I know the world and his wife are writing about Radiohead’s new ‘free’ album, but I’ve been encouraged to join in. Are Radiohead really undermining the music industry? A few days ago I would at least have argued that they were causing trouble. It’s less the fact that the album is being made available to download (this really is nothing new or particularly exciting) and more the timing of its release that is significant. The last ‘official’ word we heard on Radiohead’s latest was that it had now been put back for a 2008 release. Then came a series of bizarre red herrings before an official announcement that a new album would suddenly become available within ten days. This has caused a stir largely because it bypasses all the official channels, and it will be as damaging to the veritable institution of conventional music journalism as it will be to ‘the music industry’. There will be no advance speculation, previews, reviews or promotional interviews. Instead, with refreshing immediacy, the album will just appear, and everyday listeners will have the welcome opportunity of being the first to judge it.
This all ties in rather neatly with my analysis of Andrew Keen’s attack on Web 2.0 culture a few weeks ago. There is much talk now of the ‘death of the critic’. I still feel this is largely narrow-minded and hysterical – there will always be room for authoritative critical writing, it just may come from different places. Much of the initial reaction to ‘In Rainbows’ will now inevitably be generated from the Blogosphere. Naturally, I think this is rather exciting and healthy.
The other significant aspect of all this is the pricing system, which allows the consumer to decide how much the music is worth. Many have stated they will not pay in excess of £5 for it. Radiohead are no doubt able to do this because artists themselves receive only small proportion of revenue from physical CD sales (much of it is eaten by record label, distributors and vendors). By selling the record directly from a website, the band will receive 100% of the lucre. Even if everyone who downloads the album worldwide only spends £1 on it, that will probably still result in a healthy profit.
Particularly in light of further developments though, I don’t quite feel this is the death of the traditional music industry just yet. First and foremost, it’s worth noting that the band can only do all this by virtue of their massive level of success and acclaim, all achieved for them by the machinations (and budget) of EMI. Also, not only are the band releasing a boxed physical version that will ship in December for an extortionate £40 (‘Can you buy a good meal with that?’ questioned the group’s manager – of course you can!), but they have now announced that they will be signing a new major deal within a few days. Their manager has conceded that they still need the infrastructure and network of a major label to process and distribute physical product. How boring and conventional!
I suspect a lot of this may have to do with the realisation that Radiohead’s fanbase is broad, covering a wide range of ages and consumer habits. Teenage music fans (who would have been less than ten years old when ‘OK Computer’ was released!) may well embrace this means of distribution, but older listeners may well prefer the physical product. There are some consumers who are stuck firmly in the middle – I like maintaining libraries of CDs, vinyl, books and film, but I’m also rather excited by the new freedoms and flexibility offered by new technology.
There has long been a DIY, entrepreneurial spirit of independence in the music industry, but it has traditionally been a struggle to break even. This may well be changing, albeit more gradually than the loudest voices would suggest. A friend of mine genuinely thinks record labels as we understand them will soon be a thing of the past. I’m not sure what I think about this – but I certainly recognise a shift towards pockets of collectives building their own audiences (look at the Loop and F-IRE Collectives reigniting London’s tired jazz scene) and the increasing opportunities for artists to recoup their own investment, rather than forever being tied to major label debts.
Friday, October 05, 2007
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Ridicule Is Nothing To Be Scared Of
The Decemberists @ London Royal Festival Hall
Until their most recent album ‘The Crane Wife’ was bizarrely afforded two UK releases, The Decemberists have not had much critical or commercial attention here. This makes it all the more surprising that the Royal Festival Hall (a rather sedate venue for their spirited live show) is pretty full, if not quite completely sold out. Maybe it’s the buzz that surrounds them on the internet (the ‘Pitchfork effect’ certainly worked for Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene), or maybe it’s just that the British public have much more sophisticated tastes in indie-rock than the pages of the NME would suggest. It’s a strange mix in the audience tonight – a good balance between male and female, but on the whole rather middle-aged. It’s not often these days that I feel young at a rock gig!
The Decemberists are one of those bands that have quietly and gradually worked their way into my affections. If their preoccupation with history, myth and folklore initially seemed rather twee, I now feel that they are expanding the language of rock songwriting through exploring the possibilities of storytelling in its purest form. In the process, they are neatly proving that songs don’t always have to derive from personal experience. I have considerable respect for this, particularly as I find detached, narrative-based songs much harder to write than those I draw from personal emotions and experiences.
To John Kell’s horror (http://www.johnkell.blogspot.com/), I recently described The Decemberists as ‘prog folk’, and some of their recent output directed me to assume, quite mistakenly as it transpires, that they might possibly take themselves a little too seriously. Musically and lyrically, they have cultivated a penchant for the epic, and there are plenty of elaborate arrangements on display here, even with the band stripped back to its five-member core. Whilst they emphasise their more expansive side tonight, opening with a highly theatrical version of ‘The Tain’ (apparently the first UK performance of this extended work) and airing the segued epics from ‘The Crane Wife’, they are also remarkably jovial and entertaining too. They tear into ‘The Perfect Crime’ and ‘O Valencia’ with a reckless abandon that is a joy to watch and the so far unreleased ‘Culling of the Fold’ is a gleeful song ‘advocating violence’.
They are an appropriately odd looking bunch. Frontman Colin Meloy resembles a peculiar hybrid of history teacher, winsome indie tunesmith and, disconcertingly, Edward from The League of Gentlemen. Fortunately, he’s a lot more personable than such a description would suggest, providing lengthy and frequently hilarious asides in his onstage banter. He claims that he needs to stop because we haven’t paid for ‘spoken word’, but he is so ridiculously verbose that the chatter is nearly as welcome as the music. The brilliant exposition on the story of the stolen bicycle that forms the basis of ‘The Apology Song’ is a particular highlight.
In the extended works, there’s plenty of instrument swapping, with accompanying exaggerated gestures and handshakes. There’s also a boundless energy, with Meloy quite literally bouncing across the breadth of the stage and at one point even singing from the audience. He’s not even in the slightest bit embarrassed that he ends up requiring assistance to get back to his rightful position again. Tonight, the group’s combination of fairytale, dry humour and audience participation takes the word ‘quirky’ to bold new levels.
If there’s a gripe, it’s that the emphasis on suites of music leaves little time for wider foraging into their back catalogue – a ‘Song For Myla Goldberg’, ‘The Sporting Life’ or ’16 Military Wives’ would have provided some more concise bursts of pop joy. That’s a bit of a petty fanboy quibble though, and the inspired encore of deconstructed sea shanty ‘The Mariner’s Revenge Song’ more than compensates, with plenty of demented onstage antics and implausibly named guitarist Chris Funk exhorting us to scream as if swallowed by a whale. It’s an outpouring of unashamed collective insanity that neatly encapsulates the energy and spirit of this excellent concert.
Until their most recent album ‘The Crane Wife’ was bizarrely afforded two UK releases, The Decemberists have not had much critical or commercial attention here. This makes it all the more surprising that the Royal Festival Hall (a rather sedate venue for their spirited live show) is pretty full, if not quite completely sold out. Maybe it’s the buzz that surrounds them on the internet (the ‘Pitchfork effect’ certainly worked for Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene), or maybe it’s just that the British public have much more sophisticated tastes in indie-rock than the pages of the NME would suggest. It’s a strange mix in the audience tonight – a good balance between male and female, but on the whole rather middle-aged. It’s not often these days that I feel young at a rock gig!
The Decemberists are one of those bands that have quietly and gradually worked their way into my affections. If their preoccupation with history, myth and folklore initially seemed rather twee, I now feel that they are expanding the language of rock songwriting through exploring the possibilities of storytelling in its purest form. In the process, they are neatly proving that songs don’t always have to derive from personal experience. I have considerable respect for this, particularly as I find detached, narrative-based songs much harder to write than those I draw from personal emotions and experiences.
To John Kell’s horror (http://www.johnkell.blogspot.com/), I recently described The Decemberists as ‘prog folk’, and some of their recent output directed me to assume, quite mistakenly as it transpires, that they might possibly take themselves a little too seriously. Musically and lyrically, they have cultivated a penchant for the epic, and there are plenty of elaborate arrangements on display here, even with the band stripped back to its five-member core. Whilst they emphasise their more expansive side tonight, opening with a highly theatrical version of ‘The Tain’ (apparently the first UK performance of this extended work) and airing the segued epics from ‘The Crane Wife’, they are also remarkably jovial and entertaining too. They tear into ‘The Perfect Crime’ and ‘O Valencia’ with a reckless abandon that is a joy to watch and the so far unreleased ‘Culling of the Fold’ is a gleeful song ‘advocating violence’.
They are an appropriately odd looking bunch. Frontman Colin Meloy resembles a peculiar hybrid of history teacher, winsome indie tunesmith and, disconcertingly, Edward from The League of Gentlemen. Fortunately, he’s a lot more personable than such a description would suggest, providing lengthy and frequently hilarious asides in his onstage banter. He claims that he needs to stop because we haven’t paid for ‘spoken word’, but he is so ridiculously verbose that the chatter is nearly as welcome as the music. The brilliant exposition on the story of the stolen bicycle that forms the basis of ‘The Apology Song’ is a particular highlight.
In the extended works, there’s plenty of instrument swapping, with accompanying exaggerated gestures and handshakes. There’s also a boundless energy, with Meloy quite literally bouncing across the breadth of the stage and at one point even singing from the audience. He’s not even in the slightest bit embarrassed that he ends up requiring assistance to get back to his rightful position again. Tonight, the group’s combination of fairytale, dry humour and audience participation takes the word ‘quirky’ to bold new levels.
