School of Language – Sea From Shore
The Week That Was – The Week That Was (Memphis Industries, 2008)
It would be tremendously gratifying if this intriguing new business model from Peter and David Brewis, the lead creative brains behind Field Music, were to be as fruitful and influential as what has become known as ‘doing a Radiohead’. Despite praise from critics and bloggers, the Brewis brothers recognised that Field Music had failed to become an economical proposition and put the band on extended hiatus shortly after the release of the outstanding ‘Tones of Town’ album last year. I initially had the group unfairly cast as a poor man’s Futureheads, whereas they were actually a much more inventive and maverick proposition than that – their songs crisp and melodic but full of unexpected twists and turns.
Now the brothers have worked on separate projects, both conceptually and musically self-contained whilst sharing some common character traits. Whilst the (possibly temporary) demise of Field Music is something to mourn, like a Phoenix rising from the ashes we now have two examples of that increasingly rare beast – imaginative and enjoyable British indie-rock. By refocusing on writing and studio recording as opposed to fruitless touring, the Brewis brothers are playing to their considerable strengths.
Released this week to a surprisingly appreciative fanfare, Peter Brewis’ contribution to the new Field Music Productions banner as The Week That Was is clearly benefiting from the lion share of the press attention. I was certainly pleasantly surprised by the featured album of the month review in the current edition of Mojo, which should at least give the album’s sales a small boost. What a shame it has emerged too late for the Mercury Music Prize shortlist.
It would seem a pity that in finally coming to these projects a little late in the day, the music press condemn the other contribution, David Brewis’ School of Language, to relative obscurity. Released back in early February, but something I’ve delayed digesting properly until recently, it’s one of 2008’s unassuming treasures (and one that was probably never on the radar of anyone judging this year’s Mercury, much to the shortlist’s detriment).
Brewis largely recorded the album solo, playing a bewildering array of instruments to an impressive degree of proficiency. There are numerous appealing melodies peppered throughout this record, which more than demonstrate Brewis’ pop sensibility, but his wilfully subversive streak usually seems to win out. There’s a skittering, tetchy, nervy and unsettled feeling to many of these tracks – but Brewis manages to turn his short attention span into a virtue.
This is mainly because the album, whilst concise, is meticulously structured and composed. The four parts of the splendid ‘Rockist’ suite, with its consistent underpinning vocal sample and clattering percussion, serve as supportive bookends for the generally more abstract music found across the rest of the album. In between, there are signs of more pastoral leanings on ‘Marine Life’ and ‘Ships’, and an intelligent discipline on ‘Keep Your Water’ which stays subtle and restrained for four minutes until some deranged guitar improvising finally breaks through.
The almost ludicrous arrangements of ‘Disappointment 99’ and ‘This Is No Fun’ are, like much of Field Music’s best work, strongly reminiscent of the quirky drama of XTC, although the latter has interruptions of something more lavish and grand – perhaps Soft Bulletin-era Flaming Lips. It’s clear that Brewis is an acute and clever musician, brimming with ideas and rapidly developing the means by which to express them.
Download Peter Brewis’ contribution as The Week That Was from iTunes, and the bonus track reveals a remarkable similarity in conception and construction to that of his brother. The extra track, The Week That Was Overture, essentially takes small segments from the album’s tracks and rearranges them, with remarkable ease, into a complete whole. There are sounds and thematic preoccupations to which Brewis returns throughout the work, which give it something of a crafted, composed and arranged quality.
It has a slightly different personality from the School of Language album though, the emphasis here being on 80s production techniques, big drums and spiky string arrangements. An obvious reference point is that big Fairfisa/Fairlight Peter Gabriel 3 sound, although my girlfriend also astutely spotted hints of Simple Minds’ big hits (in fact, the intro of ‘Scratch the Surface’ more than closely resembles ‘Don’t You Forget About Me’). It would be unfair to categorise this simply as an 80s throwback though. The percussive textures of ‘It’s All Gone Quiet’ give yet another example of the pervading influence of Reichian minimalism on pop music, whilst the longer tracks clustered around the album’s centre are more languid and dreamy.
Brewis brings a distinctive energy, restlessness and craftsmanship to this finely tuned patchwork. It’s particularly interesting to hear string parts deployed more for their staccato rhythmic effect than for swooning emotional manipulation. Indeed, if it’s possible to find a reason to criticise both Brewis’ work, it’s that there are occasions when they sound a little coldly rational. Fortunately, there are enough infectious tunes on both albums to compensate for this tendency. ‘Scratch The Surface’ and ‘Good Life’ on The Week That Was are especially irresistible.
‘The Week That Was’ is ostensibly a concept album about the media and its insidious role in society. This is hardly a new theme and perhaps also a little clunky, but given the recurring themes of the music (this is much more a song cycle than collection of isolated songs), it makes sense that there is an ideological preoccupation gluing it all together.
What’s so impressive about the Brewis Brothers is the way that a single expression of a good idea is never enough for them. They always seem to be striving to develop every motif and technique and build from them consistent threads that make their work coherent in spite of its inherent quirkiness and unpredictability. I actually think that, of these two records, the School of Language one is marginally more interesting, but the greater immediacy of The Week That Was may make it the more commercially viable. There’s a real ambition and creative mania at work here that separates the Brewises from their contemporaries, most of whom seem to be merely treading water.
Although the Brewises are quite stubborn in emphasising the virtues of studio recordings over live performances, both projects have now been taken into the live arena and next week’s Barfly gig (August 28th) featuring both groups on the same bill promises to be something special.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Almost Normal
David Byrne and Brian Eno – Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (Download Only from http://www.everythingthathappens.com 2008)
A new collaboration between David Byrne and Brian Eno, the first since the groundbreaking ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’ in 1981, ought to be a significant event in the 2008 musical calendar. Perhaps following the Radiohead model, or maybe playing their own version of the modern music marketing game, Byrne and Eno have released this new album via their own website, a matter of a couple of weeks after announcing its completion. The publicity machine is now trying to catch up. I still see this as a massively positive development in the industry – so many bands languish in artistic frustration and boredom when compelled to fall in line with ‘record company schedules’, and then end up touring an album some three years after they actually completed the material. The only problem is that it’s only established, internationally renowned artists who have the financial and creative freedom to do this – the conventional music industry is hardly going to disappear tomorrow.
Those expecting something subversive and challenging in the manner of ‘…Bush of Ghosts’ will come away from this album disappointed. In its least effective moments, it actually sounds dated where ‘…Ghosts’ still sounds remarkably radical. It’s very much a song-based album, whereby Eno sent musical sketches to Byrne, who penned lyrics and melodies and developed them into songs. Eno’s music is decidedly conservative, in spite of the use of electronics. There is no unusual harmony and no alien, unfamiliar sounds. Beneath the burbling, gurgling and occasionally clunky drum programming, there’s actually rather a lot of very conventional guitar playing. One begins to appreciate how comfortable Eno must have been working with the likes of Coldplay, U2 and James.
This doesn’t mean that it’s a record bereft of value or virtue though. Songcraft remains an artform as much as it is a format, and sometimes the combination of Eno’s comforting sounds and Byrne’s lyrical and melodic sensibility does indeed produce something artful. Eno has spoken articulately about the influence of gospel music on this material, not so much as a means of praise and devotion, but as a ‘music of surrender’. On the quietly moving title track and the stirring ‘The River’, it’s easy to hear this appealing theory whirring into action. Eno’s textures, if no longer original, are at least characteristically mesmerising. Even better, the concluding ‘The Lighthouse’, easily the most mysterious and enchanting track of this set, is compelling without ever loudly voicing its intent. Byrne’s intriguing words add a sense of awe and wonder to Eno’s shimmering sounds. It’s a song in which one can slowly, almost imperceptibly drown.
Sometimes it seems as if the gospel foundation leads the pair into rather uncomfortable cliché. Another hymnal song called ‘One Fine Day’ hardly adds anything new to the popular music canon (Elbow have traversed very similar ground already this year with their terrace anthem ‘One Day Like This’). ‘Home’ and ‘My Big Nurse’ begin the album on a strangely underwhelming manner, both tracks sounding safe and secure, but lacking any real sense of adventure. Perhaps that’s necessary, at least in the first example, to underline the themes, but it’s unusual to hear Byrne sounding so unengaging.
The tracks with the most immediate impact are those where Byrne’s recurring preoccupations cut through. It’s easy to see why the lithe funk of ‘Strange Overtones’ was selected as a taster – it’s infectious and immediate without being saccharine. More inventive is the outstanding ‘Poor Boy’ which, with its series of chants, is the only moment here where Byrne’s interest in music from around the globe really becomes transparent. For all the talk of gospel, Eno’s preoccupations seem resolutely stuck within a western pop tradition for much of this set. Even the weird and wonderful ‘I Feel My Stuff’, a little more unpredictable and adventurous, is closer to Radiohead or the REM of ‘Up’ than anything Byrne might release through Luaka Bop.
Perhaps this method of detached collaboration, which worked so fruitfully for Jimmy Tamborello and Ben Gibbard as The Postal Service (with all due respect, two lesser creative talents), has not worked quite so consistently for Byrne and Eno. ‘Everything That Happens…’ is intermittently fascinating, but never quite as imaginative as expectation might dictate. Those who have already heaped knee-jerk praise on it are arguably indulging Eno’s middle-aged comfort zone. He’s not really pushing himself compositionally here – there’s not much experimentation with either form or content.
Byrne, by way of contrast, is continuing to push himself vocally, stretching his range, tone and quality of sound. He is getting the most out of that quirky vulnerability that people either love or loathe and really using his voice as an instrument. He elevates every track here, sometimes to the extent that Eno’s wispy blandness is superseded by something much more arresting. On this evidence his next solo step, freed from these constrictions, ought to be worth some investment.
A new collaboration between David Byrne and Brian Eno, the first since the groundbreaking ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’ in 1981, ought to be a significant event in the 2008 musical calendar. Perhaps following the Radiohead model, or maybe playing their own version of the modern music marketing game, Byrne and Eno have released this new album via their own website, a matter of a couple of weeks after announcing its completion. The publicity machine is now trying to catch up. I still see this as a massively positive development in the industry – so many bands languish in artistic frustration and boredom when compelled to fall in line with ‘record company schedules’, and then end up touring an album some three years after they actually completed the material. The only problem is that it’s only established, internationally renowned artists who have the financial and creative freedom to do this – the conventional music industry is hardly going to disappear tomorrow.
Those expecting something subversive and challenging in the manner of ‘…Bush of Ghosts’ will come away from this album disappointed. In its least effective moments, it actually sounds dated where ‘…Ghosts’ still sounds remarkably radical. It’s very much a song-based album, whereby Eno sent musical sketches to Byrne, who penned lyrics and melodies and developed them into songs. Eno’s music is decidedly conservative, in spite of the use of electronics. There is no unusual harmony and no alien, unfamiliar sounds. Beneath the burbling, gurgling and occasionally clunky drum programming, there’s actually rather a lot of very conventional guitar playing. One begins to appreciate how comfortable Eno must have been working with the likes of Coldplay, U2 and James.
This doesn’t mean that it’s a record bereft of value or virtue though. Songcraft remains an artform as much as it is a format, and sometimes the combination of Eno’s comforting sounds and Byrne’s lyrical and melodic sensibility does indeed produce something artful. Eno has spoken articulately about the influence of gospel music on this material, not so much as a means of praise and devotion, but as a ‘music of surrender’. On the quietly moving title track and the stirring ‘The River’, it’s easy to hear this appealing theory whirring into action. Eno’s textures, if no longer original, are at least characteristically mesmerising. Even better, the concluding ‘The Lighthouse’, easily the most mysterious and enchanting track of this set, is compelling without ever loudly voicing its intent. Byrne’s intriguing words add a sense of awe and wonder to Eno’s shimmering sounds. It’s a song in which one can slowly, almost imperceptibly drown.
Sometimes it seems as if the gospel foundation leads the pair into rather uncomfortable cliché. Another hymnal song called ‘One Fine Day’ hardly adds anything new to the popular music canon (Elbow have traversed very similar ground already this year with their terrace anthem ‘One Day Like This’). ‘Home’ and ‘My Big Nurse’ begin the album on a strangely underwhelming manner, both tracks sounding safe and secure, but lacking any real sense of adventure. Perhaps that’s necessary, at least in the first example, to underline the themes, but it’s unusual to hear Byrne sounding so unengaging.
The tracks with the most immediate impact are those where Byrne’s recurring preoccupations cut through. It’s easy to see why the lithe funk of ‘Strange Overtones’ was selected as a taster – it’s infectious and immediate without being saccharine. More inventive is the outstanding ‘Poor Boy’ which, with its series of chants, is the only moment here where Byrne’s interest in music from around the globe really becomes transparent. For all the talk of gospel, Eno’s preoccupations seem resolutely stuck within a western pop tradition for much of this set. Even the weird and wonderful ‘I Feel My Stuff’, a little more unpredictable and adventurous, is closer to Radiohead or the REM of ‘Up’ than anything Byrne might release through Luaka Bop.
Perhaps this method of detached collaboration, which worked so fruitfully for Jimmy Tamborello and Ben Gibbard as The Postal Service (with all due respect, two lesser creative talents), has not worked quite so consistently for Byrne and Eno. ‘Everything That Happens…’ is intermittently fascinating, but never quite as imaginative as expectation might dictate. Those who have already heaped knee-jerk praise on it are arguably indulging Eno’s middle-aged comfort zone. He’s not really pushing himself compositionally here – there’s not much experimentation with either form or content.
Byrne, by way of contrast, is continuing to push himself vocally, stretching his range, tone and quality of sound. He is getting the most out of that quirky vulnerability that people either love or loathe and really using his voice as an instrument. He elevates every track here, sometimes to the extent that Eno’s wispy blandness is superseded by something much more arresting. On this evidence his next solo step, freed from these constrictions, ought to be worth some investment.
Friday, August 15, 2008
An Impressive Cast
Okkervil River - The Stand-Ins (Jagjaguwar, 2008)
Sometimes I associate particular bands or specific albums with times and places. Okkervil River, about whom I’ve enthused rapturously here several times, are inexorably linked with my visit to Toronto, where I purchased their outstanding ‘Black Sheep Boy’ album on a whim (mostly because I adore the Tim Hardin song that inspired it). That album, with its literary brand of songwriting, made virtues out of melodrama and excess, in a way that the more photogenic and well-promoted Conor Oberst clearly aspires to but, for me at least, never quite achieves. ‘The Stand-Ins’, with its frequent allusions to band life and being on tour, is clearly an album intended to be divorced from specific locations, if not from memories.
Last year’s ‘The Stage Names’ again demonstrated Will Sheff’s presentation of songs as miniature novels – squeezing in a wealth of intelligent musings, quirky images and elaborate character portraits. Musically, it was a different beast though – at times veering into a more upbeat and exuberant stomp. ‘The Stand-Ins’ is a collection of songs recorded at the same time but then shelved when it was decided a double album would be too great an indulgence. It’s clearly very much a companion piece, revisiting some of the characters and themes first introduced in ‘The Stage Names’, particularly the acting/movie concept, seafaring imagery and emphasis on songs about being in a band (Sheff shares a lot of songwriting qualities and characteristics with Craig Finn of The Hold Steady). 'Starry Stairs' even continues the story of 'Savannah Smiles' from the previous album.
The initial reaction on the blogosphere seems to be one of mild disappointment, at least when ‘The Stand Ins’ is judged by the band’s so far consistently high standards. On the surface, it’s easy to see the reasons for this. At 40 minutes, including three instrumental interludes, it’s surprisingly concise and there’s little doubt that the group have moved towards something more musically accessible. The Motown stomp that informed a couple of tracks on ‘The Stage Names’ is in full flight here, and ‘Starry Staired’ even flirts with Memphis soul horns.
I’m not underwhelmed by this articulate, moving and intelligently designed record though. If Sheff’s linguistic intricacies can find a wider audience, I’m all in favour of a greater reliance on standard melodies and immediate hooks. His lyrics here are frequently wonderful, often capturing something melancholy or poignant with free-flowing ease. ‘On Tour With Zykos’ movingly details the emotions of a lover left-behind as the touring band move on.
Closer to home perhaps, ‘Lost Coastlines’, on which Sheff duets with the now- departed Jonathan Meiburg, is particularly affecting. The two deploy shipping metaphors to express the inherent difficulties in keeping a band together. Meiburg’s smooth but charismatic baritone makes for some restrained relief from Sheff’s emoting. The final lines sum up life in a band succinctly and perceptively: ‘Every night finds us rocking and rolling on waves wild and wide, and if we’ve lost our way, well no-one’s gonna say it outright.’ When strings and horns enter in the song’s final section, it seems to elevate the song to something vivid and dramatic, but which also emphasises the song’s mournful core.
Sometimes the lyrics are so cutting and insightful that they jar with the jauntiness of the music. The contrast is surprisingly effective on ‘Calling and Not Calling My Ex’, where Sheff ruminates eloquently on resuming contact with an ex from three years ago who has progressed to celebrity status (‘you look the same on TV as when you were mine’). The music veers between a familiar chiming theme and moments of reflective calm.
It’s a song full of hypothetical conjectures, resentment and devastating regret – the sort of intense but futile emotions that are very common human failings. He imagines the girl’s sudden return: ‘…it’s a mixture of dumb jealousy and fear/that I might feel should she appear…as if it hasn’t been three years’. The song is made even more touching because it keeps one rational eye on a more uneventful, mundane reality (life is ‘slightly, disappointingly, just gliding by’). It ends with an inevitable resignation: ‘I remember every instance that you stung me, oh you’re so lovely, you’re so smart/ So go turn their heads, go knock ‘em dead, go break their hearts/And I know you will’. For all his self-absorbtion and self-pity, it’s hard not to sympathise with Sheff’s character’s pain, so artful is his expression of it.
Perhaps most powerful of all is the epic closing track, with its rather unmanageable title: ‘Bruce Wayne Campbell Interviewed on the Roof of the Chelsea Hotel, 1979’. Cambell was apparently a gay glam rock artist, whose star shone only briefly, eventually reduced to singing cabaret at parties as Cole Berlin. Suffering from AIDS, he committed suicide in 1983. The song has Campbell weakened, drinking on his own and ‘sick of singing the same songs’. The song’s conclusion would be absurdly grandiose in any other hands, with Campbell being lifted into space (presumably reflecting his thematic preoccupation with aliens).
Elsewhere, Sheff’s concerns are less weighty. ‘Singer Songwriter’ is the kind of snarling character assassination of which the young Bob Dylan could be proud (indeed, there’s more than a hint of ‘Positively 4th Street’ in the song’s nursery rhyme melody and insistent rhythm). ‘I saw your big sis on the year’s best book list/and your brother he manages bands’ Sheff rasps dismissively, before sneering ‘you’ve got wealth, you’ve got wealth/ What a bitch, they didn’t give you much else!’. The song surprises at its end by turning inward – with its cry of ‘your world isn’t gonna change nothing’ subtly becoming ‘our world isn’t gonna change nothing’, as if Sheff is condemning himself alongside his target. This self-reverential irony crops up again on ‘Pop Lie’, a song cynically sniping at songs with choruses designed to get people to sing along. The song itself of course has something approaching a singalong chorus, and a relentless energy that suggests unshakeable conviction.
Sometimes it’s the sheer combination of words Sheff uses that is most imaginative, from the ‘cuts from the Kinks’ on ‘Singer Songwriter’ to this wonderfully florid passage from ‘Lost Coastlines’: ‘Is that marionette real enough yet to step off that set and decide what a dance might mean to it’. Then there’s the conflicting emotions of ‘On Tour With Zykos’, with Sheff convincing in female character – ‘how come I shout goodbye when I just want to make this white lie big enough to climb inside with you’. It gets even better ‘I’m in disgust with desire from the guys who conspire at the only decent bar in town/and they wish they had me like I wish I had fire, what a sad way to be…’ It’s all observed with piercing clarity, but also with disarming tenderness and sensitivity.
