heightened the torture of watching support act Editors. Dismissing them as a poor man’s Interpol really is too kind to this wretched band. Their four to the floor beat (constantly pushed ahead of the actual pulse by an aggressive and unsubtle drummer) is relentless rather than insistent (it pounds rather than grooves), the music is arranged with little or no imagination (simply adding some echo effects to the guitars does not make them innovative) and overall the group simply take themselves far too seriously. The earnestness is intolerable, and the whole experience is like being treated as a punch-bag. It left me with a severe headache. Their popularity really is hard to fathom.
This is the fiery, politicised REM that Michael Stipe promised during the pre-release campaign for ‘Around The Sun’. When that album proved to be subdued and mostly soporific, it unsurprisingly provoked a reaction that was somewhat nonplussed. Today, REM are dedicating a storming ‘Man Sized Wreath’ to the memory of Martin Luther King, calling for a sea-change to ‘get the Bush administration the fuck out of office and the Obama administration the fuck into office’, before launching into a visceral, vitriolic ‘Ignoreland’ and admitting ‘we’re kinda political’.
The verbal exhortations are more than matched by the righteous fury of the music, which has been amplified and toughened up. The tracks from ‘Accelerate’ work much better in a live context, sounding genuinely thrilling when stripped of Jacknife Lee’s irritating production techniques. The back-to-basics sound also leads them into unexpected and fruitful corners of their back catalogue, with thunderous versions of ‘Disturbance at the Heron House’ and ‘Exhuming McCarthy’ (the latter interspersed with soundclips from the McCarthy hearings) being particular highlights.
Luckily, there’s also a good deal of charm and humour to the show, with the comic book graphics emphasising the band’s occasional tendency towards goofiness (ending songs with words like ‘wow!’ and ‘yeah!’. Quite brilliantly, Stipe dedicates ‘Walk Unafraid’ to a particular group of people – “we call them redheads, I think you call them ‘ginge’ – but they’re the most beautiful people in the world”. He then asks the crowd to raise their hands if they have a special ginger in their lives and a surprisingly large number of hands go up. Finally, there’s a brilliant moment when someone puts MORE on the camera lens in Scrabble tiles before the encore.
The set-list is an extremely effective and careful selection that spans their entire career. It’s a shame that there’s nothing from ‘Reckoning’ or ‘Fables of the Reconstruction’ this time, but few people could really mourn the absence of any material from ‘Around the Sun’. Clearly the memory of that album has now been excised. Every other album is covered though – most unpredictably ‘Murmur’ is represented with a lovely rendition of the ballad ‘Perfect Circle’, with Mike Mills at the piano.
The opening triple salvo of ‘Living Well is the Best Revenge’, a slower but more mercurial ‘These Days’ and a strident version of ‘The Wake Up Bomb’ makes for a remarkably confident start. Sometimes bands take a while to hit their stride, but REM leap straight in on this occasion, and the intensity never really lets up. Ken Stringfellow is oddly absent from this tour (perhaps he’s busy with Big Star, but that can hardly be as much of a moneyspinner) and the band compensate for the occasional absence of keyboard shadings by beefing up the guitar assault. For ‘The One I Love’,
As usual, Michael Stipe commands the stage with his deranged dancing, limbs and hands flailing – but it’s also notable that his voice seems in considerably better shape on this tour, less gravely than in previous years. This is particularly welcome on the moments of levity – ‘I’ve Been High’ (a more straightforward, less mesmeric version than on ‘Reveal’ but delivered with real tenderness by Stipe) and ‘Let Me In’, performed in a group circle in a new acoustic arrangement. Stipe’s reading of it, enhancing the melody, is majestic.
The generous half-hour encore not only features the aforementioned ‘Perfect Circle’ but also a haunting, very powerful performance of ‘Country Feedback’, which remains a firm favourite both with fans and the group themselves. The regulars are also saved for the end – ‘Losing My Religion’, ‘It’s The End Of The World (As We Know It)’ and ‘Man On The Moon’ round off proceedings. It still seems staggeringly inappropriate that Stipe does a meet and greet with the crowd during a mass singalong of ‘Losing My Religion’, surely one of the most emotionally articulate and painful songs ever to have become an uplifting stadium anthem, but his generosity with the audience helps reduce the distance between band and audience that can sometimes be a major obstacle with huge shows like this.
So, scrub out what I said in my lukewarm review of ‘Accelerate’. These days, it hardly seems important what REM commit to disc in the studio. It’s extraordinary that 28 years into their existence, they continue to get better and better as a live proposition, still filled with vigour, enthusiasm, a desire to communicate and a sense of fun. That, frankly, is enough of a purpose, and their continued existence remains absolutely vital.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)