If there’s a gripe, it’s that the emphasis on suites of music leaves little time for wider foraging into their back catalogue – a ‘Song For Myla Goldberg’, ‘The Sporting Life’ or ’16 Military Wives’ would have provided some more concise bursts of pop joy. That’s a bit of a petty fanboy quibble though, and the inspired encore of deconstructed sea shanty ‘The Mariner’s Revenge Song’ more than compensates, with plenty of demented onstage antics and implausibly named guitarist Chris Funk exhorting us to scream as if swallowed by a whale. It’s an outpouring of unashamed collective insanity that neatly encapsulates the energy and spirit of this excellent concert.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Look Mama, No Chords!
Polar Bear @ The Museum of Garden History
Outhouse @ The Oxford, Kentish Town
The Museum of Garden History in Lambeth Palace is an odd place to watch one of Britain’s most maverick and unusual jazz acts. With tables and chairs set out to allow for a rather sedate environment, and the addition of some healthy-looking food, it seems almost too civilised. Luckily, Seb Rochford’s increasingly brilliant group break out of the comfort zone with breathtaking musicality.
That only comes after an exceedingly lengthy, occasionally soporific support set from the appallingly named Sax, Lies and Audiotape (yes, we know sax sounds a bit like sex – ha bloody ha). A sax/electronics duo featuring the enervated and vigorous Tommaso Starace, the duo occasionally hit on a mysterious and engaging sound, particularly when odd samples (babies crying for example) floated in and out of the ether. Most of the time it sounded oddly directionless though, and a solo set from Starace might well have channelled more excitement. I had the sensation that Starace was frequently restrained by the meandering sounds in the background, which often failed to add texture or feeling. For such a long set, there simply wasn’t enough variety or changes in dynamic either.
Polar Bear have an intriguing set up – Rochford on drums, Pete Wareham and Mark Lockheart as a dual sax frontline, the redoubtable Tom Herbert on bass and Leafcutter John providing electronic interjections. They make this work through a musical alchemy that is visible as well as audible – I’ve rarely seen a bassist and drummer watch each other quite as intently as Rochford and Herbert. It’s no surprise that when they hit their driving rhythmic features they sound so completely locked in. The contrast between Pete Wareham’s gritty blowing (although more expressive than his unsubtle blasting for Acoustic Ladyland) and Mark Lockheart’s more considered explorations also makes for engaging listening. The two also mesh together effortlessly to complete Polar Bear’s patchwork of sound, yet all the musicians leave plenty of space for thought and feeling.
Rochford, particularly, is a considerate and sensitive musician. He plays at a restrained volume throughout, even when at his most vigorous, and there’s a musical creativity on display that realises the full instrumental potential of the drum kit. Rochford orchestrates both his accompanying rhythms and his extemporised statements with real care and dexterity, and his playing benefits from being more creative and expressive than technically virtuosic. He seems more interested in the range of sound he can draw from his kit than simply proving his technical muscle.
As a manipulator of sound, Leafcutter John has now assumed a pivotal role in the group, echoing some of the soloists’ musical figures and also filling spaces with his own ideas. Some people feel this isn’t musical – but the transformation of sampled sounds is now a vital and vibrant part of the contemporary musical landscape. Like his kindred spirit Matthew Herbert, Leafcutter John is playful, confident and innovative.
There are moments when the group veer into abstraction – but the chemistry always remains, and the contrast between intense swathes of sound, and more delicate interventions is sustained throughout. It’s a remarkable set – the new material demonstrating Rochford’s development as a composer, the whole performance showing his group’s deep connections and creativity.
Along with Fraud probably the main project of London’s vibrant, dedicated Loop Collective, Outhouse are a powerhouse group of improvising musicians directed by saxophonist Robin Fincker. They began their short tour last night at The Oxford pub in Kentish Town, home of a regular night promoted by Loop that I’ve been attending for some time. I’m increasingly convinced that this group of musicians are slowly bringing about a sea change in the rather constricted London jazz scene. By playing in each other’s ensembles and being active in their own promotion, they are not only cutting out the non-role played by lazy promoters with little idea how to organise complementary line-ups, but are beginning to build their own audiences. The likes of Jazzwise magazine and Jazz on 3 have been on the case for some time – it’s surely now time for everyone else to follow. The likes of Fraud, Jim Hart’s Gemini, Alcyona, Naadia Sheriff and Dog Soup represent some of the most exciting British music of recent years.
Like Polar Bear, there is no harmonic accompaniment, with just Jonny Brierley’s acoustic bass and Dave Smith’s ferocious drumming completing a muscular rhythm section. Also like Polar Bear, they veer between deceptively simple themes more concerned with rhythmic displacement than conventional melody and long passages of free improvisation. The music grew out of freely improvised jam sessions the group began back in 2006. It could be argued that they sometimes try and pack too many ideas into one piece – Fincker has to explain that the opening ‘Pig’ was indeed ‘just one tune’ and ‘just called Pig’. It was gleefully manipulative of time and phrasing, but sometimes seemed to veer too maniacally between ideas and sounds.
Dave Smith’s drumming is particularly frantic, perhaps gamely attempting to fill all the spaces that might usually be occupied by chordal accompaniment as well as providing the rhythmic core. Occasionally he is simply too loud, and he then risks obscuring the fluency of Brierley’s bass playing. He’s intensely creative though, and has an ease of movement around the kit that belies his unconventional, rigid posture. At one point, he uses a detached drum skin to play the rest of the kit – it’s a bizarre, almost surreal moment in a gig packed with surprises. Smith is also a master of asymmetrical time – his grooves in 7 or 11 sound unfathomably comfortable and fluent. He has developed a drumming language that is invigorating and confident.
Robin Fincker and Mark Hanslip connect brilliantly, particularly in the free sections, and there’s an intensity and energy in their playing that never sags. Occasionally, the deployment of some lyricism or grace might provide added armoury, but the rhythmic contrasts are so radical and unpredictable that there’s more than enough to sink the teeth into here. Most importantly, Outhouse’s music has an obvious joy that elevates it well above the realm of the purely academic. They have a bright future.
Outhouse @ The Oxford, Kentish Town
The Museum of Garden History in Lambeth Palace is an odd place to watch one of Britain’s most maverick and unusual jazz acts. With tables and chairs set out to allow for a rather sedate environment, and the addition of some healthy-looking food, it seems almost too civilised. Luckily, Seb Rochford’s increasingly brilliant group break out of the comfort zone with breathtaking musicality.
That only comes after an exceedingly lengthy, occasionally soporific support set from the appallingly named Sax, Lies and Audiotape (yes, we know sax sounds a bit like sex – ha bloody ha). A sax/electronics duo featuring the enervated and vigorous Tommaso Starace, the duo occasionally hit on a mysterious and engaging sound, particularly when odd samples (babies crying for example) floated in and out of the ether. Most of the time it sounded oddly directionless though, and a solo set from Starace might well have channelled more excitement. I had the sensation that Starace was frequently restrained by the meandering sounds in the background, which often failed to add texture or feeling. For such a long set, there simply wasn’t enough variety or changes in dynamic either.
Polar Bear have an intriguing set up – Rochford on drums, Pete Wareham and Mark Lockheart as a dual sax frontline, the redoubtable Tom Herbert on bass and Leafcutter John providing electronic interjections. They make this work through a musical alchemy that is visible as well as audible – I’ve rarely seen a bassist and drummer watch each other quite as intently as Rochford and Herbert. It’s no surprise that when they hit their driving rhythmic features they sound so completely locked in. The contrast between Pete Wareham’s gritty blowing (although more expressive than his unsubtle blasting for Acoustic Ladyland) and Mark Lockheart’s more considered explorations also makes for engaging listening. The two also mesh together effortlessly to complete Polar Bear’s patchwork of sound, yet all the musicians leave plenty of space for thought and feeling.
Rochford, particularly, is a considerate and sensitive musician. He plays at a restrained volume throughout, even when at his most vigorous, and there’s a musical creativity on display that realises the full instrumental potential of the drum kit. Rochford orchestrates both his accompanying rhythms and his extemporised statements with real care and dexterity, and his playing benefits from being more creative and expressive than technically virtuosic. He seems more interested in the range of sound he can draw from his kit than simply proving his technical muscle.
As a manipulator of sound, Leafcutter John has now assumed a pivotal role in the group, echoing some of the soloists’ musical figures and also filling spaces with his own ideas. Some people feel this isn’t musical – but the transformation of sampled sounds is now a vital and vibrant part of the contemporary musical landscape. Like his kindred spirit Matthew Herbert, Leafcutter John is playful, confident and innovative.
There are moments when the group veer into abstraction – but the chemistry always remains, and the contrast between intense swathes of sound, and more delicate interventions is sustained throughout. It’s a remarkable set – the new material demonstrating Rochford’s development as a composer, the whole performance showing his group’s deep connections and creativity.
Along with Fraud probably the main project of London’s vibrant, dedicated Loop Collective, Outhouse are a powerhouse group of improvising musicians directed by saxophonist Robin Fincker. They began their short tour last night at The Oxford pub in Kentish Town, home of a regular night promoted by Loop that I’ve been attending for some time. I’m increasingly convinced that this group of musicians are slowly bringing about a sea change in the rather constricted London jazz scene. By playing in each other’s ensembles and being active in their own promotion, they are not only cutting out the non-role played by lazy promoters with little idea how to organise complementary line-ups, but are beginning to build their own audiences. The likes of Jazzwise magazine and Jazz on 3 have been on the case for some time – it’s surely now time for everyone else to follow. The likes of Fraud, Jim Hart’s Gemini, Alcyona, Naadia Sheriff and Dog Soup represent some of the most exciting British music of recent years.