Sheff has discovered ways and means of hitting all the right buttons with his arrangements, particularly with swelling strings and horns, that mean his ambitions are no longer forced or overwraught. He always uses the additional instruments to animate the sentiments and feelings of his songs. Listen to the way the organ subtly shadows the piano during ‘On Tour With Zykos’, before dramatically taking the lead as the song takes flight and then itself giving way to the strings.
There will some who will dislike the glimmer of light that fights against the melodramatic darkness the group communicated circa ‘Black Sheep Boy’. They may also dislike the fact that Sheff’s linguistic imagination has been fitted neatly into a crisper, more coherent musical template. But these songs are so much more than mere Motown pastiches – they are as much alive with America’s literary tradition as with its rich pop music heritage. His cast of recurring characters is as reminiscent of Raymond Carver as Bruce Springsteen.
This has been a long review, but Sheff writes songs that can be listened to repeatedly, with language that wraps itself around you and absorbs you completely. They cannot easily be summarised and paraphrased. Something new will emerge from his words and music with every play. This is a glorious record that, for all its emphasis on character and disguise, is very much filled with real life and real feeling. It shines a rare spotlight on those left behind or cruelly ignored, and even undercuts the self-aggrandising image of those putting on the whole show.
Sometimes I associate particular bands or specific albums with times and places. Okkervil River, about whom I’ve enthused rapturously here several times, are inexorably linked with my visit to Toronto, where I purchased their outstanding ‘Black Sheep Boy’ album on a whim (mostly because I adore the Tim Hardin song that inspired it). That album, with its literary brand of songwriting, made virtues out of melodrama and excess, in a way that the more photogenic and well-promoted Conor Oberst clearly aspires to but, for me at least, never quite achieves. ‘The Stand-Ins’, with its frequent allusions to band life and being on tour, is clearly an album intended to be divorced from specific locations, if not from memories.
Last year’s ‘The Stage Names’ again demonstrated Will Sheff’s presentation of songs as miniature novels – squeezing in a wealth of intelligent musings, quirky images and elaborate character portraits. Musically, it was a different beast though – at times veering into a more upbeat and exuberant stomp. ‘The Stand-Ins’ is a collection of songs recorded at the same time but then shelved when it was decided a double album would be too great an indulgence. It’s clearly very much a companion piece, revisiting some of the characters and themes first introduced in ‘The Stage Names’, particularly the acting/movie concept, seafaring imagery and emphasis on songs about being in a band (Sheff shares a lot of songwriting qualities and characteristics with Craig Finn of The Hold Steady). 'Starry Stairs' even continues the story of 'Savannah Smiles' from the previous album.
The initial reaction on the blogosphere seems to be one of mild disappointment, at least when ‘The Stand Ins’ is judged by the band’s so far consistently high standards. On the surface, it’s easy to see the reasons for this. At 40 minutes, including three instrumental interludes, it’s surprisingly concise and there’s little doubt that the group have moved towards something more musically accessible. The Motown stomp that informed a couple of tracks on ‘The Stage Names’ is in full flight here, and ‘Starry Staired’ even flirts with Memphis soul horns.
I’m not underwhelmed by this articulate, moving and intelligently designed record though. If Sheff’s linguistic intricacies can find a wider audience, I’m all in favour of a greater reliance on standard melodies and immediate hooks. His lyrics here are frequently wonderful, often capturing something melancholy or poignant with free-flowing ease. ‘On Tour With Zykos’ movingly details the emotions of a lover left-behind as the touring band move on.
Closer to home perhaps, ‘Lost Coastlines’, on which Sheff duets with the now- departed Jonathan Meiburg, is particularly affecting. The two deploy shipping metaphors to express the inherent difficulties in keeping a band together. Meiburg’s smooth but charismatic baritone makes for some restrained relief from Sheff’s emoting. The final lines sum up life in a band succinctly and perceptively: ‘Every night finds us rocking and rolling on waves wild and wide, and if we’ve lost our way, well no-one’s gonna say it outright.’ When strings and horns enter in the song’s final section, it seems to elevate the song to something vivid and dramatic, but which also emphasises the song’s mournful core.
Sometimes the lyrics are so cutting and insightful that they jar with the jauntiness of the music. The contrast is surprisingly effective on ‘Calling and Not Calling My Ex’, where Sheff ruminates eloquently on resuming contact with an ex from three years ago who has progressed to celebrity status (‘you look the same on TV as when you were mine’). The music veers between a familiar chiming theme and moments of reflective calm.
It’s a song full of hypothetical conjectures, resentment and devastating regret – the sort of intense but futile emotions that are very common human failings. He imagines the girl’s sudden return: ‘…it’s a mixture of dumb jealousy and fear/that I might feel should she appear…as if it hasn’t been three years’. The song is made even more touching because it keeps one rational eye on a more uneventful, mundane reality (life is ‘slightly, disappointingly, just gliding by’). It ends with an inevitable resignation: ‘I remember every instance that you stung me, oh you’re so lovely, you’re so smart/ So go turn their heads, go knock ‘em dead, go break their hearts/And I know you will’. For all his self-absorbtion and self-pity, it’s hard not to sympathise with Sheff’s character’s pain, so artful is his expression of it.
Perhaps most powerful of all is the epic closing track, with its rather unmanageable title: ‘Bruce Wayne Campbell Interviewed on the Roof of the Chelsea Hotel, 1979’. Cambell was apparently a gay glam rock artist, whose star shone only briefly, eventually reduced to singing cabaret at parties as Cole Berlin. Suffering from AIDS, he committed suicide in 1983. The song has Campbell weakened, drinking on his own and ‘sick of singing the same songs’. The song’s conclusion would be absurdly grandiose in any other hands, with Campbell being lifted into space (presumably reflecting his thematic preoccupation with aliens).
Elsewhere, Sheff’s concerns are less weighty. ‘Singer Songwriter’ is the kind of snarling character assassination of which the young Bob Dylan could be proud (indeed, there’s more than a hint of ‘Positively 4th Street’ in the song’s nursery rhyme melody and insistent rhythm). ‘I saw your big sis on the year’s best book list/and your brother he manages bands’ Sheff rasps dismissively, before sneering ‘you’ve got wealth, you’ve got wealth/ What a bitch, they didn’t give you much else!’. The song surprises at its end by turning inward – with its cry of ‘your world isn’t gonna change nothing’ subtly becoming ‘our world isn’t gonna change nothing’, as if Sheff is condemning himself alongside his target. This self-reverential irony crops up again on ‘Pop Lie’, a song cynically sniping at songs with choruses designed to get people to sing along. The song itself of course has something approaching a singalong chorus, and a relentless energy that suggests unshakeable conviction.
Sometimes it’s the sheer combination of words Sheff uses that is most imaginative, from the ‘cuts from the Kinks’ on ‘Singer Songwriter’ to this wonderfully florid passage from ‘Lost Coastlines’: ‘Is that marionette real enough yet to step off that set and decide what a dance might mean to it’. Then there’s the conflicting emotions of ‘On Tour With Zykos’, with Sheff convincing in female character – ‘how come I shout goodbye when I just want to make this white lie big enough to climb inside with you’. It gets even better ‘I’m in disgust with desire from the guys who conspire at the only decent bar in town/and they wish they had me like I wish I had fire, what a sad way to be…’ It’s all observed with piercing clarity, but also with disarming tenderness and sensitivity.
Sheff has discovered ways and means of hitting all the right buttons with his arrangements, particularly with swelling strings and horns, that mean his ambitions are no longer forced or overwraught. He always uses the additional instruments to animate the sentiments and feelings of his songs. Listen to the way the organ subtly shadows the piano during ‘On Tour With Zykos’, before dramatically taking the lead as the song takes flight and then itself giving way to the strings.
There will some who will dislike the glimmer of light that fights against the melodramatic darkness the group communicated circa ‘Black Sheep Boy’. They may also dislike the fact that Sheff’s linguistic imagination has been fitted neatly into a crisper, more coherent musical template. But these songs are so much more than mere Motown pastiches – they are as much alive with America’s literary tradition as with its rich pop music heritage. His cast of recurring characters is as reminiscent of Raymond Carver as Bruce Springsteen.
This has been a long review, but Sheff writes songs that can be listened to repeatedly, with language that wraps itself around you and absorbs you completely. They cannot easily be summarised and paraphrased. Something new will emerge from his words and music with every play. This is a glorious record that, for all its emphasis on character and disguise, is very much filled with real life and real feeling. It shines a rare spotlight on those left behind or cruelly ignored, and even undercuts the self-aggrandising image of those putting on the whole show.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Death and All His Friends
Noah and The Whale - Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down (Mercury, 2008)
‘Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down’ is not exactly the kind of enthusiastic, life-affirming title you might expect from a debut album by a group barely into their twenties. Noah and the Whale’s songwriter Charlie Fink is clearly a little more precocious than Tim Wheeler or Gaz Coomes were in the mid-90s. The chirpy optimism of songs along the lines of ‘Alright’ or ‘Girl From Mars’ clearly don’t chime with him.
The twee bubblegum folk of their top ten single ‘5 Years’ Time’ is therefore more than a little misleading of what can be found here. Fink’s biggest themes would appear to be death and a rather self-conscious flight from whatever real love might be. Sometimes his words are eloquent, sometimes they feel forced – as if he’s grasping too hard at profundity. He might be leaving himself very exposed to accusations of cynicism with lyrics like ‘if there’s any love in me don’t let it show’ – but he can be forgiven the occasional lapse into adolescent pretence (especially, as he later asks, in all sincerity ‘when will your hand find itself in mine?’).
Whilst it might risk becoming an albatross around their necks, one can hardly resent the band from leaping to pop status on the back of ‘5 Years Time’. Odd, though, that they have very suddenly eclipsed all their associates in what is increasingly being dubbed as a London arm of the ‘anti-folk’ scene (the group began as backing band for Emmy The Great). The genre classification may in fact be less than helpful. I’m not quite sure what the indie-tronica of Jeremy Warmsley has to do with the ramshackle irreverence of Jeffrey Lewis, for example. Indeed, the reliance on basic strumming patterns as much as plucked ukuleles suggests the folk tag is a little too slippery for NaTW too. Although fiddle player Tom Hobden has clearly absorbed a great deal of the tradition, there are times when the band seems more Belle and Sebastian than Richard Thompson.
The first two-thirds of this album are, in spite of Fink’s preoccupations, mostly concise and breezy pop songs. They are at their best when they make features of Hobden’s incisive fiddle, or of Doug Fink’s unorthodox but sympathetic drumming (at its most brittle and sensitive, his playing assumes as crucial a role as any other instrument here). Even better, the songs are occasionally elevated by further brass embellishments, which emphasise the inherent joy beneath Fink’s self-absorbtion. ‘Shape of My Heart’ and ‘Give a Little Love’ are especially charming.
However, the true extent of what this band might eventually achieve only really emerges during the album’s finishing straight. The title track places Charlie’s slightly mannered voice in its most sympathetic context, and at last his desire to escape the circus of relationships and conveyor belts seems genuine, in spite of some rather unsightly rhymes (‘abrasions/ ‘quotations’ etc). When the song eventually bursts open with Hobden’s delightful violin theme, it achieves something simple but stirring.
On ‘Mary’, Fink allows himself to be a little more elusive and ambiguous and the results are affecting even if it’s not easy to pin down precisely why. The lyric ‘When I last saw Mary she lied and said it was her birthday’ has stuck with me since I first saw the group live, and I’m glad it’s made it on to the album. This song and the title track also seem to have a greater emphasis on development and progression – themes and ideas are expanded and the structures are a good deal less formulaic.
Those expecting an entire album of cute fluffiness may well have switched off by this point, but they’d be missing the burgeoning of a real songwriting talent. The funereal resignation of ‘Hold My Hand as I’m Lowered’ perhaps gives the more accurate sense of Fink’s laudable ambitions, its sombre brass band coda somehow both world-weary and elevating.
There’s a sense that the Noah and the Whale of this album are not yet the finished article (and let’s not forget that this is exactly how a debut album should present a band – with somewhere left to go!). If Charlie Fink can shed some of his po-faced exterior (I remember feeling he spent too long staring at his shoes in live performance), he is clearly capable of writing clear, haunting and mature songs. If this supposed London-centred ‘scene’ is let down by one unifying factor, it would appear to be a tendency towards narcissism. Luckily, Fink already has the able support of a band unique (at least among British chart acts) in their willingness to provide unusual, unexpected arrangements that linger satisfyingly in the mind.
‘Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down’ is not exactly the kind of enthusiastic, life-affirming title you might expect from a debut album by a group barely into their twenties. Noah and the Whale’s songwriter Charlie Fink is clearly a little more precocious than Tim Wheeler or Gaz Coomes were in the mid-90s. The chirpy optimism of songs along the lines of ‘Alright’ or ‘Girl From Mars’ clearly don’t chime with him.
The twee bubblegum folk of their top ten single ‘5 Years’ Time’ is therefore more than a little misleading of what can be found here. Fink’s biggest themes would appear to be death and a rather self-conscious flight from whatever real love might be. Sometimes his words are eloquent, sometimes they feel forced – as if he’s grasping too hard at profundity. He might be leaving himself very exposed to accusations of cynicism with lyrics like ‘if there’s any love in me don’t let it show’ – but he can be forgiven the occasional lapse into adolescent pretence (especially, as he later asks, in all sincerity ‘when will your hand find itself in mine?’).
Whilst it might risk becoming an albatross around their necks, one can hardly resent the band from leaping to pop status on the back of ‘5 Years Time’. Odd, though, that they have very suddenly eclipsed all their associates in what is increasingly being dubbed as a London arm of the ‘anti-folk’ scene (the group began as backing band for Emmy The Great). The genre classification may in fact be less than helpful. I’m not quite sure what the indie-tronica of Jeremy Warmsley has to do with the ramshackle irreverence of Jeffrey Lewis, for example. Indeed, the reliance on basic strumming patterns as much as plucked ukuleles suggests the folk tag is a little too slippery for NaTW too. Although fiddle player Tom Hobden has clearly absorbed a great deal of the tradition, there are times when the band seems more Belle and Sebastian than Richard Thompson.
The first two-thirds of this album are, in spite of Fink’s preoccupations, mostly concise and breezy pop songs. They are at their best when they make features of Hobden’s incisive fiddle, or of Doug Fink’s unorthodox but sympathetic drumming (at its most brittle and sensitive, his playing assumes as crucial a role as any other instrument here). Even better, the songs are occasionally elevated by further brass embellishments, which emphasise the inherent joy beneath Fink’s self-absorbtion. ‘Shape of My Heart’ and ‘Give a Little Love’ are especially charming.
However, the true extent of what this band might eventually achieve only really emerges during the album’s finishing straight. The title track places Charlie’s slightly mannered voice in its most sympathetic context, and at last his desire to escape the circus of relationships and conveyor belts seems genuine, in spite of some rather unsightly rhymes (‘abrasions/ ‘quotations’ etc). When the song eventually bursts open with Hobden’s delightful violin theme, it achieves something simple but stirring.
On ‘Mary’, Fink allows himself to be a little more elusive and ambiguous and the results are affecting even if it’s not easy to pin down precisely why. The lyric ‘When I last saw Mary she lied and said it was her birthday’ has stuck with me since I first saw the group live, and I’m glad it’s made it on to the album. This song and the title track also seem to have a greater emphasis on development and progression – themes and ideas are expanded and the structures are a good deal less formulaic.
Those expecting an entire album of cute fluffiness may well have switched off by this point, but they’d be missing the burgeoning of a real songwriting talent. The funereal resignation of ‘Hold My Hand as I’m Lowered’ perhaps gives the more accurate sense of Fink’s laudable ambitions, its sombre brass band coda somehow both world-weary and elevating.
There’s a sense that the Noah and the Whale of this album are not yet the finished article (and let’s not forget that this is exactly how a debut album should present a band – with somewhere left to go!). If Charlie Fink can shed some of his po-faced exterior (I remember feeling he spent too long staring at his shoes in live performance), he is clearly capable of writing clear, haunting and mature songs. If this supposed London-centred ‘scene’ is let down by one unifying factor, it would appear to be a tendency towards narcissism. Luckily, Fink already has the able support of a band unique (at least among British chart acts) in their willingness to provide unusual, unexpected arrangements that linger satisfyingly in the mind.
Isaac Hayes 1942 – 2008
Had Isaac Hayes’ career extended only as far as being a session musician and songwriter for the Stax/Volt/Atlantic labels (with writing partner David Porter he composed Sam and Dave’s most memorable hits, including ‘Hold On I’m Coming!’ and ‘Soul Man’), he would still merit a pretty substantial footnote in soul music history. Yet his achievements as a solo performer arguably elevated him to the pantheon of greats.
His 1969 debut album ‘Hot Buttered Soul’ reinvented him as a magnificent arranger and interpreter and included brilliant, interpolated versions of Burt Bacharach’s ‘Walk On By’ and Jimmy Webb’s ‘By The Time I Get To Phoenix’. Both tracks were unashamedly vivid and grandiose, memorable as much for Hayes’ improvised half-rapping as for their flourishes of strings and stylised guitar lines. This lavish approach would greatly influence the later Stax sound that, whilst dooming the label to financial collapse in the short term, has more recently been reappraised for its inventiveness and musical character (particularly see Tony Hester’s arrangements and production for The Dramatics, heavily indebted to Hayes).
Some might have felt he developed the style beyond its logical conclusion with the bloated ‘Black Moses’, but there was actually more genuine emotion there than self-aggrandising. If it was a feat of artistic indulgence, it still stands comfortably with Marvin Gaye’s ‘Here My Dear’ and Stevie Wonder’s ‘Songs in the Key of Life’ as an indulgence worth tolerating.
Along with Curtis Mayfield and Bobby Womack, Hayes bolstered his career with a major soundtrack (‘Shaft’). Whilst the blaxploitation movies have recently been re-examined with fresh favour as cultural landmarks, there’s still little argument against the contention that Hayes’ instantly identifiable wah-wah theme has outlived the film.
Like many before and after him, Hayes overspent in the immediate aftermath of his fame and filed for bankruptcy in the mid-70s. Unlike others, he recovered from this with dignity and artistic credibility intact, continuing to write and perform throughout the 80s and 90s. An album as recent as ‘Branded’ could claim to be a worthy part of his musical legacy.
He may now be remembered as fondly for his good-humoured role as Chef in the controversial but popular animated series South Park, its somewhat unsubtle ‘Chocolate Salty Balls’ single providing him with a late re-appearance in the pop charts. It’s undoubtedly a shame that Hayes could tolerate and even encourage the series’ lambasting of cultural and social targets save only for his hallowed Church of Scientology. The programme’s attack on the religion/cult clearly proved a step too far for Hayes and provoked his resignation from the show. Whilst this doesn’t exactly tarnish his image, it sadly leaves many of us wondering how such a talent could be quite so irrational.
Hayes had been married four times and leaves a pretty impressive tally of twelve children. He obviously lived life with a somewhat reckless intensity. Still, at just 65, he may well have had another grand statement left to offer, although he had apparently already suffered a stroke in 2006.
His 1969 debut album ‘Hot Buttered Soul’ reinvented him as a magnificent arranger and interpreter and included brilliant, interpolated versions of Burt Bacharach’s ‘Walk On By’ and Jimmy Webb’s ‘By The Time I Get To Phoenix’. Both tracks were unashamedly vivid and grandiose, memorable as much for Hayes’ improvised half-rapping as for their flourishes of strings and stylised guitar lines. This lavish approach would greatly influence the later Stax sound that, whilst dooming the label to financial collapse in the short term, has more recently been reappraised for its inventiveness and musical character (particularly see Tony Hester’s arrangements and production for The Dramatics, heavily indebted to Hayes).
Some might have felt he developed the style beyond its logical conclusion with the bloated ‘Black Moses’, but there was actually more genuine emotion there than self-aggrandising. If it was a feat of artistic indulgence, it still stands comfortably with Marvin Gaye’s ‘Here My Dear’ and Stevie Wonder’s ‘Songs in the Key of Life’ as an indulgence worth tolerating.
Along with Curtis Mayfield and Bobby Womack, Hayes bolstered his career with a major soundtrack (‘Shaft’). Whilst the blaxploitation movies have recently been re-examined with fresh favour as cultural landmarks, there’s still little argument against the contention that Hayes’ instantly identifiable wah-wah theme has outlived the film.