Like Polar Bear, there is no harmonic accompaniment, with just Jonny Brierley’s acoustic bass and Dave Smith’s ferocious drumming completing a muscular rhythm section. Also like Polar Bear, they veer between deceptively simple themes more concerned with rhythmic displacement than conventional melody and long passages of free improvisation. The music grew out of freely improvised jam sessions the group began back in 2006. It could be argued that they sometimes try and pack too many ideas into one piece – Fincker has to explain that the opening ‘Pig’ was indeed ‘just one tune’ and ‘just called Pig’. It was gleefully manipulative of time and phrasing, but sometimes seemed to veer too maniacally between ideas and sounds.
Dave Smith’s drumming is particularly frantic, perhaps gamely attempting to fill all the spaces that might usually be occupied by chordal accompaniment as well as providing the rhythmic core. Occasionally he is simply too loud, and he then risks obscuring the fluency of Brierley’s bass playing. He’s intensely creative though, and has an ease of movement around the kit that belies his unconventional, rigid posture. At one point, he uses a detached drum skin to play the rest of the kit – it’s a bizarre, almost surreal moment in a gig packed with surprises. Smith is also a master of asymmetrical time – his grooves in 7 or 11 sound unfathomably comfortable and fluent. He has developed a drumming language that is invigorating and confident.
Robin Fincker and Mark Hanslip connect brilliantly, particularly in the free sections, and there’s an intensity and energy in their playing that never sags. Occasionally, the deployment of some lyricism or grace might provide added armoury, but the rhythmic contrasts are so radical and unpredictable that there’s more than enough to sink the teeth into here. Most importantly, Outhouse’s music has an obvious joy that elevates it well above the realm of the purely academic. They have a bright future.
Messages Without Meaning
The Films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Thai film director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who mercifully calls himself 'Joe', is currently the subject of a short retrospective at what we used to be able to call the National Film Theatre in London. Despite only having made five features so far, he fully deserves this attention, as one of the most audacious and original filmmakers currently at work, and for having significantly raised the profile of Thai cinema (his film ‘Tropical Malady’ was the first Thai film to win a critics’ prize at Cannes).
Perhaps his easiest film to digest is his most lengthy, the languid ‘Blissfully Yours’ which essentially unfolds in real time. It is ostensibly a tale of how a leisurely afternoon of al fresco sex is interrupted, but its subtle evocations of tensions and emotions, gradually revealed without dramatic confrontation or violence, is rather majestic. The lush attention to detail in the photographing of landscape and location is a genuine pleasure too. Whilst the deliberately slow pacing and lack of dialogue will seem unfamiliar to western audiences attuned more to the exaggerated action and the snappy scripting of American cinema, ‘Blissfully Yours’ seems remarkably conventional when placed next to his other works.
‘Tropical Malady’ is extraordinary, baffling, possibly visionary and certainly impressive. Its first half shares some of the subtleties and romanticism of ‘Blissfully Yours’, focussing on the blossoming romance between an unemployed illiterate city boy and a soldier. It strikes me as interesting that this film has been welcomed under the banner of ‘gay interest’ cinema, as this love is presented in an entirely matter-of-fact and non judgmental way. There is no reference whatsoever to identity politics, the relationship seems playful and tender without anguish or deliberation, and family members seem largely accepting and unquestioning. The most explicitly sexual moment comes when the two young men kiss and lick each other’s hands, an extraordinary moment of natural and unforced eroticism. Joe also demonstrates his brutally dry sense of humour with occasional deployments of camp – the hilarious duet between Sakda (the city boy) and a cabaret singer is a particularly brilliant moment, as is the diversion to an aerobics workout.
Yet after that moment of tantalising erotic play, Sakda mysteriously walks off into the darkness, the screen goes pitch black for ten seconds or more, and the film suddenly and quite unexpectedly changes direction. There’s a brief interlude exploring animal sprit myths, before Sakda and Keng reappear, Keng as a soldier at first chasing, and then being chased by, Sakda’s tiger spirit. There is little or no dialogue in this section and minimal music, yet the tension and claustrophobia is palpable. Joe achieves this through slow but deliberate camera movements, close-up shots expressing fear and bewilderment, and with a naturalist’s attention to the detail of the jungle.
Eventually, Keng the soldier learns more about his situation and his fate, communicating with a monkey to understand that he is both ‘prey and companion’ of the tiger. Ultimately, he must decide whether to free Sakda’s spirit by killing him, or allow himself to be devoured by him, and therefore enter his world. The final confrontation between Keng and the tiger is both mind-boggling and gripping.
What is all this about? The opening of the film may give hints as to its explanation, with an intertitle displaying a quotation emphasising the bestial nature of man that must be subsumed. So, what is Joe saying is bestial in this film? Is it the tender homosexual love depicted in the film’s first half? This seems unlikely, given that the film ends emphasising, in a unique way, the union between Keng and Sakda, and it seems unlikely that Joe would have portrayed the relationship so affectionately were this his underlying intention. I personally felt the film was emphasising that human relationships come with a peculiar combination of innocence and animalistic desires, the latter sometimes needing to be contained, but Joe himself offers no such clear explanation. It may also hint at the shifting patterns of domination and subservience within relationships too, and the extreme measures required to achieve genuine equality. Whatever it is actually about, ‘Tropical Malady’ is a compelling and fascinating film and quite possibly a masterpiece.
It also makes a lot more sense when placed next to ‘Mysterious Object at Noon’, Joe’s debut feature, pretty much unscreened in this country before now. This is shot entirely in black and white, and shares some of the blurring of fiction and documentary that characterised Abbas Kiarostami’s ‘Close Up’. It is a similarly challenging and effective film – even when it appears matter of fact, beneath the surface, there is a world of mystery, fascination and intrigue. The film shows Joe and crew travelling around Thai villages, attempting to make some kind of documentary about Thai life and culture. The result is the unfolding of a magical realist fairytale, narrated and elaborated by the people the crew meet on their journey, sometimes even acted out by them. It gives some context and background for the deployment of folk tale and mythology in ‘Tropical Malady’.
This offers no explanation whatsoever for ‘Syndromes and a Century’, however. This is Joe’s most recent film, and his contribution to the Mozart-inspired ‘New Crowned Hope’ project to which Tsai Ming-Liang also contributed the similarly outstanding ‘I Don’t Want To Sleep Alone’ (showing at the NFT in November). I must admit that Tsai’s film affected me far more on an emotional level – ‘Syndromes…’ does seem rather formalised and cold by comparison. Perhaps this is where its relationship to musical composition lies – in its emphasis on repetition, extended themes, motifs and developments. It is certainly puzzling and memorable.
I don’t share the sentiments of The Guardian’s film critic Peter Bradshaw that it is a ‘transcendentally happy’ experience though, nor do I agree with translator and critic Tony Rayns that it is an easy watch. There are moments when it is deceptively light, and this may be when the film is at its most accessible and charming but, taken as a whole, it maintains a dangerous balancing act between being hypnotic and being soporific, and any meaning or explanation is, in this case, completely elusive. There are also images that are exceptionally disquieting and unsettling – as claustrophobic and unpleasant as anything in a more conventional horror movie.
It is set consistently in a hospital – although the initial calm rural setting eventually gives way to a murkier, far more oppressive urban location in the film’s second half. Whilst it shares its bifurcated structure with ‘Tropical Malady’, it does not share that film’s sudden lurch to a radically different scenario – instead it repeats earlier scenes in different contexts, sometimes with words and themes echoed by different characters. Occasionally, there are even strong visual echoes such as the astonishing image of a large extractor pipe sucking in vapour in the second hospital’s terrifying basement, which reflects back on an earlier image of an eclipse. It’s almost as if nature is being channelled into man’s activities. The effect is both provocative and perplexing.
The film mostly seems to be dealing with unrequited affections, although this is not necessarily it key theme – the central female character, Dr. Toey, is doggedly followed by a colleague clearly besotted with her, whilst she attempts to divert him with stories about her own unfulfilled romantic feelings. There is a sketchier subplot about the hospital Dentist, also a semi-professional singer, and his growing infatuation with his Buddhist monk patient. The one relationship that appears to be based on reciprocated feelings is also fraught with tension, with the two parties clearly wanting very different paths in life. The relationship is possibly even meaningless when set against the other unconsummated romantic crusades, which Joe invests with more significance.
The first half of the film, with its hospital corridors seemingly unusually tranquil, has a feather-light touch and is really rather beautiful. It is essentially a series of wry, humorous vignettes but it sustains a casually elegant flow.
Both halves begin with Dr. Toey interviewing a new doctor, Dr. Nohng, for a job. In the first half he seems rather lost and detached, but in the second, he adopts a far more significant role, exploring the hospital’s unnerving basement, confronting a mentally disturbed patient with carbon monoxide poisoning, and invited to drink from a bottle with some ageing female doctors. It seems that all the lightness of the first half has vanished – in this dense, urban location with its high rise buildings, there is oppression, frustration and confusion in abundance.
Weerasethakul has described ‘Syndromes…’ as a ‘recreation of the lives of his parents’, both of whom were themselves Doctors, and his own memories of the hospital environment as a child. To this, he has added little by way of explanation. Is this film simply a rather languid and dreamy exploration of alternative realities or is it playing with Buddhist notions of reincarnation?
Joe has also said that his films are ‘about nothing’. Yet, the very fact that they are so haunting and immersing suggests otherwise. I found ‘Syndromes…’ his strangest work so far, at once both heart-warming and fearful. ‘Tropical Malady’ is completely extraordinary, vivid, powerful and imaginative. I would suggest these are films about everything and nothing.
Thai film director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who mercifully calls himself 'Joe', is currently the subject of a short retrospective at what we used to be able to call the National Film Theatre in London. Despite only having made five features so far, he fully deserves this attention, as one of the most audacious and original filmmakers currently at work, and for having significantly raised the profile of Thai cinema (his film ‘Tropical Malady’ was the first Thai film to win a critics’ prize at Cannes).
Perhaps his easiest film to digest is his most lengthy, the languid ‘Blissfully Yours’ which essentially unfolds in real time. It is ostensibly a tale of how a leisurely afternoon of al fresco sex is interrupted, but its subtle evocations of tensions and emotions, gradually revealed without dramatic confrontation or violence, is rather majestic. The lush attention to detail in the photographing of landscape and location is a genuine pleasure too. Whilst the deliberately slow pacing and lack of dialogue will seem unfamiliar to western audiences attuned more to the exaggerated action and the snappy scripting of American cinema, ‘Blissfully Yours’ seems remarkably conventional when placed next to his other works.
‘Tropical Malady’ is extraordinary, baffling, possibly visionary and certainly impressive. Its first half shares some of the subtleties and romanticism of ‘Blissfully Yours’, focussing on the blossoming romance between an unemployed illiterate city boy and a soldier. It strikes me as interesting that this film has been welcomed under the banner of ‘gay interest’ cinema, as this love is presented in an entirely matter-of-fact and non judgmental way. There is no reference whatsoever to identity politics, the relationship seems playful and tender without anguish or deliberation, and family members seem largely accepting and unquestioning. The most explicitly sexual moment comes when the two young men kiss and lick each other’s hands, an extraordinary moment of natural and unforced eroticism. Joe also demonstrates his brutally dry sense of humour with occasional deployments of camp – the hilarious duet between Sakda (the city boy) and a cabaret singer is a particularly brilliant moment, as is the diversion to an aerobics workout.
Yet after that moment of tantalising erotic play, Sakda mysteriously walks off into the darkness, the screen goes pitch black for ten seconds or more, and the film suddenly and quite unexpectedly changes direction. There’s a brief interlude exploring animal sprit myths, before Sakda and Keng reappear, Keng as a soldier at first chasing, and then being chased by, Sakda’s tiger spirit. There is little or no dialogue in this section and minimal music, yet the tension and claustrophobia is palpable. Joe achieves this through slow but deliberate camera movements, close-up shots expressing fear and bewilderment, and with a naturalist’s attention to the detail of the jungle.
Eventually, Keng the soldier learns more about his situation and his fate, communicating with a monkey to understand that he is both ‘prey and companion’ of the tiger. Ultimately, he must decide whether to free Sakda’s spirit by killing him, or allow himself to be devoured by him, and therefore enter his world. The final confrontation between Keng and the tiger is both mind-boggling and gripping.
What is all this about? The opening of the film may give hints as to its explanation, with an intertitle displaying a quotation emphasising the bestial nature of man that must be subsumed. So, what is Joe saying is bestial in this film? Is it the tender homosexual love depicted in the film’s first half? This seems unlikely, given that the film ends emphasising, in a unique way, the union between Keng and Sakda, and it seems unlikely that Joe would have portrayed the relationship so affectionately were this his underlying intention. I personally felt the film was emphasising that human relationships come with a peculiar combination of innocence and animalistic desires, the latter sometimes needing to be contained, but Joe himself offers no such clear explanation. It may also hint at the shifting patterns of domination and subservience within relationships too, and the extreme measures required to achieve genuine equality. Whatever it is actually about, ‘Tropical Malady’ is a compelling and fascinating film and quite possibly a masterpiece.
It also makes a lot more sense when placed next to ‘Mysterious Object at Noon’, Joe’s debut feature, pretty much unscreened in this country before now. This is shot entirely in black and white, and shares some of the blurring of fiction and documentary that characterised Abbas Kiarostami’s ‘Close Up’. It is a similarly challenging and effective film – even when it appears matter of fact, beneath the surface, there is a world of mystery, fascination and intrigue. The film shows Joe and crew travelling around Thai villages, attempting to make some kind of documentary about Thai life and culture. The result is the unfolding of a magical realist fairytale, narrated and elaborated by the people the crew meet on their journey, sometimes even acted out by them. It gives some context and background for the deployment of folk tale and mythology in ‘Tropical Malady’.
This offers no explanation whatsoever for ‘Syndromes and a Century’, however. This is Joe’s most recent film, and his contribution to the Mozart-inspired ‘New Crowned Hope’ project to which Tsai Ming-Liang also contributed the similarly outstanding ‘I Don’t Want To Sleep Alone’ (showing at the NFT in November). I must admit that Tsai’s film affected me far more on an emotional level – ‘Syndromes…’ does seem rather formalised and cold by comparison. Perhaps this is where its relationship to musical composition lies – in its emphasis on repetition, extended themes, motifs and developments. It is certainly puzzling and memorable.
I don’t share the sentiments of The Guardian’s film critic Peter Bradshaw that it is a ‘transcendentally happy’ experience though, nor do I agree with translator and critic Tony Rayns that it is an easy watch. There are moments when it is deceptively light, and this may be when the film is at its most accessible and charming but, taken as a whole, it maintains a dangerous balancing act between being hypnotic and being soporific, and any meaning or explanation is, in this case, completely elusive. There are also images that are exceptionally disquieting and unsettling – as claustrophobic and unpleasant as anything in a more conventional horror movie.
It is set consistently in a hospital – although the initial calm rural setting eventually gives way to a murkier, far more oppressive urban location in the film’s second half. Whilst it shares its bifurcated structure with ‘Tropical Malady’, it does not share that film’s sudden lurch to a radically different scenario – instead it repeats earlier scenes in different contexts, sometimes with words and themes echoed by different characters. Occasionally, there are even strong visual echoes such as the astonishing image of a large extractor pipe sucking in vapour in the second hospital’s terrifying basement, which reflects back on an earlier image of an eclipse. It’s almost as if nature is being channelled into man’s activities. The effect is both provocative and perplexing.
The film mostly seems to be dealing with unrequited affections, although this is not necessarily it key theme – the central female character, Dr. Toey, is doggedly followed by a colleague clearly besotted with her, whilst she attempts to divert him with stories about her own unfulfilled romantic feelings. There is a sketchier subplot about the hospital Dentist, also a semi-professional singer, and his growing infatuation with his Buddhist monk patient. The one relationship that appears to be based on reciprocated feelings is also fraught with tension, with the two parties clearly wanting very different paths in life. The relationship is possibly even meaningless when set against the other unconsummated romantic crusades, which Joe invests with more significance.
The first half of the film, with its hospital corridors seemingly unusually tranquil, has a feather-light touch and is really rather beautiful. It is essentially a series of wry, humorous vignettes but it sustains a casually elegant flow.
Both halves begin with Dr. Toey interviewing a new doctor, Dr. Nohng, for a job. In the first half he seems rather lost and detached, but in the second, he adopts a far more significant role, exploring the hospital’s unnerving basement, confronting a mentally disturbed patient with carbon monoxide poisoning, and invited to drink from a bottle with some ageing female doctors. It seems that all the lightness of the first half has vanished – in this dense, urban location with its high rise buildings, there is oppression, frustration and confusion in abundance.
Weerasethakul has described ‘Syndromes…’ as a ‘recreation of the lives of his parents’, both of whom were themselves Doctors, and his own memories of the hospital environment as a child. To this, he has added little by way of explanation. Is this film simply a rather languid and dreamy exploration of alternative realities or is it playing with Buddhist notions of reincarnation?
Joe has also said that his films are ‘about nothing’. Yet, the very fact that they are so haunting and immersing suggests otherwise. I found ‘Syndromes…’ his strangest work so far, at once both heart-warming and fearful. ‘Tropical Malady’ is completely extraordinary, vivid, powerful and imaginative. I would suggest these are films about everything and nothing.
Monday, October 01, 2007
Above The Clouds
Dirty Projectors - Rise Above
Dave Longstreth is completely insane. Fortunately, both for him and for us, he’s also a maverick genius. His constantly shifting ensemble, Dirty Projectors, are the most unhinged and viscerally exciting live act I’ve seen this year, and ‘Rise Above’ is an utterly magnificent record. It’s supposedly a reinterpretation of Black Flag’s ‘Damaged’, constructed entirely from memory as Longstreth was left with the inlay but not the cassette of his original copy of the album. My knowledge of Black Flag is fairly limited, so this won’t be the most contextualised review I’ve ever written but I’m pretty sure the result sounds absolutely nothing like Black Flag. It is, however, the most strikingly original concoction to have emerged from the American rock underground in some time. It is clearly more about the inspiration and sensations Longstreth derived from Black Flag in his youth, than about the specific sound and arrangements of those songs.
Longstreth clearly has no reservations about adopting a ‘pick and mix’ approach to music, grabbing liberally from an open-minded range of genres. Oddly, the result is the most accessible Dirty Projectors record to date but that certainly doesn’t make it conventional or predictable. Longstreth veers off on any unexpected tangent that takes his interest – the rhythms are fragmented and changeable, the arrangements multi-faceted and compelling, particularly on this occasion in the use of vocal harmonies. His own rather anguished vocals might be an acquired taste, but they are softened by his sweet-sounding female counterparts.
The songs often begin in deceptively safe territory – perhaps with the strum of an acoustic guitar or with a clearly stated melody. There’s simply no guessing where they will end up though, or what route they will take to get there. Who could predict the sudden lurch into reggae that takes place mid-way through ‘Police Story’ or the switch between propulsive afrobeat grooves and some sort of contemporary wind and string arrangements that characterise ‘No More’ and ‘Depression’.
Even the most straightforward moments have real oddities when the veneer is scratched away. The title track begins with a Neil Young-esque trudge and is probably the closest Longstreth will get to being immediately infectious. Yet the melody, pleasing on the ear as it is, is considerably more exotic than anything Young might have penned, and perhaps derives more from roots reggae – Culture or Burning Spear may well have been on the Longstreth playlist at some point.