Like many before and after him, Hayes overspent in the immediate aftermath of his fame and filed for bankruptcy in the mid-70s. Unlike others, he recovered from this with dignity and artistic credibility intact, continuing to write and perform throughout the 80s and 90s. An album as recent as ‘Branded’ could claim to be a worthy part of his musical legacy.
He may now be remembered as fondly for his good-humoured role as Chef in the controversial but popular animated series South Park, its somewhat unsubtle ‘Chocolate Salty Balls’ single providing him with a late re-appearance in the pop charts. It’s undoubtedly a shame that Hayes could tolerate and even encourage the series’ lambasting of cultural and social targets save only for his hallowed Church of Scientology. The programme’s attack on the religion/cult clearly proved a step too far for Hayes and provoked his resignation from the show. Whilst this doesn’t exactly tarnish his image, it sadly leaves many of us wondering how such a talent could be quite so irrational.
Hayes had been married four times and leaves a pretty impressive tally of twelve children. He obviously lived life with a somewhat reckless intensity. Still, at just 65, he may well have had another grand statement left to offer, although he had apparently already suffered a stroke in 2006.
Friday, August 08, 2008
Every Actor Wants To Sing
She & Him – Volume One (Double Six/Domino, 2008)
This seems to be one of those years for film stars venturing into song. Were it not for David Sitek’s characteristically inventive production, I doubt anyone would really have given Scarlett Johansson’s album of Tom Waits covers any credit at all. Her flat, double-tracked vocalising certainly didn’t rise to the considerable challenge posed by her choice of material.
This collaboration between the lovely Zooey Deschanel and songwriter/multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire M Ward is a good deal more straightforward and unpretentious than Johansson’s peculiar venture. In fact, it’s really rather lovely – a sometimes melancholy, sometimes joyful set of spare and simple songs evoking classic country, dusty soul and, best of all, early 60s girl-pop (particularly on the irresistible ‘I Was Made For You’ and ‘This is Not A Test’).
Deschanel’s voice is unlikely to set anyone’s world on fire, but she sings confidently within her limitations. Most of these songs are originals, and they are both touching and convincing. Perhaps Deschanel and Ward’s affiliation with the sounds and techniques of 60s pop occasionally push the music into pastiche – but it is always handled with sensitivity and affection.
Some have criticised her handling of pop standards as the weakest moments here – and the Hawaii Pineapple treatment of The Beatles’ ‘I Should Have Known Better’ is probably the album’s lowpoint. Perhaps the performance of Smokey Robinson’s ‘You Really Got A Hold On Me’ is similarly hokey, but there’s something about the vocal interjections of M Ward (the only time his voice appears on the album) that seem to make this version strangely affecting.
Ward’s arrangements are appropriately naturalistic and delicate with minimal embellishment. As a result, there’s a slightly rustic and pastoral feel to this material – perhaps redolent of those wonderful auburn New England autumns. It’s surprisingly easy to relate to Deschanel’s homespun words which are deliberately unflighty (‘I sometimes find what’s beautiful in things that are ephemeral’). It’s a warm and immediate record with a great deal of charm. The title offers some vague hope that there might be more than one ‘volume’ whilst Deschanel has suggested that she views this venture as much more than a one-off side project. Good for her, and for us!
This seems to be one of those years for film stars venturing into song. Were it not for David Sitek’s characteristically inventive production, I doubt anyone would really have given Scarlett Johansson’s album of Tom Waits covers any credit at all. Her flat, double-tracked vocalising certainly didn’t rise to the considerable challenge posed by her choice of material.
This collaboration between the lovely Zooey Deschanel and songwriter/multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire M Ward is a good deal more straightforward and unpretentious than Johansson’s peculiar venture. In fact, it’s really rather lovely – a sometimes melancholy, sometimes joyful set of spare and simple songs evoking classic country, dusty soul and, best of all, early 60s girl-pop (particularly on the irresistible ‘I Was Made For You’ and ‘This is Not A Test’).
Deschanel’s voice is unlikely to set anyone’s world on fire, but she sings confidently within her limitations. Most of these songs are originals, and they are both touching and convincing. Perhaps Deschanel and Ward’s affiliation with the sounds and techniques of 60s pop occasionally push the music into pastiche – but it is always handled with sensitivity and affection.
Some have criticised her handling of pop standards as the weakest moments here – and the Hawaii Pineapple treatment of The Beatles’ ‘I Should Have Known Better’ is probably the album’s lowpoint. Perhaps the performance of Smokey Robinson’s ‘You Really Got A Hold On Me’ is similarly hokey, but there’s something about the vocal interjections of M Ward (the only time his voice appears on the album) that seem to make this version strangely affecting.
Ward’s arrangements are appropriately naturalistic and delicate with minimal embellishment. As a result, there’s a slightly rustic and pastoral feel to this material – perhaps redolent of those wonderful auburn New England autumns. It’s surprisingly easy to relate to Deschanel’s homespun words which are deliberately unflighty (‘I sometimes find what’s beautiful in things that are ephemeral’). It’s a warm and immediate record with a great deal of charm. The title offers some vague hope that there might be more than one ‘volume’ whilst Deschanel has suggested that she views this venture as much more than a one-off side project. Good for her, and for us!
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Cinematic Fraudulence
Some Thoughts On Carlos Reygadas
Somewhere on these pages, I apparently once dubbed innovative Dogme film-maker Lars Von Trier a ‘ludicrous charlatan’ for his laughable and grotesque pretentions in films such as ‘Breaking the Waves’ and ‘The Idiots’. Watching Mexican director Carlos Reygadas’ absurdly over-praised third feature ‘Silent Light’ on DVD last weekend, I was once again reminded of those inadvertently hilarious words. Reygadas must surely be the most generously indulged of contemporary film-makers. Alternately hailed as either an ‘enfant terrible’ or as Mexican cinema’s brightest new talent, Reygadas’ combination of fatuous provocation and pseudo-intellectual meandering actually distinguishes him more as a gigantic fraud than either of these things.
Watching ‘Silent Light’ set me pondering why I immediately like some serious, high-minded and slow-paced films, but am very wary of other films of a similar stylistic nature. Films do not need to have action, plot or a driving narrative for me to connect with them. They also do not need to be judgmental or adopt clear moral stances. I am a self-confessed evangelist for the works of directors as ponderous and ambiguous as Wong Kar Wai (I can think of no more beautiful film in the last twenty years than ‘In The Mood For Love’, slow and bereft of direct action though it is), Bela Tarr (whose ‘Satantango’ is, at more than seven hours, the longest film in my collection) and Tsai Ming-Liang (most notable for his almost complete renunciation of dialogue). Yet I am instinctively wary of languid pacing or technical superiority simply for the sake of it (the best examples of this I can highlight are Alexander Sokurov’s ‘Russian Ark’, Zhang Yimou’s bizarrely lifeless ‘Hero’, David Gordon Green’s ‘George Washington’, an all-too slavish homage to Terence Mallick, and, of course, Carlos Reygadas’ ‘Japon’). The most successful directors developed signature styles that are in service to their broader themes and ideas. Carlos Reygadas seems to use an established cinematic lexicon simply to shout his credentials as some kind of newcomer to the pantheon of great masters.
I’m not quite sure why I felt compelled to give Reygadas a second chance (his debut feature ‘Japon’ is among the worst films I have ever endured in a cinema). Some very favourable reviews of ‘Silent Light’ (particularly a glowing testament from Jonathan Romney in Sight and Sound) encouraged me to give it a try. At the most basic level, the film’s theme of infidelity in a Mennonite community, using real Mennonites rather than actors in the cast, at least appeared to be promising.
Indeed, for at least its first hour, ‘Silent Light’ succeeds in spite of its ponderous pacing. Much comment has already been made about its impressive opening sequence – a single six minute time lapse shot of a sunrise, but such impressive control of the camerawork continues throughout the film. The technique also extends to the intelligent staging of the domestic scenes as much as to the familiar long tracking shots obligatory to any work of contemporary ‘art’ cinema.
Best of all is the film’s extraordinary sound design – without a musical soundtrack, most of the work needed to create its atmosphere comes from the sound itself, which is vivid and intensely loud. The heavy sound of footsteps through long grass, the noisy whirring of farming equipment, the overpowering noise of wind and rain – all capture not just a community and its way of life, but how the physical intensity of human feeling paradoxically both echoes and exceeds the buzz and intensity of everyday life. It also shows the extent to which ritual pervades every aspect of this community’s existence.
Whilst the non-professionals in the film are often blank and deceptively emotionless in conversation, Reygadas creates powerful impact in the scenes where devastating feeling is allowed to break through (the first scene of Johan crying at the family table, the later, considerably more heavy-handed scene where his wife Esther breaks down in heavy rain). Reygadas makes an assured decision to start the film somewhere in the middle of Johan’s story, after his affair has already begun. We are spared any superfluous backstory, or any understanding of how his treacherous attraction began.
More interesting than this, though, is the very non-judgmental way in which Reygadas treats the theme of infidelity. Johan is troubled by his actions and painfully honest with both his wife and father about the affair. One might have expected Johan to be quickly condemned and ostracised by his community, but all listen carefully to his admission of succumbing to temptation. Reygadas is surprisingly confident in both his emphasis on human compassion in the first half of this film.
He even considers that Johan’s family commitment might have been a terrible mistake, and that Marianne might in fact be the woman with whom he feels the greater connection.
The film is considerably more tasteful than the outlandish, provocative and silly ‘Battle in Heaven’, and although her part is inevitably underwritten, Marianne is portrayed sensitively, alive to the feelings of Johan’s troubled wife as well as her own confused mindset. The film is alive to the overwhelming power of physical attraction, even at a time when life’s plan seems to have been entirely determined and when to submit to it might mean the loss of all security.
Yet, even in its stronger moments – the unpleasant whiff of artifice that surrounded ‘Japon’ still lingers. Reygadas continues to develop an interest in religion and spirituality, but only explores this opaquely. It’s vaguely implied that Johan's temptation might be the work of the devil – yet the film’s religiously observant characters also seem to accept (perhaps refreshingly) that these things happen to human beings as a matter of course (his father also confesses to an adulterous desire). It’s also suggested that whatever happens is pre-determined anyway, and all of Johan’s agonising is therefore entirely futile. Such fatalism rather undermines all of Reygadas’ quasi poetic ruminations. The point in setting this familiar everyday story in a religious community seems lost if some of the theological complications are never adequately explored.
In addition to these undeveloped ideas, ‘Silent Light’, like ‘Japon’ before it, is demonstrably indebted to the work of great masters. I’m not an expert on the works of Carl Theodor Dreyer, but Reygadas’ film apparently bears strong similarities with ‘Ordet’. The directorial signature that I most noticed here though was that of the great Ingmar Bergman, particularly in the austere close-ups of faces and carefully framed domestic scenes. Yet the film lacks Bergman’s mastery of tension and claustrophobia, and its confused and fundamentally objectionable conclusion removes any claim the film can make to saying anything profound about either religion or infidelity. Where ‘Silent Light’ echoes Bergman and Dreyer, ‘Japon’ desperately aspired to the languid mastery and spiritual profundity of Andrei Tarkovsky, but fell short of his pioneering and unique language in the most embarrassing of ways.
‘Silent Light’ ends up a good deal more like ‘Japon’ than most commentators have noted (it has been described as a more audacious and mature work, but by its conclusion I’m not convinced that it is). Both films are undermined by unfathomably precious and intellectually flimsy conceits, and burdened by a self-appointed transcendent artistic purpose.
‘Japon’ can be summed up very succinctly, given that it is a film of very little substance. A disillusioned middle-aged man ends up in a small community in the Mexican wilderness – he walks around a lot, paints a bit, and masturbates fervently, apparently trying to rid himself of some unexplained grief or burden. He meets and befriends an old woman, with whom he has unnecessarily candid sex towards the end of the film. The woman then subsequently dies in an accident, the supposedly ‘spiritual’ implication being that she has transferred her life to the man through the act of sexual union. Oh yes, and her name is Ascension.
What an offensive and arrogant proposition this is (the sacrificed female body regenerates an uncritically heroic man) – and one for which Reygadas has never been held properly to account. He has claimed that Japon has no delusions of grandeur, but is merely a ‘simple story of how we help one another in life’. If it’s really that simple, then it’s remarkably trite. If it aspires to something more profound, it presents us with a gratuitously simplistic sexual psychology linking the libido with an urge for death. It also privileges male life above female, whilst pretending to imbue the female contribution with the greater intellectual significance.
Reygadas certainly duped The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw, a usually dependable critic, into finding the film’s sex painful, emotional and convincing rather than indulgent and gratuitous. Over at the filmfreak.com website, Travis Mackenzie Hoover even argues that the film’s sexual dimension keeps it ‘out of the transcendent’ (no it doesn’t – in revisiting the age-old conception of the profane act having sacred meaning, transcendence is precisely what Reygadas is aspiring to) and that there is humour in the film's overall austerity (I can’t detect this – unless you count the unsubtly inserted scenes of horses copulating or the masturbation sequence as funny). Yet Reygadas provides no adequate explanation as to why this woman would consent to transforming a plucky friendship into a sexual relationship. There’s no reason why either of these characters would have been attracted to each other and there’s not even a hint that their coupling is mutually satisfying. It’s not even presented as transgressive, which in itself might even have been more interesting, however cliched. What is even worse is that there is no sense that the indulgent male character, who remains a complete enigma throughout, deserves the considerable sacrifice and indignity this woman affords him. It simply happens, for reasons that Reygadas stubbornly refuses to reveal to us.
‘Silent Light’ ends with a similarly forced and unconvincing miracle. Esther’s breakdown and death in pouring rain might be a pompous scene (Reygadas delayed production on the film for over three weeks waiting for a suitable Biblical downpour in which to shoot) but it at least had some convincing emotional resonance. Having tried with extraordinary resilience to be understanding, Esther finally collapses on hearing that Johan has seen Marianne one last time. The subsequent lengthy funeral scenes provide insight into Mennonite customs and death rituals, and would have made for an effective end to a flawed but ultimately intelligent film.
Yet Reygadas is obviously not a man who could ever exercise this kind of restraint, however necessary. The very notion of Marianne resurrecting Esther through kissing her corpse is completely absurd. What life has Marianne within her that she can return to Esther? Why is she imbued with the strength that Esther lacks and what sacrifice is she making here – is it all in the knowledge that her relationship with Johan must end in order to restore Esther’s vitality? Or is it of some wider spiritual significance? Either way, why is Esther reduced to the status of a mere passive participant when she is arguably the most injured party?
I’m by no means objecting more generally to the use of religious or spiritual themes in any form of art. In fact, the ideas of personal religion experience and miracle remain of great interest to me. Yet these are notions that Reygadas has simply attached to his films in their closing moments, as if they somehow explain or justify any self-conscious ambiguities in the preceding two hours. There is the sense that his pacing is deliberately leaden – which, along with his audacious borrowings, admonish his audience into thinking his concepts are weighty and of profound insight. Yet his films say so very little about life, death, grief, faith, repentance or sacrifice, in spite of their lofty ambitions.
Reygadas has absorbed the technical skill and some of the style of his influences without their intellectual rigour, sound editorial judgment or emotional clarity. The predictability of his ideas eventually even undermine the impact of his undoubted technical flair. It seemed grimly inevitable that ‘Silent Light’ wound end with a second time lapse shot, this time of the sun setting once again. These films are the worst recent examples of arthouse style over substance, and the acclaim gifted to them is an affront to intelligent cinema audiences – many of whom could be forgiven for being deterred from seeking out more adventurous examples of great world cinema after enduring such pious nonsense. If Reygadas is grasping to create some kind of iconography, these are modern day cinematic icons that I’d be happy to smash.
Somewhere on these pages, I apparently once dubbed innovative Dogme film-maker Lars Von Trier a ‘ludicrous charlatan’ for his laughable and grotesque pretentions in films such as ‘Breaking the Waves’ and ‘The Idiots’. Watching Mexican director Carlos Reygadas’ absurdly over-praised third feature ‘Silent Light’ on DVD last weekend, I was once again reminded of those inadvertently hilarious words. Reygadas must surely be the most generously indulged of contemporary film-makers. Alternately hailed as either an ‘enfant terrible’ or as Mexican cinema’s brightest new talent, Reygadas’ combination of fatuous provocation and pseudo-intellectual meandering actually distinguishes him more as a gigantic fraud than either of these things.
Watching ‘Silent Light’ set me pondering why I immediately like some serious, high-minded and slow-paced films, but am very wary of other films of a similar stylistic nature. Films do not need to have action, plot or a driving narrative for me to connect with them. They also do not need to be judgmental or adopt clear moral stances. I am a self-confessed evangelist for the works of directors as ponderous and ambiguous as Wong Kar Wai (I can think of no more beautiful film in the last twenty years than ‘In The Mood For Love’, slow and bereft of direct action though it is), Bela Tarr (whose ‘Satantango’ is, at more than seven hours, the longest film in my collection) and Tsai Ming-Liang (most notable for his almost complete renunciation of dialogue). Yet I am instinctively wary of languid pacing or technical superiority simply for the sake of it (the best examples of this I can highlight are Alexander Sokurov’s ‘Russian Ark’, Zhang Yimou’s bizarrely lifeless ‘Hero’, David Gordon Green’s ‘George Washington’, an all-too slavish homage to Terence Mallick, and, of course, Carlos Reygadas’ ‘Japon’). The most successful directors developed signature styles that are in service to their broader themes and ideas. Carlos Reygadas seems to use an established cinematic lexicon simply to shout his credentials as some kind of newcomer to the pantheon of great masters.
I’m not quite sure why I felt compelled to give Reygadas a second chance (his debut feature ‘Japon’ is among the worst films I have ever endured in a cinema). Some very favourable reviews of ‘Silent Light’ (particularly a glowing testament from Jonathan Romney in Sight and Sound) encouraged me to give it a try. At the most basic level, the film’s theme of infidelity in a Mennonite community, using real Mennonites rather than actors in the cast, at least appeared to be promising.
Indeed, for at least its first hour, ‘Silent Light’ succeeds in spite of its ponderous pacing. Much comment has already been made about its impressive opening sequence – a single six minute time lapse shot of a sunrise, but such impressive control of the camerawork continues throughout the film. The technique also extends to the intelligent staging of the domestic scenes as much as to the familiar long tracking shots obligatory to any work of contemporary ‘art’ cinema.
Best of all is the film’s extraordinary sound design – without a musical soundtrack, most of the work needed to create its atmosphere comes from the sound itself, which is vivid and intensely loud. The heavy sound of footsteps through long grass, the noisy whirring of farming equipment, the overpowering noise of wind and rain – all capture not just a community and its way of life, but how the physical intensity of human feeling paradoxically both echoes and exceeds the buzz and intensity of everyday life. It also shows the extent to which ritual pervades every aspect of this community’s existence.
Whilst the non-professionals in the film are often blank and deceptively emotionless in conversation, Reygadas creates powerful impact in the scenes where devastating feeling is allowed to break through (the first scene of Johan crying at the family table, the later, considerably more heavy-handed scene where his wife Esther breaks down in heavy rain). Reygadas makes an assured decision to start the film somewhere in the middle of Johan’s story, after his affair has already begun. We are spared any superfluous backstory, or any understanding of how his treacherous attraction began.
More interesting than this, though, is the very non-judgmental way in which Reygadas treats the theme of infidelity. Johan is troubled by his actions and painfully honest with both his wife and father about the affair. One might have expected Johan to be quickly condemned and ostracised by his community, but all listen carefully to his admission of succumbing to temptation. Reygadas is surprisingly confident in both his emphasis on human compassion in the first half of this film.
He even considers that Johan’s family commitment might have been a terrible mistake, and that Marianne might in fact be the woman with whom he feels the greater connection.
The film is considerably more tasteful than the outlandish, provocative and silly ‘Battle in Heaven’, and although her part is inevitably underwritten, Marianne is portrayed sensitively, alive to the feelings of Johan’s troubled wife as well as her own confused mindset. The film is alive to the overwhelming power of physical attraction, even at a time when life’s plan seems to have been entirely determined and when to submit to it might mean the loss of all security.