Longstreth’s music is consistently playful and stimulating, but there’s also the sense that he is striving for something powerful, contemporary and significant. My knowledge of Black Flag is not great enough to confirm whether the lyrics here are taken from the source material, but plenty of these songs apply neatly to current geo-political tensions, from the assertion that ‘we’re fighting a war we can’t win, they hate us, we hate them’ to the title track’s frustration with abuse and manipulation. It’s not exactly the most nuanced poetry you’ll ever hear, but it does have a brutal impact to match Longstreth’s dazzling sonorities.
‘Rise Above’ is an album as brilliantly unfathomable and disorientating as life itself. Yet it has its own peculiar internal logic – much of its invention sounds precise and mathematical, yet there’s a looseness and vigour in the playing that defies classification. It transcends just about everything.
Dave Longstreth is completely insane. Fortunately, both for him and for us, he’s also a maverick genius. His constantly shifting ensemble, Dirty Projectors, are the most unhinged and viscerally exciting live act I’ve seen this year, and ‘Rise Above’ is an utterly magnificent record. It’s supposedly a reinterpretation of Black Flag’s ‘Damaged’, constructed entirely from memory as Longstreth was left with the inlay but not the cassette of his original copy of the album. My knowledge of Black Flag is fairly limited, so this won’t be the most contextualised review I’ve ever written but I’m pretty sure the result sounds absolutely nothing like Black Flag. It is, however, the most strikingly original concoction to have emerged from the American rock underground in some time. It is clearly more about the inspiration and sensations Longstreth derived from Black Flag in his youth, than about the specific sound and arrangements of those songs.
Longstreth clearly has no reservations about adopting a ‘pick and mix’ approach to music, grabbing liberally from an open-minded range of genres. Oddly, the result is the most accessible Dirty Projectors record to date but that certainly doesn’t make it conventional or predictable. Longstreth veers off on any unexpected tangent that takes his interest – the rhythms are fragmented and changeable, the arrangements multi-faceted and compelling, particularly on this occasion in the use of vocal harmonies. His own rather anguished vocals might be an acquired taste, but they are softened by his sweet-sounding female counterparts.
The songs often begin in deceptively safe territory – perhaps with the strum of an acoustic guitar or with a clearly stated melody. There’s simply no guessing where they will end up though, or what route they will take to get there. Who could predict the sudden lurch into reggae that takes place mid-way through ‘Police Story’ or the switch between propulsive afrobeat grooves and some sort of contemporary wind and string arrangements that characterise ‘No More’ and ‘Depression’.
Even the most straightforward moments have real oddities when the veneer is scratched away. The title track begins with a Neil Young-esque trudge and is probably the closest Longstreth will get to being immediately infectious. Yet the melody, pleasing on the ear as it is, is considerably more exotic than anything Young might have penned, and perhaps derives more from roots reggae – Culture or Burning Spear may well have been on the Longstreth playlist at some point.
Longstreth’s music is consistently playful and stimulating, but there’s also the sense that he is striving for something powerful, contemporary and significant. My knowledge of Black Flag is not great enough to confirm whether the lyrics here are taken from the source material, but plenty of these songs apply neatly to current geo-political tensions, from the assertion that ‘we’re fighting a war we can’t win, they hate us, we hate them’ to the title track’s frustration with abuse and manipulation. It’s not exactly the most nuanced poetry you’ll ever hear, but it does have a brutal impact to match Longstreth’s dazzling sonorities.
‘Rise Above’ is an album as brilliantly unfathomable and disorientating as life itself. Yet it has its own peculiar internal logic – much of its invention sounds precise and mathematical, yet there’s a looseness and vigour in the playing that defies classification. It transcends just about everything.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Magic In The Night?
Bruce Springsteen - Magic
Getting straight down to business, I'd say it's pretty unlikely that this one will give Springsteen another In League With Paton album of the year gong, although I don't suppose the great man will care too much about that. Ultimately, I much prefer the outstanding Seeger Sessions band Live in Dublin set from earlier in the year. It's churlish to complain though when Springsteen is clearly a rejuvenated force. He'd virtually retired in 2001 when he felt compelled to respond to the tragic events of 9/11. Since then, he's barely paused for breath, touring 'The Rising' with the same hardworking spirit that informed the juggernaut 'Born In The USA' tour, completing the piecemeal 'Devils and Dust' solo set, forming The Seeger Sessions band for a foray into the American folk tradition and taking it to its logical conclusion on the ensuing tour, transforming his own back catalogue in the process. It's been the most productive phase of his career so far, with Springsteen crediting his audience with the intelligence to follow him on some of his less predictable journeys.
'Magic' is not one of those journeys though. It's a retreat to what is now the relative safety of the E Street Band, and a conscious effort to recapture the modernised rock sound of 'The Rising', whilst foresaking its weighty concerns in favour of a more concise, unburdened vision. At its best, this is no bad thing at all, and the album is blessed with a clutch of major songs. 'Girls In Their Summer Clothes' and 'I'll Work For Your Love' return to the Spector preoccupations that informed 'Born To Run' whilst 'Long Walk Home' and 'Gypsy Biker' are massive powerhouse anthems - the kind of song that would sound embarrassing in any other hands, but which Springsteen's grit and integrity manage to make genuine.
There's much less trickery and gimmickery here than on 'The Rising', in spite of Springsteen's decision to again employ Brendan O'Brien as producer. Whilst the sound is drier and more organic, there is still the sense that O'Brien is doing his level best to obscure the E Street Band as a unit, increasing the emphasis on thudding drums and rhythmically uninteresting strummed guitars at the expense of Roy Bittan's piano or Danny Federici's organ. 'Livin' In The Future' sounds entertaining and has a deliciously slinky chorus, but the production places it dangerously close to the MOR funk of Maroon 5. 'You'll Be Comin' Down' is somewhat underwhelming too, more than a little clunky and plodding. There's also not nearly enough of Nils Lofgren's expressive slide guitar, whilst Clarence Clemons is restricted to short but intense interjections on the saxophone. Strangely, 'Magic' actually sounds much closer to 'Lucky Town' (the more unfairly maligned of Springsteen's non-E Street albums of the early 90s) than any of the E Street albums. Some of these songs, particularly 'Long Walk Home', 'Gypsy Biker', 'Last To Die' and 'Radio Nowhere' are going to sound spectacular live, when the band is given more space to, ahem, work its magic.
The great variety and experimentation that characterised Springsteen's vocal performances on the Seeger Sessions album has also largely been abandoned in favour of a more stark contrast between belting with conviction and the more sombre tones of the title track or the uncredited 'Terry's Song' (a heartfelt tribute to his friend and colleague Terry McGovern who died recently). Springsteen sounds particularly stark and resigned on the title track, which is spare and beautiful.
It certainly isn't his greatest album lyrically either, occasionally sounding a little short on creative ideas. 'Radio Nowhere' is a great pop song, but it's hardly a new sentiment to lament modern American radio, and M Ward celebrated the golden era of radio with more insight on 'Transistor Radio'. It's brilliantly infectious though, and likely to provide Springsteen with his first real hit single in some time. Elsewhere, he occasionally seems stuck with benign platitudes or rather obvious statements, although I appreciate the melancholy sway of 'Girls In Their Summer Clothes' or the resigned longing of 'Long Walk Home'. Many criticised the apocalyptic and Biblical imagery of 'The Rising' as cliched and a means of avoiding challenging the more Patriotic element of his audience, but I'd take that dignified attempt at a poetic response over much of 'Magic'. 'Last To Die' may be the most adventurous moment lyrically here, but there's nothing close to his most recent masterpiece 'Long Time Comin' from 'Devils and Dust', with its rich, Cormac McCarthy-inspired manipulation of language.
The pre-release buzz for 'Magic' characterised it as a back-to-basics rock album and for once the press material is not entirely misleading. It's the most lightweight record Springsteen has made in some time, and far less concerned with contemporary context than his recent work. It doesn't quite have the playful zest of 'The River' though. For me, this album is at its best when it gets as soulful as it is hard-hitting. The slightly melancholy leanings of 'Girls In Their Summer Clothes' and 'Your Own Worst Enemy' invest them with greater emotional force.
The closing 'Devil's Arcade' is the only hint that Sprinsteen might ever return to the expansive, epic vision that informed 'Born To Run' and its flipside 'Darkness On The Edge of Town', but its a mesh of swirling atmospherics and meandering guitars rather than anything more focused or concerted. 'Magic' can be a little brutal and unsubtle at times, and there's certainly room for more light and shade. It is, however, easily digestible and occasionally fiery and thrilling.
Getting straight down to business, I'd say it's pretty unlikely that this one will give Springsteen another In League With Paton album of the year gong, although I don't suppose the great man will care too much about that. Ultimately, I much prefer the outstanding Seeger Sessions band Live in Dublin set from earlier in the year. It's churlish to complain though when Springsteen is clearly a rejuvenated force. He'd virtually retired in 2001 when he felt compelled to respond to the tragic events of 9/11. Since then, he's barely paused for breath, touring 'The Rising' with the same hardworking spirit that informed the juggernaut 'Born In The USA' tour, completing the piecemeal 'Devils and Dust' solo set, forming The Seeger Sessions band for a foray into the American folk tradition and taking it to its logical conclusion on the ensuing tour, transforming his own back catalogue in the process. It's been the most productive phase of his career so far, with Springsteen crediting his audience with the intelligence to follow him on some of his less predictable journeys.