Yet, even in its stronger moments – the unpleasant whiff of artifice that surrounded ‘Japon’ still lingers. Reygadas continues to develop an interest in religion and spirituality, but only explores this opaquely. It’s vaguely implied that Johan's temptation might be the work of the devil – yet the film’s religiously observant characters also seem to accept (perhaps refreshingly) that these things happen to human beings as a matter of course (his father also confesses to an adulterous desire). It’s also suggested that whatever happens is pre-determined anyway, and all of Johan’s agonising is therefore entirely futile. Such fatalism rather undermines all of Reygadas’ quasi poetic ruminations. The point in setting this familiar everyday story in a religious community seems lost if some of the theological complications are never adequately explored.
In addition to these undeveloped ideas, ‘Silent Light’, like ‘Japon’ before it, is demonstrably indebted to the work of great masters. I’m not an expert on the works of Carl Theodor Dreyer, but Reygadas’ film apparently bears strong similarities with ‘Ordet’. The directorial signature that I most noticed here though was that of the great Ingmar Bergman, particularly in the austere close-ups of faces and carefully framed domestic scenes. Yet the film lacks Bergman’s mastery of tension and claustrophobia, and its confused and fundamentally objectionable conclusion removes any claim the film can make to saying anything profound about either religion or infidelity. Where ‘Silent Light’ echoes Bergman and Dreyer, ‘Japon’ desperately aspired to the languid mastery and spiritual profundity of Andrei Tarkovsky, but fell short of his pioneering and unique language in the most embarrassing of ways.
‘Silent Light’ ends up a good deal more like ‘Japon’ than most commentators have noted (it has been described as a more audacious and mature work, but by its conclusion I’m not convinced that it is). Both films are undermined by unfathomably precious and intellectually flimsy conceits, and burdened by a self-appointed transcendent artistic purpose.
‘Japon’ can be summed up very succinctly, given that it is a film of very little substance. A disillusioned middle-aged man ends up in a small community in the Mexican wilderness – he walks around a lot, paints a bit, and masturbates fervently, apparently trying to rid himself of some unexplained grief or burden. He meets and befriends an old woman, with whom he has unnecessarily candid sex towards the end of the film. The woman then subsequently dies in an accident, the supposedly ‘spiritual’ implication being that she has transferred her life to the man through the act of sexual union. Oh yes, and her name is Ascension.
What an offensive and arrogant proposition this is (the sacrificed female body regenerates an uncritically heroic man) – and one for which Reygadas has never been held properly to account. He has claimed that Japon has no delusions of grandeur, but is merely a ‘simple story of how we help one another in life’. If it’s really that simple, then it’s remarkably trite. If it aspires to something more profound, it presents us with a gratuitously simplistic sexual psychology linking the libido with an urge for death. It also privileges male life above female, whilst pretending to imbue the female contribution with the greater intellectual significance.
Reygadas certainly duped The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw, a usually dependable critic, into finding the film’s sex painful, emotional and convincing rather than indulgent and gratuitous. Over at the filmfreak.com website, Travis Mackenzie Hoover even argues that the film’s sexual dimension keeps it ‘out of the transcendent’ (no it doesn’t – in revisiting the age-old conception of the profane act having sacred meaning, transcendence is precisely what Reygadas is aspiring to) and that there is humour in the film's overall austerity (I can’t detect this – unless you count the unsubtly inserted scenes of horses copulating or the masturbation sequence as funny). Yet Reygadas provides no adequate explanation as to why this woman would consent to transforming a plucky friendship into a sexual relationship. There’s no reason why either of these characters would have been attracted to each other and there’s not even a hint that their coupling is mutually satisfying. It’s not even presented as transgressive, which in itself might even have been more interesting, however cliched. What is even worse is that there is no sense that the indulgent male character, who remains a complete enigma throughout, deserves the considerable sacrifice and indignity this woman affords him. It simply happens, for reasons that Reygadas stubbornly refuses to reveal to us.
‘Silent Light’ ends with a similarly forced and unconvincing miracle. Esther’s breakdown and death in pouring rain might be a pompous scene (Reygadas delayed production on the film for over three weeks waiting for a suitable Biblical downpour in which to shoot) but it at least had some convincing emotional resonance. Having tried with extraordinary resilience to be understanding, Esther finally collapses on hearing that Johan has seen Marianne one last time. The subsequent lengthy funeral scenes provide insight into Mennonite customs and death rituals, and would have made for an effective end to a flawed but ultimately intelligent film.
Yet Reygadas is obviously not a man who could ever exercise this kind of restraint, however necessary. The very notion of Marianne resurrecting Esther through kissing her corpse is completely absurd. What life has Marianne within her that she can return to Esther? Why is she imbued with the strength that Esther lacks and what sacrifice is she making here – is it all in the knowledge that her relationship with Johan must end in order to restore Esther’s vitality? Or is it of some wider spiritual significance? Either way, why is Esther reduced to the status of a mere passive participant when she is arguably the most injured party?
I’m by no means objecting more generally to the use of religious or spiritual themes in any form of art. In fact, the ideas of personal religion experience and miracle remain of great interest to me. Yet these are notions that Reygadas has simply attached to his films in their closing moments, as if they somehow explain or justify any self-conscious ambiguities in the preceding two hours. There is the sense that his pacing is deliberately leaden – which, along with his audacious borrowings, admonish his audience into thinking his concepts are weighty and of profound insight. Yet his films say so very little about life, death, grief, faith, repentance or sacrifice, in spite of their lofty ambitions.
Reygadas has absorbed the technical skill and some of the style of his influences without their intellectual rigour, sound editorial judgment or emotional clarity. The predictability of his ideas eventually even undermine the impact of his undoubted technical flair. It seemed grimly inevitable that ‘Silent Light’ wound end with a second time lapse shot, this time of the sun setting once again. These films are the worst recent examples of arthouse style over substance, and the acclaim gifted to them is an affront to intelligent cinema audiences – many of whom could be forgiven for being deterred from seeking out more adventurous examples of great world cinema after enduring such pious nonsense. If Reygadas is grasping to create some kind of iconography, these are modern day cinematic icons that I’d be happy to smash.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Coming in From the Cold
Polar Bear – Polar Bear (Tin Angel, 2008)
In the rather sweet liner notes and acknowledgements that accompany this third Polar Bear album, Seb Rochford apologises for his latest album being so long. In this age of downloading and compiling, perhaps Rochford fears that his audience, maybe broader than your average jazz crowd, might not have the necessary patience or concentration span to digest it. Well, that would be a shame. For those of us who have been following the development of Rochford’s refreshingly original group, we’ve been waiting quite a while for this one, it having originally been scheduled for release by V2, before Polar Bear became a sad casualty of that label’s restructuring and downsizing. The value for money we’ve been offered seems like suitable compensation. V2’s loss, it would appear, is our gain. Great too for the small Coventry based label Tin Angel with whom Rochford is now collaborating for this release.
For those who find Polar Bear hard to appreciate or understand, the most common criticism is that perennial favourite: ‘It’s just not jazz’. Given how unconcerned I am with the precise definitions of musical genres, I can hardly summon the energy to address this argument. Nevertheless, I must concede my most immediate response to ‘Polar Bear’ is to pick up on the wide array of sounds and influences, many drawn from well beyond the radar of most jazz musicians. Most obviously, there’s Leafcutter John’s electronics, performed live and now more closely integrated with the overall musical landscape of Rochford’s compositions. Yet, the powerful opening one-two of ‘Tay’ and ‘Goodbye’ hints at the influence of Jamaican musical forms – particularly ska and dub. ‘Tay’ is ushered in on a remarkably simple but righteously groovy bass and drums figure that could easily have underpinned a Skatelites track. Given how well Rochford subsumes these ideas into a complete whole (‘Polar Bear’ is the group’s most coherent album so far), this seems far more of a strength than a weakness.
If Polar Bear are ‘more pop than jazz’, it shows in the playful exuberance of Rochford’s compositions. This perhaps comes through best on the superb ‘Tomlovesalicelovestom’, written after the happy occasion of Tom Herbert’s marriage and with every bit as joyous a sense of celebration as such a piece might demand. A more cynical listener might sense in the song’s journey into abstraction a hint at the uncertainty and vulnerability of commitment – but so solid and driving is the returning thematic narrative that its mood seems overwhelmingly positive. This is audacious, mostly improvised music without pretensions or any elevated sense of superiority above its intended audience.
The absence of a harmonic foundation allows this group its breathing space. With no textural support from a piano or guitar, the fundamental connection between Rochford’s conversational explorations on the drums and Tom Herbert’s full and clear bass patterns sounds even more significant. Similarly, the dynamic relationship between saxophonists Mark Lockheart and Pete Wareham is exploited to brilliant effect – with Rochford’s themes relying heavily on the careful interweaving of their distinct sounds. It tends to be Wareham who directs the group towards their more aggressive and incendiary moments, with Lockheart’s musicality and thorough grasp of time anchoring them in solid ground.
Whilst all the acclaim and publicity thrown at Rochford can sometimes seem like hype and bluster, the quality of his musicianship more than justifies the attention. Whilst his feel is relaxed and accurate, it’s the sound and timbre of his drumming that take precedence above technical showmanship. This means that his playing can assume a central and creative role without obscuring the contributions of his other musicians. Polar Bear is definitely a band – with all the sense of collective creativity that this implies. This is the group’s warmest, most coherent work to date, however indigestible it may be.
In the rather sweet liner notes and acknowledgements that accompany this third Polar Bear album, Seb Rochford apologises for his latest album being so long. In this age of downloading and compiling, perhaps Rochford fears that his audience, maybe broader than your average jazz crowd, might not have the necessary patience or concentration span to digest it. Well, that would be a shame. For those of us who have been following the development of Rochford’s refreshingly original group, we’ve been waiting quite a while for this one, it having originally been scheduled for release by V2, before Polar Bear became a sad casualty of that label’s restructuring and downsizing. The value for money we’ve been offered seems like suitable compensation. V2’s loss, it would appear, is our gain. Great too for the small Coventry based label Tin Angel with whom Rochford is now collaborating for this release.
For those who find Polar Bear hard to appreciate or understand, the most common criticism is that perennial favourite: ‘It’s just not jazz’. Given how unconcerned I am with the precise definitions of musical genres, I can hardly summon the energy to address this argument. Nevertheless, I must concede my most immediate response to ‘Polar Bear’ is to pick up on the wide array of sounds and influences, many drawn from well beyond the radar of most jazz musicians. Most obviously, there’s Leafcutter John’s electronics, performed live and now more closely integrated with the overall musical landscape of Rochford’s compositions. Yet, the powerful opening one-two of ‘Tay’ and ‘Goodbye’ hints at the influence of Jamaican musical forms – particularly ska and dub. ‘Tay’ is ushered in on a remarkably simple but righteously groovy bass and drums figure that could easily have underpinned a Skatelites track. Given how well Rochford subsumes these ideas into a complete whole (‘Polar Bear’ is the group’s most coherent album so far), this seems far more of a strength than a weakness.
If Polar Bear are ‘more pop than jazz’, it shows in the playful exuberance of Rochford’s compositions. This perhaps comes through best on the superb ‘Tomlovesalicelovestom’, written after the happy occasion of Tom Herbert’s marriage and with every bit as joyous a sense of celebration as such a piece might demand. A more cynical listener might sense in the song’s journey into abstraction a hint at the uncertainty and vulnerability of commitment – but so solid and driving is the returning thematic narrative that its mood seems overwhelmingly positive. This is audacious, mostly improvised music without pretensions or any elevated sense of superiority above its intended audience.
The absence of a harmonic foundation allows this group its breathing space. With no textural support from a piano or guitar, the fundamental connection between Rochford’s conversational explorations on the drums and Tom Herbert’s full and clear bass patterns sounds even more significant. Similarly, the dynamic relationship between saxophonists Mark Lockheart and Pete Wareham is exploited to brilliant effect – with Rochford’s themes relying heavily on the careful interweaving of their distinct sounds. It tends to be Wareham who directs the group towards their more aggressive and incendiary moments, with Lockheart’s musicality and thorough grasp of time anchoring them in solid ground.
Whilst all the acclaim and publicity thrown at Rochford can sometimes seem like hype and bluster, the quality of his musicianship more than justifies the attention. Whilst his feel is relaxed and accurate, it’s the sound and timbre of his drumming that take precedence above technical showmanship. This means that his playing can assume a central and creative role without obscuring the contributions of his other musicians. Polar Bear is definitely a band – with all the sense of collective creativity that this implies. This is the group’s warmest, most coherent work to date, however indigestible it may be.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
How Did We Get Here And Where Do We Go Now?
The Bug – London Zoo (Ninja Tunes, 2008)
It’s tempting to caricature Kevin Martin as something of a musical chancer, given the length of his career and his tendency to latch on to certain musical scenes. ‘London Zoo’ has been marketed, somewhat inaccurately, as another chapter in the story of dubstep. Actually, it seems like a natural progression from Martin’s first album as The Bug, which had more in common with the heavy and insistent rhythms of dancehall. Like its predecessor, ‘London Zoo’ makes fruitful use of an exciting cast of guest vocalists and toasters.
The vocal performances on this outstanding record have so much urgency and conviction that they simply compel the listener to pay attention. Longstanding Bug collaborator Warrior Queen returns to command attention through the sheer force of her vocal personality and Roots Manuva cohort Ricky Ranking provides the album’s concluding and most resonant imagery on the apocalyptic ‘Judgment’. It’s simply impossible to ignore the righteousness of Tippa Irie on the opening ‘Angry’, striking at everything from the American government response to Hurricane Katrina to suicide bombing at home.
Even more brutal and uncompromising is Spaceape on ‘F**kaz’ (hard to believe that this piercing directness comes from the same vocalist who made the more ambiguous ‘Memories of the Future’ with kode9). He finds faults on all sides of arguments, attacking both the selfish oppressors who would deny people opportunity for improvement and the head-in-the-clouds liberals who don’t understand the problems they are trying to solve. ‘Look at the state of your own home!’ he chides, with genuine bile and justified rancour. Eventually, he arrives at the crucial question that sums up this album’s sustained mindset: ‘How did we get here and where do we go now?’
Yet it’s Martin’s pitch-perfect production, bolstering the sense of anger, frustration and confusion in the vocal performances, that makes ‘London Zoo’ such a well-realised document. The music lacks melodic and harmonic sophistication – but the sheer relentless force of its rhythms make it compelling. The sounds that Martin conjures are appropriately doom-laden – with a plethora of clanks, gunshots, echo-laden percussive hits and colossal deep bass pulses.
‘London Zoo’ achieves what Bloc Party’s ‘A Weekend In The City’ only tentatively hinted at – a bleak, angry and downright terrifying vision of modern London in terminal decline (‘the people are turning so mad, the place is turning so bad…the streets are filled with blood red’). Is life in this bustling, diverse and brilliant city really this oppressive? Maybe it is for many people, in ways that I can only struggle to imagine.
Perhaps ‘London Zoo’ can be criticised in much the same way as I approached a stylistically different but thematically very similar album – Chris T[T’s ‘Capital’. It is perhaps guilty of being more than a little negative and charmless. Yet my concluding remarks about ‘Capital’ erred towards the generous, in that I accepted why the current climate makes it difficult to avoid an apocalyptic, downbeat tone and that maybe such fiery urgency is necessary in order to create something positive. Maybe it’s simply not the job of rappers, producers or songwriters to offer solutions – here Kevin Martin’s extraordinary cast seem to aim more at simply documenting their fears and experiences. By way of some levity, there’s a sense of personal angst as well as anger here – the performers occasionally questioning their own sanity as well as the world gone mad around them.
This is an outstanding record that deserves to be spoken of in the same breath not just as musically similar works such as Massive Attack’s ‘Blue Lines’ or Tricky’s ‘Maxinquaye’ but also with the classics of questing social consciousness – Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On?’, Stevie Wonder circa ‘Innervisions’ and, perhaps most potently, Sly Stone’s articulate paranoia on ‘There’s A Riot Going On’. Was this simply too confrontational and unsettling for the Mercury judges? Maybe it can be argued that Burial has already crafted a similarly uncomfortable portrait of urban claustrophobia without deploying the armoury of language and rhetoric. Nevertheless, ‘London Zoo’ is heavy, portentous and vehemently dystopian and it must not be ignored.
It’s tempting to caricature Kevin Martin as something of a musical chancer, given the length of his career and his tendency to latch on to certain musical scenes. ‘London Zoo’ has been marketed, somewhat inaccurately, as another chapter in the story of dubstep. Actually, it seems like a natural progression from Martin’s first album as The Bug, which had more in common with the heavy and insistent rhythms of dancehall. Like its predecessor, ‘London Zoo’ makes fruitful use of an exciting cast of guest vocalists and toasters.
The vocal performances on this outstanding record have so much urgency and conviction that they simply compel the listener to pay attention. Longstanding Bug collaborator Warrior Queen returns to command attention through the sheer force of her vocal personality and Roots Manuva cohort Ricky Ranking provides the album’s concluding and most resonant imagery on the apocalyptic ‘Judgment’. It’s simply impossible to ignore the righteousness of Tippa Irie on the opening ‘Angry’, striking at everything from the American government response to Hurricane Katrina to suicide bombing at home.
Even more brutal and uncompromising is Spaceape on ‘F**kaz’ (hard to believe that this piercing directness comes from the same vocalist who made the more ambiguous ‘Memories of the Future’ with kode9). He finds faults on all sides of arguments, attacking both the selfish oppressors who would deny people opportunity for improvement and the head-in-the-clouds liberals who don’t understand the problems they are trying to solve. ‘Look at the state of your own home!’ he chides, with genuine bile and justified rancour. Eventually, he arrives at the crucial question that sums up this album’s sustained mindset: ‘How did we get here and where do we go now?’
Yet it’s Martin’s pitch-perfect production, bolstering the sense of anger, frustration and confusion in the vocal performances, that makes ‘London Zoo’ such a well-realised document. The music lacks melodic and harmonic sophistication – but the sheer relentless force of its rhythms make it compelling. The sounds that Martin conjures are appropriately doom-laden – with a plethora of clanks, gunshots, echo-laden percussive hits and colossal deep bass pulses.
‘London Zoo’ achieves what Bloc Party’s ‘A Weekend In The City’ only tentatively hinted at – a bleak, angry and downright terrifying vision of modern London in terminal decline (‘the people are turning so mad, the place is turning so bad…the streets are filled with blood red’). Is life in this bustling, diverse and brilliant city really this oppressive? Maybe it is for many people, in ways that I can only struggle to imagine.
Perhaps ‘London Zoo’ can be criticised in much the same way as I approached a stylistically different but thematically very similar album – Chris T[T’s ‘Capital’. It is perhaps guilty of being more than a little negative and charmless. Yet my concluding remarks about ‘Capital’ erred towards the generous, in that I accepted why the current climate makes it difficult to avoid an apocalyptic, downbeat tone and that maybe such fiery urgency is necessary in order to create something positive. Maybe it’s simply not the job of rappers, producers or songwriters to offer solutions – here Kevin Martin’s extraordinary cast seem to aim more at simply documenting their fears and experiences. By way of some levity, there’s a sense of personal angst as well as anger here – the performers occasionally questioning their own sanity as well as the world gone mad around them.
This is an outstanding record that deserves to be spoken of in the same breath not just as musically similar works such as Massive Attack’s ‘Blue Lines’ or Tricky’s ‘Maxinquaye’ but also with the classics of questing social consciousness – Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On?’, Stevie Wonder circa ‘Innervisions’ and, perhaps most potently, Sly Stone’s articulate paranoia on ‘There’s A Riot Going On’. Was this simply too confrontational and unsettling for the Mercury judges? Maybe it can be argued that Burial has already crafted a similarly uncomfortable portrait of urban claustrophobia without deploying the armoury of language and rhetoric. Nevertheless, ‘London Zoo’ is heavy, portentous and vehemently dystopian and it must not be ignored.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Only In Dreams
Leila – Blood, Looms and Blooms (Warp, 2008)
As well as being a sometime keyboard player for Bjork, Leila Arab has been responsible for one of my favourite albums of the 1990s, the skeletal, deceptively simple ‘Like Weather’*. That remarkable debut and, to a lesser extent, its follow-up ‘Courtesy of Choice’ married idiosyncratic, mostly untutored vocal contributions to esoteric and imaginative bedroom productions. Yet Leila never really became recognised as one of electronic music’s pioneers, and the gestation between ‘Courtesy of Choice’ and this third album has been a lengthy eight years.
The press spin on ‘Blood, Looms and Blooms’ has emphasised that Leila lost both her parents during that eight year gap and the critical focus on this album has emphasised its concurrent darkness and sadness. I’m not really sure that it’s all that preoccupied with death, but it’s certainly fair to argue that it’s a lot less warm and inviting a record than ‘Like Weather’. Indeed, the presence of Terry Hall and Martina Topley Bird as guest vocalists immediately invites comparisons with Tricky’s Nearly God project, with which this record shares a rather introspective and claustrophobic sound.
Leila’s solo set in support of Bjork at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire left me rather cold and baffled. Not only bereft of the contributions of her vocalists, it also seemed stripped of any of the melody or thematic development that characterises her recordings. Instead, she opted to bathe the audience in a rather oppressive sonic fuzz that occasionally teetered on the unmusical and was largely uninvolving.
Luckily, the approach is less confrontational on ‘Blood, Looms and Blooms’ and this album largely plays to her strengths, albeit sometimes with disorientating and unsettling effects. This is the most mysterious and elusive of Leila’s albums so far – basking in its rather creepy, fantastical atmosphere. The arrangements are both strange and seductive, particularly when Leila leaves enough space for her singers to weave their enchanting webs. It mostly sounds like a dreamworld – sometimes dizzying and intoxicating, frequently unnerving and peculiar.
Even the chiefly instrumental works are disarming in their impact. ‘Mettle’ begins playfully, but its underlying menace bubbles to the surface with alarming rapidity, the incorporation of heavily distorted guitars proving surprisingly effective. The brilliantly titled ‘The Exotics’, with its wordless, mock-operatic vocal interjections, using voice as instrument rather than linguistic vehicle, swells like the soundtrack to a malevolent fairground carousel.
Better still, Leila’s longstanding vocal collaborators have all developed and enhanced the qualities that made them such inspired discoveries in the first place. Roya Arab proves eerie and versatile on ‘Daisies Cats and Spacemen’ and Luca Santucci powerfully conveys the sense of disturbed sleep on ‘Teases Me’. So much so, in fact, that the appearance of Martina Topley Bird on ‘Deflect’ seems comparatively straightforward and lacking bite (emphasised by the uglier, more invasive presence of excoriating electric guitars).
The cover of ‘Norwegian Wood’ seems to have divided opinion somewhat, but I think it’s a major highlight of this set. First of all, it’s an appropriate choice of song, despite its potential over-familiarity. Leila’s clever layering of Luca Santucci’s vocals results in a novel and fascinating new interpretation of Lennon’s melody. Any cover version should aspire to re-imagining a song and investing it with new life and meaning, and that is precisely what Leila and Santucci have done here. This version is laced with fear and foreboding, entirely in keeping with the album’s overall mood and themes.
There are a small clutch of mis-steps here, not least ‘Little Acorns’, where the light-hearted playfulness feels a little forced and incongruous. The beats on this track also sound a little dated and could easily have been transplanted from a Bentley Rhythm Ace record. Mercifully, the rest of the album sounds as potentially timeless as music reliant on technology can feasibly sound. ‘Young Ones’, essentially a skeletal piano recital, might assist the album’s dreamy mood, but it feels a trifle superfluous. Perhaps ‘Blood, Looms and Glooms’ is just a fraction overlong – and some more rigorous editing might have marked it out as Leila’s most ambitious and successful record so far. It’s still a terrific record in spite of this though – very different in tone and shape from its predecessors, but sustaining their inventiveness and intrigue.
* Long gone are the days when the NME could still be an influential pointer in the direction of albums such as that!
As well as being a sometime keyboard player for Bjork, Leila Arab has been responsible for one of my favourite albums of the 1990s, the skeletal, deceptively simple ‘Like Weather’*. That remarkable debut and, to a lesser extent, its follow-up ‘Courtesy of Choice’ married idiosyncratic, mostly untutored vocal contributions to esoteric and imaginative bedroom productions. Yet Leila never really became recognised as one of electronic music’s pioneers, and the gestation between ‘Courtesy of Choice’ and this third album has been a lengthy eight years.
The press spin on ‘Blood, Looms and Blooms’ has emphasised that Leila lost both her parents during that eight year gap and the critical focus on this album has emphasised its concurrent darkness and sadness. I’m not really sure that it’s all that preoccupied with death, but it’s certainly fair to argue that it’s a lot less warm and inviting a record than ‘Like Weather’. Indeed, the presence of Terry Hall and Martina Topley Bird as guest vocalists immediately invites comparisons with Tricky’s Nearly God project, with which this record shares a rather introspective and claustrophobic sound.
Leila’s solo set in support of Bjork at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire left me rather cold and baffled. Not only bereft of the contributions of her vocalists, it also seemed stripped of any of the melody or thematic development that characterises her recordings. Instead, she opted to bathe the audience in a rather oppressive sonic fuzz that occasionally teetered on the unmusical and was largely uninvolving.
Luckily, the approach is less confrontational on ‘Blood, Looms and Blooms’ and this album largely plays to her strengths, albeit sometimes with disorientating and unsettling effects. This is the most mysterious and elusive of Leila’s albums so far – basking in its rather creepy, fantastical atmosphere. The arrangements are both strange and seductive, particularly when Leila leaves enough space for her singers to weave their enchanting webs. It mostly sounds like a dreamworld – sometimes dizzying and intoxicating, frequently unnerving and peculiar.
Even the chiefly instrumental works are disarming in their impact. ‘Mettle’ begins playfully, but its underlying menace bubbles to the surface with alarming rapidity, the incorporation of heavily distorted guitars proving surprisingly effective. The brilliantly titled ‘The Exotics’, with its wordless, mock-operatic vocal interjections, using voice as instrument rather than linguistic vehicle, swells like the soundtrack to a malevolent fairground carousel.
Better still, Leila’s longstanding vocal collaborators have all developed and enhanced the qualities that made them such inspired discoveries in the first place. Roya Arab proves eerie and versatile on ‘Daisies Cats and Spacemen’ and Luca Santucci powerfully conveys the sense of disturbed sleep on ‘Teases Me’. So much so, in fact, that the appearance of Martina Topley Bird on ‘Deflect’ seems comparatively straightforward and lacking bite (emphasised by the uglier, more invasive presence of excoriating electric guitars).
The cover of ‘Norwegian Wood’ seems to have divided opinion somewhat, but I think it’s a major highlight of this set. First of all, it’s an appropriate choice of song, despite its potential over-familiarity. Leila’s clever layering of Luca Santucci’s vocals results in a novel and fascinating new interpretation of Lennon’s melody. Any cover version should aspire to re-imagining a song and investing it with new life and meaning, and that is precisely what Leila and Santucci have done here. This version is laced with fear and foreboding, entirely in keeping with the album’s overall mood and themes.
There are a small clutch of mis-steps here, not least ‘Little Acorns’, where the light-hearted playfulness feels a little forced and incongruous. The beats on this track also sound a little dated and could easily have been transplanted from a Bentley Rhythm Ace record. Mercifully, the rest of the album sounds as potentially timeless as music reliant on technology can feasibly sound. ‘Young Ones’, essentially a skeletal piano recital, might assist the album’s dreamy mood, but it feels a trifle superfluous. Perhaps ‘Blood, Looms and Glooms’ is just a fraction overlong – and some more rigorous editing might have marked it out as Leila’s most ambitious and successful record so far. It’s still a terrific record in spite of this though – very different in tone and shape from its predecessors, but sustaining their inventiveness and intrigue.
* Long gone are the days when the NME could still be an influential pointer in the direction of albums such as that!
Monday, July 28, 2008
The Problem of Evil
The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)
One can usually rely on Anthony Quinn, The Independent’s regular film critic, to write a pithy sentence that sums up what so often goes wrong with movie criticism. ‘The Dark Knight’ (the second of Christopher Nolan’s Batman films) is, according to Quinn, a film with a ‘schizoid personality’ in which high-minded art and blockbusting entertainment are constantly fighting against each other. No, no, and thrice no! What Nolan has achieved here is to prove once and for all that intelligent cinema and populist moviemaking needn’t be two mutually exclusive extremes. That he does this so brilliantly and effortlessly with this film has made me rethink my fears that this once promising director might never make a film as original and effective as ‘Following’ or ‘Memento’ again. If he can work this much magic through merely reinventing a franchise, let him make an entire career from doing so.
Excellent though it was, ‘Batman Begins’ basically elaborated the origins of Bruce Wayne’s invention of Batman that were hinted at in Tim Burton’s film from 1989, albeit with added ninja training. When I first heard that this film would again feature The Joker as its central villain, I feared that it would end up being a straight remake of that more fantastical film. Burton gave the Joker a human identity in the character of Jack Napier, who in falling into a giant vat of acid in the Axis Chemical Factory, became hideously disfigured. This version of the Joker, performed with a combination of maniacal glee and hints of psychological vulnerability by the late Heath Ledger, is a much more complicated beast. Perhaps scarred and traumatised by his father, he has deep-rooted troubles, but his back-story undergoes subtle modifications every time he enthusiastically relates it. He terrorises simply for the fun of it and poses elaborate moral problems for the film’s central characters. With ‘The Dark Knight’, Nolan actually tears up every rule that has ever informed the superhero genre, crafting elaborate situations and personal stories that deeply involve us in the film’s action and themes. By the film’s devastating conclusion, the whole moral compass on which the Batman legend is founded has been audaciously distorted.
Another notable contrast with the Burton films is in appearance. Burton made his Gotham City look like a richly imagined gothic nightmare – Nolan’s Gotham looks more like a convincing modern urban landscape. Whilst the film mostly avoids recognisable landmarks (save for a breathtaking sequence filmed in Trump Tower), it was shot on location in Chicago, and its dizzying aerial panoramas, convoys and chase sequences demonstrate the visible influence of Michael Mann. In fact, in appearance, this film probably most closely resembles later Mann works such as ‘Collateral’ or ‘Miami Vice’. It’s therefore not just the banal day-glo comic book capers of the Joel Schumacher movies than Nolan has succeeded in banishing. He’s also managed to break free from the more credible Burton vision too and, in doing so, has crafted an intriguing and distinct style far removed from any of the previous instalments in the franchise, even his own. The audience for this film will find themselves immediately immersed in a completely fresh world, depicted in a surprisingly vivid and effective cinematic language.
As if to stake its claim to standard action movie terrain, ‘The Dark Knight’ begins with a dramatic and impressively novel bank heist, notable for its succession of domino killings that enable the Joker to be the only participant to leave alive with the money. But this showpiece introduction really only hints at the evil to come (at this stage the Joker is still a player in a Mob crime game) and the movie immediately veers on a tangent to address its first philosophical question. The Gotham City of this movie is one in a state of confusion leading to crisis. The very nature of vigilante justice is being questioned – why has ‘The Batman’ (initially that definite article is crucial) become the self-appointed guardian of the city? Can he in fact be blamed for the deaths of innocents and policemen? Why can other ordinary citizens not replicate his success? (The usually malevolent Cillian Murphy makes an amusing and understated cameo as one who tries and fails).
As the plot twists and turns through an epic 152 minute running time (which turns out to be not a minute too long – every unexpected development is justified), we’re introduced to myriad thorny psychological issues. There’s the love triangle between Bruce Wayne, District Attorney Harvey Dent (played with handsome righteousness by the perennially underrated Aaron Eckhart) and his assistant Rachel Dawes (the increasingly ubiquitous Maggie Gyllenhaal). Then there’s the cumulative self-doubt afflicting Bruce Wayne as Batman: Can he commit the necessary evil in order to achieve the common good? Is it even right that he should do so or does Gotham really need its ‘White Knight’ – protection with a human, democratic and accountable face in the form of D.A. Dent? In between these three is Gary Oldman’s Lieutenant Gordon, totally driven in his commitment to dealing with the criminals, but in denial about the corruption in his ranks.
Mapping out a plot summary is pointless, given that this film is not really about its narrative, relentlessly driving though it undoubtedly is. It is instead about the complex nature of moral questions and it paints a daringly intricate and nuanced picture where good and evil seduce each other rather than simply fight it out. The philosophical problem of evil is that we can’t understand what is good without first appreciating what is evil. In Gotham City, it’s clear that this also works in reverse. ‘Of course I don’t want to kill you’, says the Joker to Batman. ‘You complete me.’ The battle of good and evil here is not a simplistic conflict with an inevitable outcome – instead, as the Joker puts it so eloquently, it’s ‘what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object’. It’s never entirely clear which is which.
Thrown into this potent mix is a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions, the nature of which would be far too great a spoiler to reveal. It’s enough to say that it throws the movie on to a major new trajectory, with one of its characters corrupted on a path of targeted vengeance and its supposed hero questioning all his prejudices and preconceptions. What we’re left with is a superhero movie where the superhero is perched on the precipice of abrogating his responsibility – or at best keen to create the conditions where such a renunciation is the best outcome. Then there are the supporting characters – who all play quite significant roles. Morgan Freeman’s Lucius Fox designs innovative technology for Wayne Enterprises but eventually finds his personal principles deeply compromised. Alfred the Butler, played with insight and economy by Michael Caine, hides some crucial but inevitably dispiriting information from Bruce Wayne. Presiding over all this psychological and political mayhem is Ledger’s Joker – a man who consciously chooses chaos, has no rational plan and relishes his own insanity. In some senses, Christian Bale’s Batman is simply a cog in a much bigger machine.
The film’s conclusion is every bit as complicated as it appears – and both the forces of good and evil can lay claim to some kind of victory. But whilst the positive view of the human community holds sway, the individual bastions of moral virtue have all been called into question and been demonstrated to have significant flaws. Some of the lines from the surprisingly poetic script stick in the mind. Alfred claims that ‘some people just want to watch the world burn’ – although in the case of the Joker, he seems to want to ignite the flames too. The Joker himself claims that ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stranger’ and, as part of the final confrontation, Harvey Dent pronounces that ‘you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain’. It’s a doom-laden proposition that neatly encapsulates the doubt, ambiguity and uncertainty at the core of this film’s unique vision. This film makes the pseudo-philosophy of The Matrix look like a pretentious sham. I need to watch it again – but I suspect it may turn out to be the closest the superhero genre has come to producing a masterpiece.
Even worse than Anthony Quinn’s simplistic assessment is an extraordinarily dim-witted and pretentious article published today on The Guardian website by David Cox, complaining that the film has nothing to say about terrorism and cannot be a fable for our times. On all the key questions, Cox moans, the film is ‘determinedly ambiguous’. Aside from the fact that even Cox himself concedes that this is entirely the point, is it really the job of thriller film-makers to determine what is right and wrong in the current global political climate? The film asks moral questions of its audience as well as its characters, and credits the viewer with enough intelligence to make their own judgments as to whether the use of blanket surveillance, physical abuse and a form of extraordinary rendition are justifiable methods to deal with an unreasonable evil that knows no bounds. After all, in the times we live in now, these are issues we need to consider, rather than merely sleepwalking into allowing our democratically elected leaders to make all the assessments themselves, without being held to account. Ludicrous though it may sound, perhaps this morally complex and inconclusive fantasy might be more provocative than all the sanctimonious preaching Michael Moore can muster.
One can usually rely on Anthony Quinn, The Independent’s regular film critic, to write a pithy sentence that sums up what so often goes wrong with movie criticism. ‘The Dark Knight’ (the second of Christopher Nolan’s Batman films) is, according to Quinn, a film with a ‘schizoid personality’ in which high-minded art and blockbusting entertainment are constantly fighting against each other. No, no, and thrice no! What Nolan has achieved here is to prove once and for all that intelligent cinema and populist moviemaking needn’t be two mutually exclusive extremes. That he does this so brilliantly and effortlessly with this film has made me rethink my fears that this once promising director might never make a film as original and effective as ‘Following’ or ‘Memento’ again. If he can work this much magic through merely reinventing a franchise, let him make an entire career from doing so.
Excellent though it was, ‘Batman Begins’ basically elaborated the origins of Bruce Wayne’s invention of Batman that were hinted at in Tim Burton’s film from 1989, albeit with added ninja training. When I first heard that this film would again feature The Joker as its central villain, I feared that it would end up being a straight remake of that more fantastical film. Burton gave the Joker a human identity in the character of Jack Napier, who in falling into a giant vat of acid in the Axis Chemical Factory, became hideously disfigured. This version of the Joker, performed with a combination of maniacal glee and hints of psychological vulnerability by the late Heath Ledger, is a much more complicated beast. Perhaps scarred and traumatised by his father, he has deep-rooted troubles, but his back-story undergoes subtle modifications every time he enthusiastically relates it. He terrorises simply for the fun of it and poses elaborate moral problems for the film’s central characters. With ‘The Dark Knight’, Nolan actually tears up every rule that has ever informed the superhero genre, crafting elaborate situations and personal stories that deeply involve us in the film’s action and themes. By the film’s devastating conclusion, the whole moral compass on which the Batman legend is founded has been audaciously distorted.
Another notable contrast with the Burton films is in appearance. Burton made his Gotham City look like a richly imagined gothic nightmare – Nolan’s Gotham looks more like a convincing modern urban landscape. Whilst the film mostly avoids recognisable landmarks (save for a breathtaking sequence filmed in Trump Tower), it was shot on location in Chicago, and its dizzying aerial panoramas, convoys and chase sequences demonstrate the visible influence of Michael Mann. In fact, in appearance, this film probably most closely resembles later Mann works such as ‘Collateral’ or ‘Miami Vice’. It’s therefore not just the banal day-glo comic book capers of the Joel Schumacher movies than Nolan has succeeded in banishing. He’s also managed to break free from the more credible Burton vision too and, in doing so, has crafted an intriguing and distinct style far removed from any of the previous instalments in the franchise, even his own. The audience for this film will find themselves immediately immersed in a completely fresh world, depicted in a surprisingly vivid and effective cinematic language.
As if to stake its claim to standard action movie terrain, ‘The Dark Knight’ begins with a dramatic and impressively novel bank heist, notable for its succession of domino killings that enable the Joker to be the only participant to leave alive with the money. But this showpiece introduction really only hints at the evil to come (at this stage the Joker is still a player in a Mob crime game) and the movie immediately veers on a tangent to address its first philosophical question. The Gotham City of this movie is one in a state of confusion leading to crisis. The very nature of vigilante justice is being questioned – why has ‘The Batman’ (initially that definite article is crucial) become the self-appointed guardian of the city? Can he in fact be blamed for the deaths of innocents and policemen? Why can other ordinary citizens not replicate his success? (The usually malevolent Cillian Murphy makes an amusing and understated cameo as one who tries and fails).
As the plot twists and turns through an epic 152 minute running time (which turns out to be not a minute too long – every unexpected development is justified), we’re introduced to myriad thorny psychological issues. There’s the love triangle between Bruce Wayne, District Attorney Harvey Dent (played with handsome righteousness by the perennially underrated Aaron Eckhart) and his assistant Rachel Dawes (the increasingly ubiquitous Maggie Gyllenhaal). Then there’s the cumulative self-doubt afflicting Bruce Wayne as Batman: Can he commit the necessary evil in order to achieve the common good? Is it even right that he should do so or does Gotham really need its ‘White Knight’ – protection with a human, democratic and accountable face in the form of D.A. Dent? In between these three is Gary Oldman’s Lieutenant Gordon, totally driven in his commitment to dealing with the criminals, but in denial about the corruption in his ranks.
Mapping out a plot summary is pointless, given that this film is not really about its narrative, relentlessly driving though it undoubtedly is. It is instead about the complex nature of moral questions and it paints a daringly intricate and nuanced picture where good and evil seduce each other rather than simply fight it out. The philosophical problem of evil is that we can’t understand what is good without first appreciating what is evil. In Gotham City, it’s clear that this also works in reverse. ‘Of course I don’t want to kill you’, says the Joker to Batman. ‘You complete me.’ The battle of good and evil here is not a simplistic conflict with an inevitable outcome – instead, as the Joker puts it so eloquently, it’s ‘what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object’. It’s never entirely clear which is which.