'Magic' is not one of those journeys though. It's a retreat to what is now the relative safety of the E Street Band, and a conscious effort to recapture the modernised rock sound of 'The Rising', whilst foresaking its weighty concerns in favour of a more concise, unburdened vision. At its best, this is no bad thing at all, and the album is blessed with a clutch of major songs. 'Girls In Their Summer Clothes' and 'I'll Work For Your Love' return to the Spector preoccupations that informed 'Born To Run' whilst 'Long Walk Home' and 'Gypsy Biker' are massive powerhouse anthems - the kind of song that would sound embarrassing in any other hands, but which Springsteen's grit and integrity manage to make genuine.
There's much less trickery and gimmickery here than on 'The Rising', in spite of Springsteen's decision to again employ Brendan O'Brien as producer. Whilst the sound is drier and more organic, there is still the sense that O'Brien is doing his level best to obscure the E Street Band as a unit, increasing the emphasis on thudding drums and rhythmically uninteresting strummed guitars at the expense of Roy Bittan's piano or Danny Federici's organ. 'Livin' In The Future' sounds entertaining and has a deliciously slinky chorus, but the production places it dangerously close to the MOR funk of Maroon 5. 'You'll Be Comin' Down' is somewhat underwhelming too, more than a little clunky and plodding. There's also not nearly enough of Nils Lofgren's expressive slide guitar, whilst Clarence Clemons is restricted to short but intense interjections on the saxophone. Strangely, 'Magic' actually sounds much closer to 'Lucky Town' (the more unfairly maligned of Springsteen's non-E Street albums of the early 90s) than any of the E Street albums. Some of these songs, particularly 'Long Walk Home', 'Gypsy Biker', 'Last To Die' and 'Radio Nowhere' are going to sound spectacular live, when the band is given more space to, ahem, work its magic.
The great variety and experimentation that characterised Springsteen's vocal performances on the Seeger Sessions album has also largely been abandoned in favour of a more stark contrast between belting with conviction and the more sombre tones of the title track or the uncredited 'Terry's Song' (a heartfelt tribute to his friend and colleague Terry McGovern who died recently). Springsteen sounds particularly stark and resigned on the title track, which is spare and beautiful.
It certainly isn't his greatest album lyrically either, occasionally sounding a little short on creative ideas. 'Radio Nowhere' is a great pop song, but it's hardly a new sentiment to lament modern American radio, and M Ward celebrated the golden era of radio with more insight on 'Transistor Radio'. It's brilliantly infectious though, and likely to provide Springsteen with his first real hit single in some time. Elsewhere, he occasionally seems stuck with benign platitudes or rather obvious statements, although I appreciate the melancholy sway of 'Girls In Their Summer Clothes' or the resigned longing of 'Long Walk Home'. Many criticised the apocalyptic and Biblical imagery of 'The Rising' as cliched and a means of avoiding challenging the more Patriotic element of his audience, but I'd take that dignified attempt at a poetic response over much of 'Magic'. 'Last To Die' may be the most adventurous moment lyrically here, but there's nothing close to his most recent masterpiece 'Long Time Comin' from 'Devils and Dust', with its rich, Cormac McCarthy-inspired manipulation of language.
The pre-release buzz for 'Magic' characterised it as a back-to-basics rock album and for once the press material is not entirely misleading. It's the most lightweight record Springsteen has made in some time, and far less concerned with contemporary context than his recent work. It doesn't quite have the playful zest of 'The River' though. For me, this album is at its best when it gets as soulful as it is hard-hitting. The slightly melancholy leanings of 'Girls In Their Summer Clothes' and 'Your Own Worst Enemy' invest them with greater emotional force.
The closing 'Devil's Arcade' is the only hint that Sprinsteen might ever return to the expansive, epic vision that informed 'Born To Run' and its flipside 'Darkness On The Edge of Town', but its a mesh of swirling atmospherics and meandering guitars rather than anything more focused or concerted. 'Magic' can be a little brutal and unsubtle at times, and there's certainly room for more light and shade. It is, however, easily digestible and occasionally fiery and thrilling.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Reports of the Death of Culture Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
NB: Personal View – not written in a work capacity.
Until next Monday morning, you can hear a rather excellent edition of the BBC World Service arts programme Culture Shock here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/culture_shock.shtml
I draw attention to this programme because of the presence of ‘Web guru’ Andrew Keen, who argues that various aspects of Web 2.0 (the Blogosphere, social networking websites, Wikipedia etc) are ‘killing our culture’ (whose culture specifically?). Obviously, as a keen blogger (no pun intended!), I have a clear interest to declare, but this doesn’t blind me to some of Keen’s more interesting statements.
He’s absolutely right to argue for personal responsibility online in the same way that we (should) expect it offline, and his argument that ‘we have to shape technology as much as it shapes us’ is powerful and important. Most of us are indeed aware that the internet is a very diverse space, awash with as much spin, opinion and disinformation as it is with useful resources. It’s also particularly vulnerable to extreme expressions, frequently without the backing of academic research. Wikipedia is an insightful example, as anyone who has seen some of the maliciously edited entries will no doubt testify.
He also had an interesting, if flawed, point to make about ‘anonymity’. His statement that ‘anonymity’ (neglecting the fact that complete anonymity on the web is next to impossible for anyone who isn’t a mastermind hi-tech criminal) ‘is a kind of theft’ is particularly audacious. By writing without declaring their true identities, bloggers and volunteer Wikipedia editors are taking without giving anything back, assuming kudos and expertise that they have not necessarily earned or proved. Well, perhaps, but an individual need not necessarily provide their name and address to demonstrate their credentials, even if only in the interests of personal security. Keen argues from this that ‘permissiveness about intellectual property is a vital social question.’ He doesn’t, however, discuss any practical questions about how we might restrict citizens’ contributions to the internet. He also doesn’t attempt to argue why the democratic ideal of freedom of speech should not also apply in the online realm.
It is also a massive logical leap between these positions and the alarmist notion that a ‘cult of the amateur’ is undermining expertise. I’m sorry to disappoint Keen, but I don’t believe that all professional journalists are corrupt rogues being bribed by PR companies or political interest groups. I do believe, however, that they have jobs to do, with specific audiences, business interests or shareholders in mind. This is not to say that any of this is inherently evil, just that it’s worth recognising the factors that may shape the work of professional journalists and experts. The word ‘amateur’ needn’t be negative. In my case, I hope it simply means that I’m not writing with a specific audience in mind; that I don’t have to write about a particular record simply because someone has been ‘kind’ enough to send me a free copy and that I’m relatively unconcerned about backing something that might turn out to flop. I can write about a wider range of music and film, focussing on aspects of art and culture for which I have genuine enthusiasm, thus aiming for a more positive approach.
Of course, I’m free to get things wrong without discipline or censure (and regular readers will hopefully recognise that I usually correct myself when I do) – but I’m also free to correct inaccuracies and errors in the professional media when I spot them. For a recent example, the NME (not a paper particularly respected for its journalists’ knowledge of jazz) reported the sad death of Joe Zawinul, but its news item was riddled with errors, not only claiming that Miroslav Vitous was a guitarist (in fact, he’s one of the greatest acoustic bassists in the world), but also claiming that he and Jaco Pastorius were members of Weather Report simultaneously – an interesting prospect that never actually happened (Vitous left in 1974, replaced by Alphonso Johnson, Pastorius didn’t join until 1976)! Why Keen thinks a professional news reporter for the NME is intrinsically more likely to have ‘expertise’ than me (an individual passionate about a massive range of music), I find a little baffling. Keen talks about individual amateur writers needing to be held to account, but one of our roles can be holding those professionals who fail to check their facts to an appropriate level of accountability themselves!
It’s also worth noting that the lines between ‘professional’ and ‘amateur’ may not be as clearly demarcated as Keen implies. A number of professional journalists also maintain blogs, where they have more space to exposit their thoughts (no word limits!) and more freedom to express individual views that veer away from a particular editorial line. For anyone interested in music, I would heartily recommend John Mulvey’s Wild Mercury Sound blog at the Uncut magazine website (which very successfully helps promote the magazine whilst challenging some of its limitations), Simon Reynolds’ blissblog or Marcello Carlin’s fascinating and inspired Church of Me as great examples of this.
Keen’s most contentious point is that blogs ‘collectively confuse popular opinion’. This is a wholly misguided statement in my view. Firstly, blogs are by their nature not a collective enterprise but rather the expression of individual views, some more carefully justified than others. In his response to Keen, trend tracker Tim Jackson argued that the phenomenon of blogging allowed individual voices to share some of the power traditionally held by employers, pressure groups, institutions and corporations. Can Keen really suggest that blogs are more influential in influencing public opinion than the tabloid press or broadcast media? This would assume that blogs are far more widely read than they actually are!
Rather flippantly, Keen states that ‘if culture is free then you get what you pay for and it’s usually crap.’ Keen has much of value to say, and his argument that the future of the web should depend more on expertise than hearsay is convincing. Yet his assumption that permissiveness always breeds decline and degradation is dangerous, and fails to credit individual internet users with enough intelligence to select which blogs to read and to corroborate whatever information they may find with other sources. It’s rather frustrating that, in the interview at least, Keen fails to differentiate between those bloggers with clear passion and enthusiasm for their subject, and those self-interested writers simply looking to promote themselves. I don’t feel that by writing and publishing this website, I’m somehow participating in a devaluation of culture, rigour and expertise. Instead I hope I’m helping to challenge commonly held assumptions about where expertise might lie, and perhaps even aid cultural discourse. It’s a fascinating debate, and it seems entirely appropriate that the BBC should give voice to someone emphasising rigour, fact-checking and expertise, important elements in the wider virtue of impartiality. However, the idea that ‘professional’ always equates with qualified and ‘amateur’ always means ignorant is itself misleading.