Thrown into this potent mix is a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions, the nature of which would be far too great a spoiler to reveal. It’s enough to say that it throws the movie on to a major new trajectory, with one of its characters corrupted on a path of targeted vengeance and its supposed hero questioning all his prejudices and preconceptions. What we’re left with is a superhero movie where the superhero is perched on the precipice of abrogating his responsibility – or at best keen to create the conditions where such a renunciation is the best outcome. Then there are the supporting characters – who all play quite significant roles. Morgan Freeman’s Lucius Fox designs innovative technology for Wayne Enterprises but eventually finds his personal principles deeply compromised. Alfred the Butler, played with insight and economy by Michael Caine, hides some crucial but inevitably dispiriting information from Bruce Wayne. Presiding over all this psychological and political mayhem is Ledger’s Joker – a man who consciously chooses chaos, has no rational plan and relishes his own insanity. In some senses, Christian Bale’s Batman is simply a cog in a much bigger machine.
The film’s conclusion is every bit as complicated as it appears – and both the forces of good and evil can lay claim to some kind of victory. But whilst the positive view of the human community holds sway, the individual bastions of moral virtue have all been called into question and been demonstrated to have significant flaws. Some of the lines from the surprisingly poetic script stick in the mind. Alfred claims that ‘some people just want to watch the world burn’ – although in the case of the Joker, he seems to want to ignite the flames too. The Joker himself claims that ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stranger’ and, as part of the final confrontation, Harvey Dent pronounces that ‘you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain’. It’s a doom-laden proposition that neatly encapsulates the doubt, ambiguity and uncertainty at the core of this film’s unique vision. This film makes the pseudo-philosophy of The Matrix look like a pretentious sham. I need to watch it again – but I suspect it may turn out to be the closest the superhero genre has come to producing a masterpiece.
Even worse than Anthony Quinn’s simplistic assessment is an extraordinarily dim-witted and pretentious article published today on The Guardian website by David Cox, complaining that the film has nothing to say about terrorism and cannot be a fable for our times. On all the key questions, Cox moans, the film is ‘determinedly ambiguous’. Aside from the fact that even Cox himself concedes that this is entirely the point, is it really the job of thriller film-makers to determine what is right and wrong in the current global political climate? The film asks moral questions of its audience as well as its characters, and credits the viewer with enough intelligence to make their own judgments as to whether the use of blanket surveillance, physical abuse and a form of extraordinary rendition are justifiable methods to deal with an unreasonable evil that knows no bounds. After all, in the times we live in now, these are issues we need to consider, rather than merely sleepwalking into allowing our democratically elected leaders to make all the assessments themselves, without being held to account. Ludicrous though it may sound, perhaps this morally complex and inconclusive fantasy might be more provocative than all the sanctimonious preaching Michael Moore can muster.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Mercury Shortlist Announced
So here it is then:
Adele - '19'
British Sea Power - 'Do You Like Rock Music?'
Burial - 'Untrue'
Elbow - 'The Seldom Seen Kid'
Estelle - 'Shine'
The Last Shadow Puppets - 'The Age Of The Understatement'
Laura Marling - 'Alas I Cannot Swim'
Neon Neon - 'Stainless Style'
Portico Quartet - 'Knee-Deep In The North Sea'
Robert Plant And Alison Krauss – 'Raising Sand'
Radiohead - 'In Rainbows'
Rachel Unthank And The Winterset – 'The Bairns'
I proved right on Portico Quartet. Sorry to the good people at the Vortex, who I love dearly - but I simply do not think the hype around this band is credible. Their much vaunted minimalism is nothing new, and the quality of the musicianship and improvising is well beneath some of the other more exciting British Jazz acts. Very disappointing to see them nominated above Gwilym Simcock (the only young British jazz musician of truly international standing right now - is it not a travesty that he is not recognised by the industry here?),Outhouse, Finn Peters, Neil Cowley, Empirical, John Surman et al.
No Portishead?!?!?!?! No Robert Wyatt?!?! No Elvis Costello (another one I neglected to mention in the earlier post, silly me)?!?! Good for Robert Plant and Radiohead, but otherwise the list once again emphasises marketeable youth over established maturity and artistry. Have Laura Marling and Adele even come close to making the best British releases of the past twelve months? No, of course not.
Good to see Burial and Elbow on the list. I wonder whether Burial might actually win it - such a decision would go some way to restoring the award's credibility. Laura Marling as an outside bet, but I fear it would curse the young girl's career far too early!
This list does not even begin to reflect the diversity and quality of contemporary British music. However, I'm grateful for the small mercy that Adele is the only one of my major objections to make the list!
Adele - '19'
British Sea Power - 'Do You Like Rock Music?'
Burial - 'Untrue'
Elbow - 'The Seldom Seen Kid'
Estelle - 'Shine'
The Last Shadow Puppets - 'The Age Of The Understatement'
Laura Marling - 'Alas I Cannot Swim'
Neon Neon - 'Stainless Style'
Portico Quartet - 'Knee-Deep In The North Sea'
Robert Plant And Alison Krauss – 'Raising Sand'
Radiohead - 'In Rainbows'
Rachel Unthank And The Winterset – 'The Bairns'
I proved right on Portico Quartet. Sorry to the good people at the Vortex, who I love dearly - but I simply do not think the hype around this band is credible. Their much vaunted minimalism is nothing new, and the quality of the musicianship and improvising is well beneath some of the other more exciting British Jazz acts. Very disappointing to see them nominated above Gwilym Simcock (the only young British jazz musician of truly international standing right now - is it not a travesty that he is not recognised by the industry here?),Outhouse, Finn Peters, Neil Cowley, Empirical, John Surman et al.
No Portishead?!?!?!?! No Robert Wyatt?!?! No Elvis Costello (another one I neglected to mention in the earlier post, silly me)?!?! Good for Robert Plant and Radiohead, but otherwise the list once again emphasises marketeable youth over established maturity and artistry. Have Laura Marling and Adele even come close to making the best British releases of the past twelve months? No, of course not.
Good to see Burial and Elbow on the list. I wonder whether Burial might actually win it - such a decision would go some way to restoring the award's credibility. Laura Marling as an outside bet, but I fear it would curse the young girl's career far too early!
This list does not even begin to reflect the diversity and quality of contemporary British music. However, I'm grateful for the small mercy that Adele is the only one of my major objections to make the list!
Monday, July 21, 2008
The Mercury Rises Yet Again
Oh dear, is it that time of year again already? Here are the NME’s possible shortlisted albums, many of them predictably ghastly:
Adele – '19'
Babyshambles – 'Shotter's Nation'
British Sea Power – 'Do You Like Rock Music?'
Burial – 'Untrue'
Coldplay – 'Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends'
Duffy – 'Rockferry'
Elbow – 'The Seldom Seen Kid'
The Enemy – 'We'll Live And Die In These Towns'
Estelle – 'Shine'
Foals – 'Antidotes'
Future Of The Left – 'Curses'
The Futureheads – 'This Is Not The World'
Hot Chip – 'Made In The Dark'
Jamie Lidell – 'Jim'
Johnny Flynn – 'A Larum'
Kate Nash – 'Made Of Bricks'
Kids In Glass Houses – 'Smart Casual'
The Kills – 'Midnight Boom'
The Last Shadow Puppets – 'The Age Of The Understatement'
Laura Marling – 'Alas I Cannot Swim'
Lightspeed Champion – 'Falling Off The Lavender Bridge'
Los Campesinos! – 'Hold On Now Youngster'
MIA – 'Kala'
Mystery Jets – '21'
Neon Neon – 'Stainless Style'
The Pigeon Detectives – 'Emergency'
Portishead – 'Third'
Radiohead – 'In Rainbows'
Spiritualized – 'Songs In A&E'
These New Puritans – 'Beat Pyramid'
The Ting Tings – 'We Started Nothing'
Tricky – 'Knowle West Boy'
Wiley – 'Grime Wave'
The Wombats – 'The Wombats Proudly Present... A Guide To Love, Loss And Desperation'
Some albums I wouldn’t object to seeing nominated:
Outhouse – Outhouse (have Loop paid the entry fee?)
Finn Peters – Butterflies
James Blackshaw – Litany of Echoes
Portishead – Third
Radiohead – In Rainbows
Neon Neon – Stainless Style
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss (this and the above are one half British!)
Hot Chip – Made In The Dark
Burial – Untrue
Leila – Blood, Looms and Blooms
The Bug – London Zoo
Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid
Polar Bear – Polar Bear (not released until 28th July so possibly ineligible)
Django Bates – Spring is Here, Shall We Dance (he’s based in Copenhagen, but still British!)
Wild Beasts – Limbo, Panto
Alexander Tucker – Portal
Gwilym Simcock – Perception
Chris T-T – Capital
Neil Cowley Trio – Loud…Louder…Stop!
Robert Wyatt – Comicopera (I think this was too late for last year….)
Sylvie Lewis – Translations
Boxcutter – Glyphic
Empirical – Empirical
Paris Motel – In The Salpetriere
Kevin Ayers – The Unfairground
PJ Harvey – White Chalk
Voice of the Seven Woods – Voice of the Seven Woods
Acoustic Triangle – 3 Dimensions
Updated: Some other albums I should have mentioned
Autechre - Quaristice
Benga - Diary of an Afro Warrior (the less predictable but equally worthy dubstep option)
Jonny Greenwood - There Will Be Blood (would be intriguing if this were nominated over Radiohead!)
Philip Jeck - Sand
The Long Blondes - Couples
Sian Alice Group - 59.59 (go on, nominate this over Spiritualized!)
Super Furry Animals - Hey Venus (bit underrated, this, I reckon)
John Surman/Howard Moody - Rain on the Window
School of Language - Sea From Shore (no-one has noticed this!)
Unfortunately, I’m predicting that the token jazz nod might go to the vastly overrated Portico Quartet.
Things I definitely do not wish to see nominated: Predictable bland indie tripe (hello Wombats, Pigeon Detectives, The Enemy, Babyshambles, even Foals), disappointing comebacks (Spiritualized), overrated singers (Adele, Kate Nash).
If the list is inevitably going to reflect the mainstream primarily, then I would happily back Portishead or Radiohead as worthy winners.
Here are the albums I think are most likely to be nominated: Laura Marling, Duffy,
Burial (if kode 9 entered it), Portishead, Radiohead, MIA, Ting Tings, Foals, Last Shadow Puppets, Adele, Portico Quartet or Empirical
Adele – '19'
Babyshambles – 'Shotter's Nation'
British Sea Power – 'Do You Like Rock Music?'
Burial – 'Untrue'
Coldplay – 'Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends'
Duffy – 'Rockferry'
Elbow – 'The Seldom Seen Kid'
The Enemy – 'We'll Live And Die In These Towns'
Estelle – 'Shine'
Foals – 'Antidotes'
Future Of The Left – 'Curses'
The Futureheads – 'This Is Not The World'
Hot Chip – 'Made In The Dark'
Jamie Lidell – 'Jim'
Johnny Flynn – 'A Larum'
Kate Nash – 'Made Of Bricks'
Kids In Glass Houses – 'Smart Casual'
The Kills – 'Midnight Boom'
The Last Shadow Puppets – 'The Age Of The Understatement'
Laura Marling – 'Alas I Cannot Swim'
Lightspeed Champion – 'Falling Off The Lavender Bridge'
Los Campesinos! – 'Hold On Now Youngster'
MIA – 'Kala'
Mystery Jets – '21'
Neon Neon – 'Stainless Style'
The Pigeon Detectives – 'Emergency'
Portishead – 'Third'
Radiohead – 'In Rainbows'
Spiritualized – 'Songs In A&E'
These New Puritans – 'Beat Pyramid'
The Ting Tings – 'We Started Nothing'
Tricky – 'Knowle West Boy'
Wiley – 'Grime Wave'
The Wombats – 'The Wombats Proudly Present... A Guide To Love, Loss And Desperation'
Some albums I wouldn’t object to seeing nominated:
Outhouse – Outhouse (have Loop paid the entry fee?)
Finn Peters – Butterflies
James Blackshaw – Litany of Echoes
Portishead – Third
Radiohead – In Rainbows
Neon Neon – Stainless Style
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss (this and the above are one half British!)
Hot Chip – Made In The Dark
Burial – Untrue
Leila – Blood, Looms and Blooms
The Bug – London Zoo
Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid
Polar Bear – Polar Bear (not released until 28th July so possibly ineligible)
Django Bates – Spring is Here, Shall We Dance (he’s based in Copenhagen, but still British!)
Wild Beasts – Limbo, Panto
Alexander Tucker – Portal
Gwilym Simcock – Perception
Chris T-T – Capital
Neil Cowley Trio – Loud…Louder…Stop!
Robert Wyatt – Comicopera (I think this was too late for last year….)
Sylvie Lewis – Translations
Boxcutter – Glyphic
Empirical – Empirical
Paris Motel – In The Salpetriere
Kevin Ayers – The Unfairground
PJ Harvey – White Chalk
Voice of the Seven Woods – Voice of the Seven Woods
Acoustic Triangle – 3 Dimensions
Updated: Some other albums I should have mentioned
Autechre - Quaristice
Benga - Diary of an Afro Warrior (the less predictable but equally worthy dubstep option)
Jonny Greenwood - There Will Be Blood (would be intriguing if this were nominated over Radiohead!)
Philip Jeck - Sand
The Long Blondes - Couples
Sian Alice Group - 59.59 (go on, nominate this over Spiritualized!)
Super Furry Animals - Hey Venus (bit underrated, this, I reckon)
John Surman/Howard Moody - Rain on the Window
School of Language - Sea From Shore (no-one has noticed this!)
Unfortunately, I’m predicting that the token jazz nod might go to the vastly overrated Portico Quartet.
Things I definitely do not wish to see nominated: Predictable bland indie tripe (hello Wombats, Pigeon Detectives, The Enemy, Babyshambles, even Foals), disappointing comebacks (Spiritualized), overrated singers (Adele, Kate Nash).
If the list is inevitably going to reflect the mainstream primarily, then I would happily back Portishead or Radiohead as worthy winners.
Here are the albums I think are most likely to be nominated: Laura Marling, Duffy,
Burial (if kode 9 entered it), Portishead, Radiohead, MIA, Ting Tings, Foals, Last Shadow Puppets, Adele, Portico Quartet or Empirical
Friday, July 18, 2008
'Just a man still workin' for your smile'
Leonard Cohen, London O2 Arena, 17/07/08
There has been much speculation about the motivations for Leonard Cohen’s World Tour being purely financial, with the great singer-songwriter having been duped out of a substantial sum by a duplicitous accountant. The extortionate ticket prices certainly bolstered such arguments, although one can hardly blame Cohen if his promoters exploit a market currently riding high on inflated prices. There’s no hint of money-grabbing in the performance itself though – which at two and a half hours of consistent quality is warm, spirited and generous.
Cohen may be 74 years old but he bounds on to the stage in the sprightly manner of a mere whippersnapper. ‘It’s been a long time since I was last on a stage in London’, he admits, before quipping ‘it was fourteen years ago, I was sixty years old, just a kid with a crazy dream…’ His wry and ironic sense of humour, so often missed by those who caricature him as dour and miserable, is in full bloom tonight. He apologises for ‘not dying’ and claims that, although he spent much time studying the major philosophies and religions, ‘cheerfulness kept breaking through’.
He is a consummate gentleman throughout, addressing the audience as ‘friends’, and frequently removing his splendid fedora in appreciation of his musicians’ individual contributions. If the vast and frankly unpleasant O2 Arena is hardly the most suitable of venues for this kind of subtle and nuanced performance, Cohen makes light of it. ‘It’s good to be gathered here’, he says, ‘on just the other side of intimacy’. Nevertheless, I still felt fortunate to have a seat in the second row of the stalls rather than being stuck in the top tier of the back corner, as I had been for Bruce Springsteen last December.
From the gentle, swaying opener ‘Dance Me To The End Of Love’ to the concluding ‘I Tried To Leave You’, it’s clear that Cohen still cares about all these remarkable songs. He doesn’t mess with the arrangements quite as much as Bob Dylan does these days, but he frequently alters phrasing and dynamics to suit his deepened voice. That being said, this is not the hushed whisper of the ‘Dear Heather’ album, which frequently allowed his chorus of ‘angels’ to do most of the work. Instead, it’s a committed and strong instrument that powerfully communicates the weightiness and insight of his words.
Cohen has never been the most energetic of performers, but tonight there’s a physical quality to his delivery that enhances the effect of these songs. Sometimes he’s down on one knee, serenading the seated Javier Mas, whose Spanish guitar and bandurria statements provide many of the highlights of these tasteful arrangements. Sometimes his eyes are tightly closed, as if searching for a new and deeper meaning in these well-worn songs – sometimes he is clenching his fist in pure determination.
The two sets mostly favour the period from his mid-80s reinvention onwards. The material from ‘I’m Your Man’, despite the album’s deliberately stilted production, still sounds remarkably fresh, sometimes even jovial (particularly in the case of the title track and ‘Tower of Song’). By way of contrast, the songs from ‘The Future’, many of which have a biting political edge, sound frighteningly prescient and immediate, even though that album first emerged way back in 1992. In fact, these songs are crucial to the ebb and flow of the set, as they provide a little energy and bombast to punctuate the otherwise languid and reflective mood. Critics of Cohen’s albums from ‘Various Positions’ onwards have tended to find the cheesy programmed arrangements with budget instrumentation too substantial an obstacle. How hilarious, then, that ‘Tower of Song’ genuinely seems to be built from a preset beat on a Technics organ! The line about being born with a golden voice gets a predictable cheer but even better is Cohen’s concluding joke about discovering the meaning of life in the song’s refrain (‘do-dum-dum-dum-de-do-dum-dum’).
There are selections from his classic, more folky years though, some very predictable and unavoidable (‘Suzanne’, ‘Bird on a Wire’, ‘So Long, Marianne’), others more surprising (a fervent version of ‘Who By Fire’ and a mesmerising ‘The Gypsy’s Wife’). These songs are served well by these delicate and refined full band arrangements, and Cohen’s delivery sometimes adopts a more soulful hue as a result, particularly on a slow and impassioned ‘Bird on a Wire’. The band’s contributions are elegant and complementary, from Bob Metzger’s lyrical guitar flourishes to Dino Soldo’s audacious blasts of high-end saxophone and harmonica.
Crucial to any Cohen performance will always be the interaction between his full-blooded recitations and the softer, enchanting tones of his female backing singers. His regular collaborator Sharon Robinson has a voice full of feeling and sensitivity, thoroughly deserving of its highlighting on ‘Boogie Street’ and ‘I Tried To Leave You’, whilst Britain’s Webb Sisters do an admirable job of providing the sweet, honey-drenched choruses.
The greatest appreciation is reserved for ‘Hallelujah’, a deeply moving song that has grown in stock through interpretations from artists such as Jeff Buckley, Rufus Wainwright, John Cale and kd Lang. Cohen is transparently touched by the belated recognition, as he is by the audience remaining on their feet throughout the three encores. He thoroughly deserves the appreciation though – this is a performance that exceeds all expectation and breathes yet more life into these outstanding songs. The audience clearly do not want it to end and neither, it appears, does Cohen himself. He makes old-age look like something to embrace rather than fear.
There has been much speculation about the motivations for Leonard Cohen’s World Tour being purely financial, with the great singer-songwriter having been duped out of a substantial sum by a duplicitous accountant. The extortionate ticket prices certainly bolstered such arguments, although one can hardly blame Cohen if his promoters exploit a market currently riding high on inflated prices. There’s no hint of money-grabbing in the performance itself though – which at two and a half hours of consistent quality is warm, spirited and generous.
Cohen may be 74 years old but he bounds on to the stage in the sprightly manner of a mere whippersnapper. ‘It’s been a long time since I was last on a stage in London’, he admits, before quipping ‘it was fourteen years ago, I was sixty years old, just a kid with a crazy dream…’ His wry and ironic sense of humour, so often missed by those who caricature him as dour and miserable, is in full bloom tonight. He apologises for ‘not dying’ and claims that, although he spent much time studying the major philosophies and religions, ‘cheerfulness kept breaking through’.
He is a consummate gentleman throughout, addressing the audience as ‘friends’, and frequently removing his splendid fedora in appreciation of his musicians’ individual contributions. If the vast and frankly unpleasant O2 Arena is hardly the most suitable of venues for this kind of subtle and nuanced performance, Cohen makes light of it. ‘It’s good to be gathered here’, he says, ‘on just the other side of intimacy’. Nevertheless, I still felt fortunate to have a seat in the second row of the stalls rather than being stuck in the top tier of the back corner, as I had been for Bruce Springsteen last December.
From the gentle, swaying opener ‘Dance Me To The End Of Love’ to the concluding ‘I Tried To Leave You’, it’s clear that Cohen still cares about all these remarkable songs. He doesn’t mess with the arrangements quite as much as Bob Dylan does these days, but he frequently alters phrasing and dynamics to suit his deepened voice. That being said, this is not the hushed whisper of the ‘Dear Heather’ album, which frequently allowed his chorus of ‘angels’ to do most of the work. Instead, it’s a committed and strong instrument that powerfully communicates the weightiness and insight of his words.
Cohen has never been the most energetic of performers, but tonight there’s a physical quality to his delivery that enhances the effect of these songs. Sometimes he’s down on one knee, serenading the seated Javier Mas, whose Spanish guitar and bandurria statements provide many of the highlights of these tasteful arrangements. Sometimes his eyes are tightly closed, as if searching for a new and deeper meaning in these well-worn songs – sometimes he is clenching his fist in pure determination.
The two sets mostly favour the period from his mid-80s reinvention onwards. The material from ‘I’m Your Man’, despite the album’s deliberately stilted production, still sounds remarkably fresh, sometimes even jovial (particularly in the case of the title track and ‘Tower of Song’). By way of contrast, the songs from ‘The Future’, many of which have a biting political edge, sound frighteningly prescient and immediate, even though that album first emerged way back in 1992. In fact, these songs are crucial to the ebb and flow of the set, as they provide a little energy and bombast to punctuate the otherwise languid and reflective mood. Critics of Cohen’s albums from ‘Various Positions’ onwards have tended to find the cheesy programmed arrangements with budget instrumentation too substantial an obstacle. How hilarious, then, that ‘Tower of Song’ genuinely seems to be built from a preset beat on a Technics organ! The line about being born with a golden voice gets a predictable cheer but even better is Cohen’s concluding joke about discovering the meaning of life in the song’s refrain (‘do-dum-dum-dum-de-do-dum-dum’).
There are selections from his classic, more folky years though, some very predictable and unavoidable (‘Suzanne’, ‘Bird on a Wire’, ‘So Long, Marianne’), others more surprising (a fervent version of ‘Who By Fire’ and a mesmerising ‘The Gypsy’s Wife’). These songs are served well by these delicate and refined full band arrangements, and Cohen’s delivery sometimes adopts a more soulful hue as a result, particularly on a slow and impassioned ‘Bird on a Wire’. The band’s contributions are elegant and complementary, from Bob Metzger’s lyrical guitar flourishes to Dino Soldo’s audacious blasts of high-end saxophone and harmonica.
Crucial to any Cohen performance will always be the interaction between his full-blooded recitations and the softer, enchanting tones of his female backing singers. His regular collaborator Sharon Robinson has a voice full of feeling and sensitivity, thoroughly deserving of its highlighting on ‘Boogie Street’ and ‘I Tried To Leave You’, whilst Britain’s Webb Sisters do an admirable job of providing the sweet, honey-drenched choruses.
The greatest appreciation is reserved for ‘Hallelujah’, a deeply moving song that has grown in stock through interpretations from artists such as Jeff Buckley, Rufus Wainwright, John Cale and kd Lang. Cohen is transparently touched by the belated recognition, as he is by the audience remaining on their feet throughout the three encores. He thoroughly deserves the appreciation though – this is a performance that exceeds all expectation and breathes yet more life into these outstanding songs. The audience clearly do not want it to end and neither, it appears, does Cohen himself. He makes old-age look like something to embrace rather than fear.
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
All The Fun of the Fair
I’ve been trying to avoid these kind of hastily cobbled together summary posts, juxtaposing releases across a wide range of genres. However, as I’m going to be away with little blogging time from this Thursday, there seems little choice if I’m ever going to get through my mountainous backlog. So here are some musings on some randomly selected new releases…
Flying Lotus – Los Angeles (Warp, 2008)
Here’s one of the most interesting records I’ve heard so far this year and certainly the best album to emerge from the Warp staple in quite some time. It’s from an artist commonly referred to as a hip hop producer but who actually turns out to be something less tangible and more slippery than that (as befits someone who can count the late Alice Coltrane as his great-aunt).
‘Los Angeles’ is an unbroken suite of short, piecemeal ideas that converge into something rather magical and mesmerising. In this sense, it’s probably most closely reminiscent of Scott Herren’s work in his Prefuse 73 guise, although it’s a good deal less scattershot than his albums. The rhythms are simultaneously wonky and crisp, whilst the hazy ambience and overall emphasis on disorientation make the album sound drunk, albeit in an entirely satisfying way.
Fly Lo crafts a simmering, dense and absorbing conflagration of effects and the overall sound is both tempting and sinister. ‘Hot’ is particularly effective in channelling the inspiration of classic hip hop, but refracted through a heavily distorting prism. The mesh of competing rhythms is a mile away from the pounding formula of generic hip hop. FlyLo has produced a music that is more esoteric and prickly.
‘Los Angeles’ might be a soundtrack to the seedier, darker underbelly of life in that most infamous of cities. Much of it sounds ominous, perhaps even slightly bleak, although the album as a whole seems to journey towards something slinkier and lighter. Initially, though, the predominant sense seems to be of something surreal and cinematic – perhaps even Lynchian, were that weird and wonderful director ever to embrace Electronica. The interjecting sampled voices operate in similar terrain to the wonderful sound world created over here by the likes of Burial.
Perhaps this music’s strange terrain is most neatly encapsulated on the uncomfortable but irresistibly compelling ‘Testament’, where Gonjasufi’s pinched vocals deftly bolster the music’s sense of menace and dread. Digested as a whole, this is eerie music, haunted by vaguely recognisable spectres from the past, but pointing to an even stranger future.
Thank You – Terrible Two (Thrill Jockey, 2008)
Thanks must go to Alax of Tapedeck and Meal Deal fame for pointing me in the direction of this one. Thrill Jockey have marked themselves out as one of the most trustworthy of American labels, unafraid to dip more than a big toe into adventurous musical waters.
Unsurprisingly, then, this Baltimore trio ratchet up a pretty relentless and intense noise, at least in part reminiscent of the full-throttle unresolved tension mastered by This Heat in the late ‘70s. Their press release describes them as an ‘athletic rhythm/action unit’ which, for once, would appear to be a reasonably accurate and considered description.
Whilst much of ‘Terrible Two’ appears to be based on unrestrained jamming, the whole package coheres through returning to repeated and easily identifiable touchstones. All of these lengthy tracks are predicated on increasingly untamed combinations of frantic drumming, furious bursts of high pitched guitar strafing and, perhaps most imaginatively of all, interjections of organ dissonance, the combinations of selected notes totally disrespecting conventional harmony.
It’s difficult to know whether there is any kind of compositional logic behind this frazzled, seemingly unstoppable assault, or whether it is simply the result of spontaneous collective inspiration. Either way, this is a memorable experiment, both quirky and confrontational. The best and most ambitious tracks (‘Empty Legs’ and ‘Embryo Imbroglio’) come with real fire and aggression, whilst the closing title track provides a more enigmatic and brooding counterpoint.
James Blackshaw – Litany of Echoes (Tompkins Square, 2008)
The virtuosic, densely layered modern ragas that guitar prodigy James Blackshaw creates are powerfully mesmerising. Part-composed, part-improvised pieces (but by Blacshaw’s own admission with an emphasis on the former), they have a unique ability to reel the listener into a world that sounds unfamiliar and unconventional. Far more than just another guitarist in the Takoma tradition, Blackshaw has already, at the tender age of just 26, made great strides to expand and develop this music. There is little that is archival or retrogressive about his approach.
It’s even more refreshing then that the first sound we hear on his latest work is a different kind of instrument altogether. Blackshaw begins ‘Gate of Ivory’ with an ostinato motif on the piano, and the instrument reappears again elsewhere on ‘Litany of Echoes’, sometimes subtly enmeshed with his guitar work and again as the focal point on the concluding ‘Gate of Horn’.
The tracks in between are lengthy explorations that gradually reveal their depth and resonance. In some ways, the work of Fran Bury on violin and viola is almost as significant as Blackshaw’s by now familiar artistry here, and she makes a major contribution to the tone, mood and harmonic logic of these pieces. Blackshaw and Bury gradually and doggedly develop their themes to their logical conclusions and the results demonstrate a singular discipline and focus.
If this music only amounted to a combination of mental stamina and virtuosic technique, it wouldn’t necessarily be all that interesting or immersing. It’s the overall effect to which Blackshaw services his talents that makes this music so potent. The density of these ‘sheets of sound’ makes these pieces sound vibrant and full, even though there are only two musicians working on them, and Blackshaw only uses minimal overdubbing.
It’s also intriguing that there is no producer credit on this album’s inlay. If Blackshaw did all the recording and engineering work himself, then he has an intuitive ear for capturing sound as well as for composing and performing. There is little in the way of additional effects deployed here – just a reverberation that sounds natural and unforced, which matches the unhurried pacing of the material.
With the developments in arrangement and instrumentation matching the greater ambition of the composition and playing, this stands as an even stronger whole even than last year’s remarkable ‘Cloud of Unknowing’. With that record, he perfected the art of solitary creation – an entirely solipsistic, individualist method of working based on what attracted him to the work of John Fahey and away from predictable indie bands. With ‘Litany of Echoes’, however, he has brought interplay and chemistry back to his music, albeit in a very formal and appropriate way, bolstering rather than diluting the sheer mastery of his craft.
Alexander Tucker – Portal (ATP, 2008)
I was almost dissuaded from investigating this album after enduring part of Tucker’s moody collaboration with Stephen O’Malley at the Maximum Black gig at The Forum some months ago. Maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood, but it struck me as having all the hallmarks of the really bad category of freely improvised music – wholly based on repetition and droning and coming across as rather flat, uninvolving and lacking real feeling. Compared with the musicality of The Necks or the looser passages of Outhouse’s compositions (or indeed the relentless explorations of Thank You – see above), it seemed rather reductive and tedious.
Tucker’s solo work is rather different though, tied closely to a British folk tradition and occupying what is actually a more adventurous space. Tucker takes the basic template of folk music – lyrics which tell elaborate stories, delicately plucked acoustic guitars, and moulds them into something more liberating and free through the use of layered guitar effects.
Best of all on ‘Portal’ is Tucker’s experimentation with string arrangements and treatments. These work well, adding to a sense of mystery and making the overall flavour of the music seem more surreal and less earthy. Tucker’s drive not merely to modernise folk music, but to develop new processes and means of crafting it, is something that should be lauded. His construction of dense sound collages from loops, sampled performances and treated vocals makes this music sound otherworldly and unusual.
Tucker is always striving to avoid the over-familiar and the safe – on ‘Portal’ he has developed a music that is nuanced and calm, but also sometimes chilling and harrowing (particularly on the punishing ‘Omni-Baron’). Whilst individual tracks don’t stand out particularly, the overall sound of ‘Portal’ subtly embeds itself in the listener’s consciousness.
Neon – Here to There (Basho, 2008)
Two interesting things seem to be happening in the UK jazz music scene at the moment. One is for artists to make more of the intersections between their classical and jazz backgrounds, and to reject the false dichotomy that is too frequently imposed between the two traditions. The second is for established musicians to enter into fresh collaborative arrangements with much younger players. The classical percussionist-turned-jazz-master Paul Clarvis has done this very fruitfully with Blink and now one of British jazz’s most revered figures, saxophonist Stan Sulzmann, has had a rare meeting of minds with prodigious Pianist Gwilym Simcock and the excellent Percussionist Jim Hart, a player mature beyond his years.
Whilst bassless trios are becoming increasingly commonplace (Blink, Tim Garland’s Lighthouse Trio etc), Neon is an even more unconventional set-up, also lacking a drummer. As a drummer listening to this record, I’m struck by the percussive interplay between Simcock and Hart, which is both playful and precise. Simcock displays the remarkable lightness of touch and technical skill for which he is justly renowned whilst Hart’s accompaniments, which vary between the light and spacious and rapid flourishes, are suitably instinctive. Sulzmann remains a muscular and inspired soloist, with a more lyrical soprano sound, although his tenor tone sometimes seems slightly grating here – it’s unclear whether or not this is a quirk of the recording.
Sulzmann contributes most of the compositions here, and they are both nimble and lucid. The best of these might well be the languid, haunting title track which is sequenced perfectly at the heart of the album. Yet Simcock and Hart, as well as being supreme improvisers, are also excellent composers. Simcock’s delightful ‘Spring Step’, which he has also been performing with his own group, is one of the highlights here, whilst the unpredictable lurches of Hart’s ‘Deviation’ demonstrate his considerable imaginative flair. All the pieces demonstrate both the group’s meticulous orchestration and fluid interaction. ‘Here to There’ is a document of the considerable talents of the group’ individual members, but is also a collective enterprise of laudable generosity and mutual benefit.
Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes (Bella Union, 2008)
I’ve already written a fair amount about Fleet Foxes and their ‘baroque harmonic pop’ songs, having lauded their Sun Giant EP and written enthusiastically about their endearing performance at Meltdown a couple of weeks ago. It’s arguable, therefore, that not much needs to be added about this excellent album, which represents an extension of their My Morning Jacket-meets-CSNY formula. It is, after all, far too early in their burgeoning career for a radical change of direction.
I had initially felt that those hailing it as a modern classic might have been jumping the gun a bit, and I’m instinctively wary of that kind of grandstanding hyperbole. In this case, this is mainly because the quasi-spiritual, nature-obsessed lyrics rather strip it of any cultural relevance. Still, much like The Decemberists, if one yields oneself to Fleet Foxes’ peculiarly arcane world, they quickly repay the investment of effort.
Two characteristic elements of this set strike me that I perhaps didn’t emphasise enough in earlier commentaries on the band. Most of the songs carry the listener on a vivid journey, in strikingly linear progressions that mostly avoid verse-chorus-verse conventions. This is not to say that the songs are without hooks or melodies – far from it – it’s just that they are generally unhindered by structural conventions. Secondly, whilst it would be easy to pigeonhole the group as some sort of cosmic American folk band (particularly on the evidence of ‘Tiger Mountain Peasant Song’), there’s a strong streak of soul that occasionally permeates the music here. Listen to the way ‘Ragged Wood’ suddenly and unexpectedly bursts into life in its final two minutes, or the mellotron shadings of the exquisite ‘Your Protector’, one of the most stirring tracks here.
Perhaps this is why Crosby, Stills and Nash still seem the obvious reference point for this music. There’s not much of Neil Young’s electric sturm-und-drang here – the music is mostly more intricate and meticulous and less furious. There is, however, plenty of the kind of harmonic texturing, hints of blues and soulful undertows that characterised the writing of David Crosby and Stephen Stills. Perhaps this is not the most adventurous of reference points – but then there aren’t many other bands drawing so positively on that late 60s folk rock spirit at this point.
No doubt much will continue to be made of the vocal resemblance between Foxes frontman Robin Peckold and Jim James of My Morning Jacket, but neither can really help the vocal resemblance. This excellent debut doesn’t follow quite as closely in MMJ’s footsteps as the first Band of Horses record did though, channelling the folk dimension a little bit more than the southern rock that informs James. If they develop their flair for arranging, they may yet carve out a distinctive niche of their own. This very promising album certainly shows they have the quality and the appeal to do so. There’s rich imagination in the group’s arrangements and their transcendent vocal harmonies.
Ry Cooder – I, Flathead: The Songs of Kash Buk and The Clowns (Nonesuch, 2008)
This is billed as the final part of what has now become Ry Cooder’s ‘California Trilogy’. The project seems to have reinvigorated him as an artist and, perhaps more significantly, as a songwriter. He had been in danger of becoming more renowned as a patron for the Buena Vista Social Club performers than as a master musician in his own right. Whilst his guitar playing is never likely to fall out of favour, his songwriting had perhaps been neglected until these unique and carefully constructed albums emerged.
The remarkable ‘Chavez Ravine’, as much an anthropological study and dissection of social and political history as a songbook, changed all that. The more whimsical ‘My Name Is Buddy’ narrowly missed out on my albums of the year list for last year due to being a little overlong and one-dimensional, although its social conscience was admirable. I’m just not sure that we needed the anthropomorphic animals-as-humans dimension.
The previous albums examined weighty themes from a now vanished California – some reprehensible local politics in ‘Chavez Ravine’, folk radicalisation on ‘…Buddy’. By way of contrast, ‘I, Flathead’ seems to be considerably more lightweight, focussing on a new character, a dragster racer and bar band musician named Kash Buk, who missed out on a chance at bigger things. The main focus of the set, by Cooder’s own admission, is on ‘honky tonks and dirty blondes’. Cooder himself embodies the character, singing in a peculiar growling drawl that imbues the words with personality and gravitas, and helps make Buk’s story convincing.
This might be the best sounding of the California trilogy, in that Cooder draws a great deal from what are ultimately very skeletal arrangements. Although there are hints of the Mexican flavours that characterised ‘Chavez Ravine’, the main emphasis is on the traditional guitar, bass and drums set-up, playing a heady and enjoyable mix of country and good old fashioned rock and roll. There’s a great classic vintage-valve sound here that helps Cooder seem even further removed from modernity. The playing is consistently excellent, with Cooder and his band attacking the material with as much bite and passion as scholarly vigour.
Even with all the focus on all the fun of the fair, Cooder still can’t resist some political sidesteps. The outstanding ‘Pink-O-Boogie’ not only grooves righteously but also ‘has the thing you Republicans just ain’t got’, whilst ‘Steel Guitar Heaven’ makes reference to union cards and the problems in getting paid.
Perhaps best of all though are the songs towards the end of the album where Kash reflects on his life, on missed opportunities and battles against the melancholy of ageing. The deeply intoned, Waitsian ‘Flathead One More Time’ muses on lost friends and the days of dragster racing and rages against the dying of the light (‘time is all you’ve got…’). ‘5,000 Country Music Songs’ focuses more on the music – and how the opportunity to play with Ray Price proved to be a missed one – ‘those shoes were just too big to fill that year’.
Whilst some might prefer the weightier, more politicised themes of the previous two albums, ‘I, Flathead’ not only concludes the trilogy, but provides it with some much needed balance and emotional clarity. Prefab Sprout’s Paddy McAloon once famously dismissed Bruce Springsteen for writing songs about ‘cars and girls’, but those two subjects get plenty of mileage here, and they seem more than worthy of the exposition. Cooder has created a milieux rarely explored in modern music – as much archivist and academic as he is songwriter, he understands this world and he elucidates it brilliantly.
Flying Lotus – Los Angeles (Warp, 2008)
Here’s one of the most interesting records I’ve heard so far this year and certainly the best album to emerge from the Warp staple in quite some time. It’s from an artist commonly referred to as a hip hop producer but who actually turns out to be something less tangible and more slippery than that (as befits someone who can count the late Alice Coltrane as his great-aunt).
‘Los Angeles’ is an unbroken suite of short, piecemeal ideas that converge into something rather magical and mesmerising. In this sense, it’s probably most closely reminiscent of Scott Herren’s work in his Prefuse 73 guise, although it’s a good deal less scattershot than his albums. The rhythms are simultaneously wonky and crisp, whilst the hazy ambience and overall emphasis on disorientation make the album sound drunk, albeit in an entirely satisfying way.