Until next Monday morning, you can hear a rather excellent edition of the BBC World Service arts programme Culture Shock here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/culture_shock.shtml
I draw attention to this programme because of the presence of ‘Web guru’ Andrew Keen, who argues that various aspects of Web 2.0 (the Blogosphere, social networking websites, Wikipedia etc) are ‘killing our culture’ (whose culture specifically?). Obviously, as a keen blogger (no pun intended!), I have a clear interest to declare, but this doesn’t blind me to some of Keen’s more interesting statements.
He’s absolutely right to argue for personal responsibility online in the same way that we (should) expect it offline, and his argument that ‘we have to shape technology as much as it shapes us’ is powerful and important. Most of us are indeed aware that the internet is a very diverse space, awash with as much spin, opinion and disinformation as it is with useful resources. It’s also particularly vulnerable to extreme expressions, frequently without the backing of academic research. Wikipedia is an insightful example, as anyone who has seen some of the maliciously edited entries will no doubt testify.
He also had an interesting, if flawed, point to make about ‘anonymity’. His statement that ‘anonymity’ (neglecting the fact that complete anonymity on the web is next to impossible for anyone who isn’t a mastermind hi-tech criminal) ‘is a kind of theft’ is particularly audacious. By writing without declaring their true identities, bloggers and volunteer Wikipedia editors are taking without giving anything back, assuming kudos and expertise that they have not necessarily earned or proved. Well, perhaps, but an individual need not necessarily provide their name and address to demonstrate their credentials, even if only in the interests of personal security. Keen argues from this that ‘permissiveness about intellectual property is a vital social question.’ He doesn’t, however, discuss any practical questions about how we might restrict citizens’ contributions to the internet. He also doesn’t attempt to argue why the democratic ideal of freedom of speech should not also apply in the online realm.
It is also a massive logical leap between these positions and the alarmist notion that a ‘cult of the amateur’ is undermining expertise. I’m sorry to disappoint Keen, but I don’t believe that all professional journalists are corrupt rogues being bribed by PR companies or political interest groups. I do believe, however, that they have jobs to do, with specific audiences, business interests or shareholders in mind. This is not to say that any of this is inherently evil, just that it’s worth recognising the factors that may shape the work of professional journalists and experts. The word ‘amateur’ needn’t be negative. In my case, I hope it simply means that I’m not writing with a specific audience in mind; that I don’t have to write about a particular record simply because someone has been ‘kind’ enough to send me a free copy and that I’m relatively unconcerned about backing something that might turn out to flop. I can write about a wider range of music and film, focussing on aspects of art and culture for which I have genuine enthusiasm, thus aiming for a more positive approach.
Of course, I’m free to get things wrong without discipline or censure (and regular readers will hopefully recognise that I usually correct myself when I do) – but I’m also free to correct inaccuracies and errors in the professional media when I spot them. For a recent example, the NME (not a paper particularly respected for its journalists’ knowledge of jazz) reported the sad death of Joe Zawinul, but its news item was riddled with errors, not only claiming that Miroslav Vitous was a guitarist (in fact, he’s one of the greatest acoustic bassists in the world), but also claiming that he and Jaco Pastorius were members of Weather Report simultaneously – an interesting prospect that never actually happened (Vitous left in 1974, replaced by Alphonso Johnson, Pastorius didn’t join until 1976)! Why Keen thinks a professional news reporter for the NME is intrinsically more likely to have ‘expertise’ than me (an individual passionate about a massive range of music), I find a little baffling. Keen talks about individual amateur writers needing to be held to account, but one of our roles can be holding those professionals who fail to check their facts to an appropriate level of accountability themselves!
It’s also worth noting that the lines between ‘professional’ and ‘amateur’ may not be as clearly demarcated as Keen implies. A number of professional journalists also maintain blogs, where they have more space to exposit their thoughts (no word limits!) and more freedom to express individual views that veer away from a particular editorial line. For anyone interested in music, I would heartily recommend John Mulvey’s Wild Mercury Sound blog at the Uncut magazine website (which very successfully helps promote the magazine whilst challenging some of its limitations), Simon Reynolds’ blissblog or Marcello Carlin’s fascinating and inspired Church of Me as great examples of this.
Keen’s most contentious point is that blogs ‘collectively confuse popular opinion’. This is a wholly misguided statement in my view. Firstly, blogs are by their nature not a collective enterprise but rather the expression of individual views, some more carefully justified than others. In his response to Keen, trend tracker Tim Jackson argued that the phenomenon of blogging allowed individual voices to share some of the power traditionally held by employers, pressure groups, institutions and corporations. Can Keen really suggest that blogs are more influential in influencing public opinion than the tabloid press or broadcast media? This would assume that blogs are far more widely read than they actually are!
Rather flippantly, Keen states that ‘if culture is free then you get what you pay for and it’s usually crap.’ Keen has much of value to say, and his argument that the future of the web should depend more on expertise than hearsay is convincing. Yet his assumption that permissiveness always breeds decline and degradation is dangerous, and fails to credit individual internet users with enough intelligence to select which blogs to read and to corroborate whatever information they may find with other sources. It’s rather frustrating that, in the interview at least, Keen fails to differentiate between those bloggers with clear passion and enthusiasm for their subject, and those self-interested writers simply looking to promote themselves. I don’t feel that by writing and publishing this website, I’m somehow participating in a devaluation of culture, rigour and expertise. Instead I hope I’m helping to challenge commonly held assumptions about where expertise might lie, and perhaps even aid cultural discourse. It’s a fascinating debate, and it seems entirely appropriate that the BBC should give voice to someone emphasising rigour, fact-checking and expertise, important elements in the wider virtue of impartiality. However, the idea that ‘professional’ always equates with qualified and ‘amateur’ always means ignorant is itself misleading.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Tending To The Flock
Iron and Wine - The Shepherd's Dog
Perhaps I’ve waxed lyrical about Iron and Wine more than enough on these pages already but I can’t help feeling that ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’ deserves special attention as the first Iron and Wine album to explore the full possibilities of an ensemble sound. Most likely inspired by the outstanding collaboration with Calexico from a couple of years ago (indeed, Joey Burns and Paul Niehaus from that wonderful group both appear here), Sam Beam has now delivered rich and inventive arrangements to match his deeply compelling songs.
Lyrically, Beam continues to look like a true original and a master of language. His images are at once elusive and pure (‘love was a promise made of smoke in a frozen copse of trees’) and he has a peculiar knack for unusual juxtapositions (‘Cain got a milk eyed mule from the auction, Abel got a telephone’ or ‘springtime and the promise of an open fist’). Somehow, these words always seem to flow softly and elegantly (no doubt Beam’s beautifully understated delivery helps in this regard) and always evoke feelings rather than obscuring them.
Those who, like me, deeply admire Beam’s talent for composing ballads in the true sense of the term – long, storytelling songs with languid melodies – may be disappointed that his masterful song ‘The Trapeze Swinger’ is rarely used as a template here. There is the gorgeous ‘Resurrection Fern’, which closely resembles that song, albeit in far more concise form. Its chorus is almost unspeakably beautiful (‘we’ll undress beside the ashes of the fire/both our tender bellies wrapped around in bailing wire/all the more an underwater pearl than the oak tree and its resurrection fern’), bolstered by Paul Niehaus’ subtle but stirring pedal steel. The closing ‘Flightless Bird, American Mouth’ also has something of a soulful lilt to it, and is characteristically tender and affecting.
For most of ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’, though, Beam explores the more rhythmically driven, bluesy aspects of his work, to increasingly powerful effect. I think I credited Beam with pioneering something approaching an ‘American folk minimalism. This felt like a neat categorisation at the time but now seems hopelessly inadequate. ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’ is Beam’s most brazenly percussive work to date, both in terms of its deployment of a range of percussion instruments (but never a conventional drum kit) and in the style of guitar playing Beam deploys throughout. As a result, ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’ achieves much in retracing some of the lost connections between Appalachian blues and African desert music. ‘House By The Sea’ sounds closer to Ali Farka Toure than Bob Dylan (albeit with a hint of Roger McGuinn in the guitar solos), and there are echoes of the repetitive, hypnotic grooves of the Touareg masters Tinariwen, particularly on ‘Wolves (Song of the Shepherd’s Dog)’ or first single ‘Boy With A Coin’.
Somehow I hadn’t quite latched on to just how many of these songs Beam performed at his special show at the Spitz a couple of months ago. As a result many of the melodies and lyrical ideas already seem recognisable, but the overall sound of the record is somewhat unexpected and fascinating. This makes for an enchanting combination of distance and familiarity. There are all manner of sounds that seem alien to the trademark Iron and Wine sound – cello, soulful Wurlitzer, scratchy guitars, the delightful honky tonk piano on ‘The Devil Never Sleeps’, perhaps what might even be the odd intervention of electronics. The deep connection with the blues is still at the heart of this music, but the feel is now less rustic and more elastic.
Beam is an extraordinary songwriter capable of vivid, dreamlike songs that conjure their own weird combination of romanticism and danger. He would still be a significant artist even were he content to continue simply as an acoustic troubadour. That he has found new contexts for his elegiac words and melodies makes hiw work all the more expressive and powerful.
Perhaps I’ve waxed lyrical about Iron and Wine more than enough on these pages already but I can’t help feeling that ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’ deserves special attention as the first Iron and Wine album to explore the full possibilities of an ensemble sound. Most likely inspired by the outstanding collaboration with Calexico from a couple of years ago (indeed, Joey Burns and Paul Niehaus from that wonderful group both appear here), Sam Beam has now delivered rich and inventive arrangements to match his deeply compelling songs.
Lyrically, Beam continues to look like a true original and a master of language. His images are at once elusive and pure (‘love was a promise made of smoke in a frozen copse of trees’) and he has a peculiar knack for unusual juxtapositions (‘Cain got a milk eyed mule from the auction, Abel got a telephone’ or ‘springtime and the promise of an open fist’). Somehow, these words always seem to flow softly and elegantly (no doubt Beam’s beautifully understated delivery helps in this regard) and always evoke feelings rather than obscuring them.