Fly Lo crafts a simmering, dense and absorbing conflagration of effects and the overall sound is both tempting and sinister. ‘Hot’ is particularly effective in channelling the inspiration of classic hip hop, but refracted through a heavily distorting prism. The mesh of competing rhythms is a mile away from the pounding formula of generic hip hop. FlyLo has produced a music that is more esoteric and prickly.
‘Los Angeles’ might be a soundtrack to the seedier, darker underbelly of life in that most infamous of cities. Much of it sounds ominous, perhaps even slightly bleak, although the album as a whole seems to journey towards something slinkier and lighter. Initially, though, the predominant sense seems to be of something surreal and cinematic – perhaps even Lynchian, were that weird and wonderful director ever to embrace Electronica. The interjecting sampled voices operate in similar terrain to the wonderful sound world created over here by the likes of Burial.
Perhaps this music’s strange terrain is most neatly encapsulated on the uncomfortable but irresistibly compelling ‘Testament’, where Gonjasufi’s pinched vocals deftly bolster the music’s sense of menace and dread. Digested as a whole, this is eerie music, haunted by vaguely recognisable spectres from the past, but pointing to an even stranger future.
Thank You – Terrible Two (Thrill Jockey, 2008)
Thanks must go to Alax of Tapedeck and Meal Deal fame for pointing me in the direction of this one. Thrill Jockey have marked themselves out as one of the most trustworthy of American labels, unafraid to dip more than a big toe into adventurous musical waters.
Unsurprisingly, then, this Baltimore trio ratchet up a pretty relentless and intense noise, at least in part reminiscent of the full-throttle unresolved tension mastered by This Heat in the late ‘70s. Their press release describes them as an ‘athletic rhythm/action unit’ which, for once, would appear to be a reasonably accurate and considered description.
Whilst much of ‘Terrible Two’ appears to be based on unrestrained jamming, the whole package coheres through returning to repeated and easily identifiable touchstones. All of these lengthy tracks are predicated on increasingly untamed combinations of frantic drumming, furious bursts of high pitched guitar strafing and, perhaps most imaginatively of all, interjections of organ dissonance, the combinations of selected notes totally disrespecting conventional harmony.
It’s difficult to know whether there is any kind of compositional logic behind this frazzled, seemingly unstoppable assault, or whether it is simply the result of spontaneous collective inspiration. Either way, this is a memorable experiment, both quirky and confrontational. The best and most ambitious tracks (‘Empty Legs’ and ‘Embryo Imbroglio’) come with real fire and aggression, whilst the closing title track provides a more enigmatic and brooding counterpoint.
James Blackshaw – Litany of Echoes (Tompkins Square, 2008)
The virtuosic, densely layered modern ragas that guitar prodigy James Blackshaw creates are powerfully mesmerising. Part-composed, part-improvised pieces (but by Blacshaw’s own admission with an emphasis on the former), they have a unique ability to reel the listener into a world that sounds unfamiliar and unconventional. Far more than just another guitarist in the Takoma tradition, Blackshaw has already, at the tender age of just 26, made great strides to expand and develop this music. There is little that is archival or retrogressive about his approach.
It’s even more refreshing then that the first sound we hear on his latest work is a different kind of instrument altogether. Blackshaw begins ‘Gate of Ivory’ with an ostinato motif on the piano, and the instrument reappears again elsewhere on ‘Litany of Echoes’, sometimes subtly enmeshed with his guitar work and again as the focal point on the concluding ‘Gate of Horn’.
The tracks in between are lengthy explorations that gradually reveal their depth and resonance. In some ways, the work of Fran Bury on violin and viola is almost as significant as Blackshaw’s by now familiar artistry here, and she makes a major contribution to the tone, mood and harmonic logic of these pieces. Blackshaw and Bury gradually and doggedly develop their themes to their logical conclusions and the results demonstrate a singular discipline and focus.
If this music only amounted to a combination of mental stamina and virtuosic technique, it wouldn’t necessarily be all that interesting or immersing. It’s the overall effect to which Blackshaw services his talents that makes this music so potent. The density of these ‘sheets of sound’ makes these pieces sound vibrant and full, even though there are only two musicians working on them, and Blackshaw only uses minimal overdubbing.
It’s also intriguing that there is no producer credit on this album’s inlay. If Blackshaw did all the recording and engineering work himself, then he has an intuitive ear for capturing sound as well as for composing and performing. There is little in the way of additional effects deployed here – just a reverberation that sounds natural and unforced, which matches the unhurried pacing of the material.
With the developments in arrangement and instrumentation matching the greater ambition of the composition and playing, this stands as an even stronger whole even than last year’s remarkable ‘Cloud of Unknowing’. With that record, he perfected the art of solitary creation – an entirely solipsistic, individualist method of working based on what attracted him to the work of John Fahey and away from predictable indie bands. With ‘Litany of Echoes’, however, he has brought interplay and chemistry back to his music, albeit in a very formal and appropriate way, bolstering rather than diluting the sheer mastery of his craft.
Alexander Tucker – Portal (ATP, 2008)
I was almost dissuaded from investigating this album after enduring part of Tucker’s moody collaboration with Stephen O’Malley at the Maximum Black gig at The Forum some months ago. Maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood, but it struck me as having all the hallmarks of the really bad category of freely improvised music – wholly based on repetition and droning and coming across as rather flat, uninvolving and lacking real feeling. Compared with the musicality of The Necks or the looser passages of Outhouse’s compositions (or indeed the relentless explorations of Thank You – see above), it seemed rather reductive and tedious.
Tucker’s solo work is rather different though, tied closely to a British folk tradition and occupying what is actually a more adventurous space. Tucker takes the basic template of folk music – lyrics which tell elaborate stories, delicately plucked acoustic guitars, and moulds them into something more liberating and free through the use of layered guitar effects.
Best of all on ‘Portal’ is Tucker’s experimentation with string arrangements and treatments. These work well, adding to a sense of mystery and making the overall flavour of the music seem more surreal and less earthy. Tucker’s drive not merely to modernise folk music, but to develop new processes and means of crafting it, is something that should be lauded. His construction of dense sound collages from loops, sampled performances and treated vocals makes this music sound otherworldly and unusual.
Tucker is always striving to avoid the over-familiar and the safe – on ‘Portal’ he has developed a music that is nuanced and calm, but also sometimes chilling and harrowing (particularly on the punishing ‘Omni-Baron’). Whilst individual tracks don’t stand out particularly, the overall sound of ‘Portal’ subtly embeds itself in the listener’s consciousness.
Neon – Here to There (Basho, 2008)
Two interesting things seem to be happening in the UK jazz music scene at the moment. One is for artists to make more of the intersections between their classical and jazz backgrounds, and to reject the false dichotomy that is too frequently imposed between the two traditions. The second is for established musicians to enter into fresh collaborative arrangements with much younger players. The classical percussionist-turned-jazz-master Paul Clarvis has done this very fruitfully with Blink and now one of British jazz’s most revered figures, saxophonist Stan Sulzmann, has had a rare meeting of minds with prodigious Pianist Gwilym Simcock and the excellent Percussionist Jim Hart, a player mature beyond his years.
Whilst bassless trios are becoming increasingly commonplace (Blink, Tim Garland’s Lighthouse Trio etc), Neon is an even more unconventional set-up, also lacking a drummer. As a drummer listening to this record, I’m struck by the percussive interplay between Simcock and Hart, which is both playful and precise. Simcock displays the remarkable lightness of touch and technical skill for which he is justly renowned whilst Hart’s accompaniments, which vary between the light and spacious and rapid flourishes, are suitably instinctive. Sulzmann remains a muscular and inspired soloist, with a more lyrical soprano sound, although his tenor tone sometimes seems slightly grating here – it’s unclear whether or not this is a quirk of the recording.
Sulzmann contributes most of the compositions here, and they are both nimble and lucid. The best of these might well be the languid, haunting title track which is sequenced perfectly at the heart of the album. Yet Simcock and Hart, as well as being supreme improvisers, are also excellent composers. Simcock’s delightful ‘Spring Step’, which he has also been performing with his own group, is one of the highlights here, whilst the unpredictable lurches of Hart’s ‘Deviation’ demonstrate his considerable imaginative flair. All the pieces demonstrate both the group’s meticulous orchestration and fluid interaction. ‘Here to There’ is a document of the considerable talents of the group’ individual members, but is also a collective enterprise of laudable generosity and mutual benefit.
Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes (Bella Union, 2008)
I’ve already written a fair amount about Fleet Foxes and their ‘baroque harmonic pop’ songs, having lauded their Sun Giant EP and written enthusiastically about their endearing performance at Meltdown a couple of weeks ago. It’s arguable, therefore, that not much needs to be added about this excellent album, which represents an extension of their My Morning Jacket-meets-CSNY formula. It is, after all, far too early in their burgeoning career for a radical change of direction.
I had initially felt that those hailing it as a modern classic might have been jumping the gun a bit, and I’m instinctively wary of that kind of grandstanding hyperbole. In this case, this is mainly because the quasi-spiritual, nature-obsessed lyrics rather strip it of any cultural relevance. Still, much like The Decemberists, if one yields oneself to Fleet Foxes’ peculiarly arcane world, they quickly repay the investment of effort.
Two characteristic elements of this set strike me that I perhaps didn’t emphasise enough in earlier commentaries on the band. Most of the songs carry the listener on a vivid journey, in strikingly linear progressions that mostly avoid verse-chorus-verse conventions. This is not to say that the songs are without hooks or melodies – far from it – it’s just that they are generally unhindered by structural conventions. Secondly, whilst it would be easy to pigeonhole the group as some sort of cosmic American folk band (particularly on the evidence of ‘Tiger Mountain Peasant Song’), there’s a strong streak of soul that occasionally permeates the music here. Listen to the way ‘Ragged Wood’ suddenly and unexpectedly bursts into life in its final two minutes, or the mellotron shadings of the exquisite ‘Your Protector’, one of the most stirring tracks here.
Perhaps this is why Crosby, Stills and Nash still seem the obvious reference point for this music. There’s not much of Neil Young’s electric sturm-und-drang here – the music is mostly more intricate and meticulous and less furious. There is, however, plenty of the kind of harmonic texturing, hints of blues and soulful undertows that characterised the writing of David Crosby and Stephen Stills. Perhaps this is not the most adventurous of reference points – but then there aren’t many other bands drawing so positively on that late 60s folk rock spirit at this point.
No doubt much will continue to be made of the vocal resemblance between Foxes frontman Robin Peckold and Jim James of My Morning Jacket, but neither can really help the vocal resemblance. This excellent debut doesn’t follow quite as closely in MMJ’s footsteps as the first Band of Horses record did though, channelling the folk dimension a little bit more than the southern rock that informs James. If they develop their flair for arranging, they may yet carve out a distinctive niche of their own. This very promising album certainly shows they have the quality and the appeal to do so. There’s rich imagination in the group’s arrangements and their transcendent vocal harmonies.
Ry Cooder – I, Flathead: The Songs of Kash Buk and The Clowns (Nonesuch, 2008)
This is billed as the final part of what has now become Ry Cooder’s ‘California Trilogy’. The project seems to have reinvigorated him as an artist and, perhaps more significantly, as a songwriter. He had been in danger of becoming more renowned as a patron for the Buena Vista Social Club performers than as a master musician in his own right. Whilst his guitar playing is never likely to fall out of favour, his songwriting had perhaps been neglected until these unique and carefully constructed albums emerged.
The remarkable ‘Chavez Ravine’, as much an anthropological study and dissection of social and political history as a songbook, changed all that. The more whimsical ‘My Name Is Buddy’ narrowly missed out on my albums of the year list for last year due to being a little overlong and one-dimensional, although its social conscience was admirable. I’m just not sure that we needed the anthropomorphic animals-as-humans dimension.
The previous albums examined weighty themes from a now vanished California – some reprehensible local politics in ‘Chavez Ravine’, folk radicalisation on ‘…Buddy’. By way of contrast, ‘I, Flathead’ seems to be considerably more lightweight, focussing on a new character, a dragster racer and bar band musician named Kash Buk, who missed out on a chance at bigger things. The main focus of the set, by Cooder’s own admission, is on ‘honky tonks and dirty blondes’. Cooder himself embodies the character, singing in a peculiar growling drawl that imbues the words with personality and gravitas, and helps make Buk’s story convincing.
This might be the best sounding of the California trilogy, in that Cooder draws a great deal from what are ultimately very skeletal arrangements. Although there are hints of the Mexican flavours that characterised ‘Chavez Ravine’, the main emphasis is on the traditional guitar, bass and drums set-up, playing a heady and enjoyable mix of country and good old fashioned rock and roll. There’s a great classic vintage-valve sound here that helps Cooder seem even further removed from modernity. The playing is consistently excellent, with Cooder and his band attacking the material with as much bite and passion as scholarly vigour.
Even with all the focus on all the fun of the fair, Cooder still can’t resist some political sidesteps. The outstanding ‘Pink-O-Boogie’ not only grooves righteously but also ‘has the thing you Republicans just ain’t got’, whilst ‘Steel Guitar Heaven’ makes reference to union cards and the problems in getting paid.
Perhaps best of all though are the songs towards the end of the album where Kash reflects on his life, on missed opportunities and battles against the melancholy of ageing. The deeply intoned, Waitsian ‘Flathead One More Time’ muses on lost friends and the days of dragster racing and rages against the dying of the light (‘time is all you’ve got…’). ‘5,000 Country Music Songs’ focuses more on the music – and how the opportunity to play with Ray Price proved to be a missed one – ‘those shoes were just too big to fill that year’.
Whilst some might prefer the weightier, more politicised themes of the previous two albums, ‘I, Flathead’ not only concludes the trilogy, but provides it with some much needed balance and emotional clarity. Prefab Sprout’s Paddy McAloon once famously dismissed Bruce Springsteen for writing songs about ‘cars and girls’, but those two subjects get plenty of mileage here, and they seem more than worthy of the exposition. Cooder has created a milieux rarely explored in modern music – as much archivist and academic as he is songwriter, he understands this world and he elucidates it brilliantly.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Drunk on Sunshine and Mirth
Django Bates and Stormchaser – Spring is Here (Shall We Dance?) (Lost Marble, 2008)
With a characteristic tinge of self-importance, Keith Jarrett once declared that his music was ‘the end result of a process that has nothing to do with music’. Whilst he hasn’t abandoned composition completely like Jarrett, one senses that Britain’s great Pianist and Composer Django Bates shares a similar outlook. Most of the pieces on this outstanding album are inspired by concepts and ideas – from the ‘pointlessness’ of borders and boundaries, to the ‘incendiary nature of love’.
From these springboards come arrangements of quite extraordinary dexterity and audacity, full of rhythmic complexity and imaginative harmony. Yet Bates’ great skill as a composer is to make the fiendishly intricate sound effortless, light and entertaining. There are few jazz musicians with such a dry and elaborate sense of humour and fewer still who dare to make that sense of comedy an intrinsic part of their creations.
Common critiques of jazz music from those who find it a closed world open only to scholars and academics suggest that it sometimes seems like a music with a limited emotional and textural range, and that it is often too serious to be considered approachable. Appreciators of the music would of course dismiss this as nonsense – but Bates of course responds with superior intelligence, actually taking the trouble to craft a music that is both intellectually demanding and physically exciting.
If there’s any kind of precedent for this thrilling music, it might be found in George Russell’s superb extended compositions for jazz orchestras or the grand majesty of Keith Tippett’s Centipede but Bates’ irreverence places him squarely in a category of his own. Particularly impressive is his innovative use of voices, which are carefully woven into the detailed tapestry of his music, and treated as instruments in their own right. On ‘The Right to Smile’ (brilliantly dedicated to the Russian man who won the legal right to smile in his passport photo), Bates declares his loathing of nationalism by gleefully deconstructing a string of recognisable national anthems, including our own. The short interlude ‘Early Bloomer’ is essentially a choral work, but with harmonic progressions that play havoc with the conventions of sacred music.
As ever Bates is manically hyperactive, packing as many ideas and layers as possible into dense sound collages. On ‘May Day’, he throws in some short hints at African music. Many find Bates’ constant joviality and mirth irritating, but he has the musicality to make it all compelling. It’s a bold assertion in itself that this form of intensely composed music is mutually exclusive from any sense of immediacy or fun. On ‘Something Less Soothing’, the speech is apparently delivered over something referred to as ‘Django’s Secret Pop Song’, which is in fact performed by some of Britain’s most accomplished jazz musicians (including Martin France and Michael Modesir). Bates even plays with the contested nature of what constitutes musical immediacy with the asymmetric contortions of ‘Subjective Hooks’.
It’s baffling then that British jazz critics, showing a misguided blanket distrust of all whimsy or humour, have reacted so negatively to Bates’ wisecracking. Perhaps this explains why he now bases himself in Copenhagen, at that city’s wonderfully named Conservatory of Rhythmic Music. It now seems customary in this country to attempt to undermine the national success of some of our greatest talents through sheer bloody-minded stubbornness of opinion. One star reviews in The Times and The Independent for this record seem churlish and childish in the extreme. Could these writers compose at this level? This is music that is rich in joy and euphoria – a critique of the ills of the world that also has the imagination and spirit to celebrate what is magical about humanity.
With a characteristic tinge of self-importance, Keith Jarrett once declared that his music was ‘the end result of a process that has nothing to do with music’. Whilst he hasn’t abandoned composition completely like Jarrett, one senses that Britain’s great Pianist and Composer Django Bates shares a similar outlook. Most of the pieces on this outstanding album are inspired by concepts and ideas – from the ‘pointlessness’ of borders and boundaries, to the ‘incendiary nature of love’.
From these springboards come arrangements of quite extraordinary dexterity and audacity, full of rhythmic complexity and imaginative harmony. Yet Bates’ great skill as a composer is to make the fiendishly intricate sound effortless, light and entertaining. There are few jazz musicians with such a dry and elaborate sense of humour and fewer still who dare to make that sense of comedy an intrinsic part of their creations.
Common critiques of jazz music from those who find it a closed world open only to scholars and academics suggest that it sometimes seems like a music with a limited emotional and textural range, and that it is often too serious to be considered approachable. Appreciators of the music would of course dismiss this as nonsense – but Bates of course responds with superior intelligence, actually taking the trouble to craft a music that is both intellectually demanding and physically exciting.
If there’s any kind of precedent for this thrilling music, it might be found in George Russell’s superb extended compositions for jazz orchestras or the grand majesty of Keith Tippett’s Centipede but Bates’ irreverence places him squarely in a category of his own. Particularly impressive is his innovative use of voices, which are carefully woven into the detailed tapestry of his music, and treated as instruments in their own right. On ‘The Right to Smile’ (brilliantly dedicated to the Russian man who won the legal right to smile in his passport photo), Bates declares his loathing of nationalism by gleefully deconstructing a string of recognisable national anthems, including our own. The short interlude ‘Early Bloomer’ is essentially a choral work, but with harmonic progressions that play havoc with the conventions of sacred music.
As ever Bates is manically hyperactive, packing as many ideas and layers as possible into dense sound collages. On ‘May Day’, he throws in some short hints at African music. Many find Bates’ constant joviality and mirth irritating, but he has the musicality to make it all compelling. It’s a bold assertion in itself that this form of intensely composed music is mutually exclusive from any sense of immediacy or fun. On ‘Something Less Soothing’, the speech is apparently delivered over something referred to as ‘Django’s Secret Pop Song’, which is in fact performed by some of Britain’s most accomplished jazz musicians (including Martin France and Michael Modesir). Bates even plays with the contested nature of what constitutes musical immediacy with the asymmetric contortions of ‘Subjective Hooks’.
It’s baffling then that British jazz critics, showing a misguided blanket distrust of all whimsy or humour, have reacted so negatively to Bates’ wisecracking. Perhaps this explains why he now bases himself in Copenhagen, at that city’s wonderfully named Conservatory of Rhythmic Music. It now seems customary in this country to attempt to undermine the national success of some of our greatest talents through sheer bloody-minded stubbornness of opinion. One star reviews in The Times and The Independent for this record seem churlish and childish in the extreme. Could these writers compose at this level? This is music that is rich in joy and euphoria – a critique of the ills of the world that also has the imagination and spirit to celebrate what is magical about humanity.
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