Those who, like me, deeply admire Beam’s talent for composing ballads in the true sense of the term – long, storytelling songs with languid melodies – may be disappointed that his masterful song ‘The Trapeze Swinger’ is rarely used as a template here. There is the gorgeous ‘Resurrection Fern’, which closely resembles that song, albeit in far more concise form. Its chorus is almost unspeakably beautiful (‘we’ll undress beside the ashes of the fire/both our tender bellies wrapped around in bailing wire/all the more an underwater pearl than the oak tree and its resurrection fern’), bolstered by Paul Niehaus’ subtle but stirring pedal steel. The closing ‘Flightless Bird, American Mouth’ also has something of a soulful lilt to it, and is characteristically tender and affecting.
For most of ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’, though, Beam explores the more rhythmically driven, bluesy aspects of his work, to increasingly powerful effect. I think I credited Beam with pioneering something approaching an ‘American folk minimalism. This felt like a neat categorisation at the time but now seems hopelessly inadequate. ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’ is Beam’s most brazenly percussive work to date, both in terms of its deployment of a range of percussion instruments (but never a conventional drum kit) and in the style of guitar playing Beam deploys throughout. As a result, ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’ achieves much in retracing some of the lost connections between Appalachian blues and African desert music. ‘House By The Sea’ sounds closer to Ali Farka Toure than Bob Dylan (albeit with a hint of Roger McGuinn in the guitar solos), and there are echoes of the repetitive, hypnotic grooves of the Touareg masters Tinariwen, particularly on ‘Wolves (Song of the Shepherd’s Dog)’ or first single ‘Boy With A Coin’.
Somehow I hadn’t quite latched on to just how many of these songs Beam performed at his special show at the Spitz a couple of months ago. As a result many of the melodies and lyrical ideas already seem recognisable, but the overall sound of the record is somewhat unexpected and fascinating. This makes for an enchanting combination of distance and familiarity. There are all manner of sounds that seem alien to the trademark Iron and Wine sound – cello, soulful Wurlitzer, scratchy guitars, the delightful honky tonk piano on ‘The Devil Never Sleeps’, perhaps what might even be the odd intervention of electronics. The deep connection with the blues is still at the heart of this music, but the feel is now less rustic and more elastic.
Beam is an extraordinary songwriter capable of vivid, dreamlike songs that conjure their own weird combination of romanticism and danger. He would still be a significant artist even were he content to continue simply as an acoustic troubadour. That he has found new contexts for his elegiac words and melodies makes hiw work all the more expressive and powerful.
Ghosts in the Machine
PJ Harvey's 'White Chalk'
PJ Harvey clearly has little care for continuity. With each new album, she has reinvented herself. She indulged her fiery rage and righteous hatred on ‘Rid Of Me’, explored erotic mysteries on ‘To Bring You My Love’ and ‘Is This Desire?’, ventured into relatively conventional rock terrain for the Mercury winning ‘Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea’ and vented uncomplicated aggression on ‘Uh Huh Her’. Her latest venture, ‘White Chalk’, may well represent her most audacious transformation yet. It’s certainly the least commercial record she’s made in some time, in a career where commercial concerns rarely, if ever, seem to have been a significant factor.
At just 36 minutes long, one might be forgiven for inserting it into a CD player and expecting a set of snappy pop songs. Polly Harvey rarely takes such a comfortable route though of course. ‘White Chalk’ is in fact as confrontational and austere a record as I’ve heard this year. The majority of these songs were composed at the piano, and feature Polly pushing, occasionally straining, into the upper reaches of her vocal register. Formally trained pianists may wish to turn away now, for Polly is undoubtedly something of a novice at the old ivories, and much of the touch here is rather plinky-plonk.
There is, however, something eerily appropriate about this approach, particularly in the way it has directed Harvey towards a kind of chamber-noir sound. For much of ‘White Chalk’, Polly seems to be revelling in nostalgia for old lands, old times and a child’s loss of innocence. This being a PJ Harvey album though, it’s not the heart-warming, or even the melancholy form of nostalgic reverie. There’s a simmering malice and macabre chill throughout ‘White Chalk’ that creates unresolved tensions of the most cloying and uncomfortable kind. The skeletal piano and Yoko Ono-esque vocals serve to heighten and emphasise this discomfort.
The wonderful ‘Silence’, perhaps the album’s best track, begins ‘All those places where I recall/The memories that gripped me and pinned me down’. It sets the scene for the intense drama that plays out in the rest of the song, and also neatly summarises the album’s distinctive themes. Memory here has an inevitable, unavoidable force but is also stifling and disconcerting.
Both the title track and ‘Grow Grow Grow’ seem to revisit childhood. The latter is clearly an exploration of burgeoning child sexuality (‘Teach me Mummy how to grow, how to catch someone’s fancy beneath the twisted oak grove’), delivered almost as a fairytale. There are echoes of Angela Carter’s ‘The Company of Wolves’ here, with its Freudian take on the Little Red Riding Hood story. ‘White Chalk’ itself is one of the more immediately appealing songs in this set, and one of the few to favour the rustle of an acoustic guitar over the more weighty backing of the piano. Harvey sings of ‘white chalk, sticking to my shoes, playing as a child with you’ and, rather more chillingly, claims that ‘these chalk hills will rot my bones’. There’s a majestic flow to the song that builds as it progresses.
Elsewhere, there’s an unrestrained longing that frequently boils over into desperation, from the malevolent cry at the heart of ‘The Devil’ (‘Come! Come! Come here at once!’) to the burning desire of ‘The Piano’. Much of this is reinforced by the stately yet quietly terrifying arrangements of these songs, from vivid vocal harmonies to soft, rustling percussion. Nick Cave’s ‘The Boatman’s Call’ has been cited as an obvious reference point, but where that album largely saw Cave abandon his trademark menace for more spiritual and romantic concerns, ‘White Chalk’ is as unsettling and troubling a record as Harvey has yet produced. Similarly, comparisons with Tori Amos and Kate Bush are largely unhelpful. There is mercifully nothing of Amos’ forced kookiness here, and if ‘White Chalk’ echoes some of Bush’s recent preoccupations with nature, that is only in the propensity of the natural world to evoke feeling and prompt memory. ‘White Chalk’ occupies its own peculiar space – a world that is creepy and bleak but thoroughly bewitching. On the surface, it’s completely uninviting, but ultimately it’s irresistibly tempting.
PJ Harvey clearly has little care for continuity. With each new album, she has reinvented herself. She indulged her fiery rage and righteous hatred on ‘Rid Of Me’, explored erotic mysteries on ‘To Bring You My Love’ and ‘Is This Desire?’, ventured into relatively conventional rock terrain for the Mercury winning ‘Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea’ and vented uncomplicated aggression on ‘Uh Huh Her’. Her latest venture, ‘White Chalk’, may well represent her most audacious transformation yet. It’s certainly the least commercial record she’s made in some time, in a career where commercial concerns rarely, if ever, seem to have been a significant factor.
At just 36 minutes long, one might be forgiven for inserting it into a CD player and expecting a set of snappy pop songs. Polly Harvey rarely takes such a comfortable route though of course. ‘White Chalk’ is in fact as confrontational and austere a record as I’ve heard this year. The majority of these songs were composed at the piano, and feature Polly pushing, occasionally straining, into the upper reaches of her vocal register. Formally trained pianists may wish to turn away now, for Polly is undoubtedly something of a novice at the old ivories, and much of the touch here is rather plinky-plonk.
There is, however, something eerily appropriate about this approach, particularly in the way it has directed Harvey towards a kind of chamber-noir sound. For much of ‘White Chalk’, Polly seems to be revelling in nostalgia for old lands, old times and a child’s loss of innocence. This being a PJ Harvey album though, it’s not the heart-warming, or even the melancholy form of nostalgic reverie. There’s a simmering malice and macabre chill throughout ‘White Chalk’ that creates unresolved tensions of the most cloying and uncomfortable kind. The skeletal piano and Yoko Ono-esque vocals serve to heighten and emphasise this discomfort.
The wonderful ‘Silence’, perhaps the album’s best track, begins ‘All those places where I recall/The memories that gripped me and pinned me down’. It sets the scene for the intense drama that plays out in the rest of the song, and also neatly summarises the album’s distinctive themes. Memory here has an inevitable, unavoidable force but is also stifling and disconcerting.
Both the title track and ‘Grow Grow Grow’ seem to revisit childhood. The latter is clearly an exploration of burgeoning child sexuality (‘Teach me Mummy how to grow, how to catch someone’s fancy beneath the twisted oak grove’), delivered almost as a fairytale. There are echoes of Angela Carter’s ‘The Company of Wolves’ here, with its Freudian take on the Little Red Riding Hood story. ‘White Chalk’ itself is one of the more immediately appealing songs in this set, and one of the few to favour the rustle of an acoustic guitar over the more weighty backing of the piano. Harvey sings of ‘white chalk, sticking to my shoes, playing as a child with you’ and, rather more chillingly, claims that ‘these chalk hills will rot my bones’. There’s a majestic flow to the song that builds as it progresses.
Elsewhere, there’s an unrestrained longing that frequently boils over into desperation, from the malevolent cry at the heart of ‘The Devil’ (‘Come! Come! Come here at once!’) to the burning desire of ‘The Piano’. Much of this is reinforced by the stately yet quietly terrifying arrangements of these songs, from vivid vocal harmonies to soft, rustling percussion. Nick Cave’s ‘The Boatman’s Call’ has been cited as an obvious reference point, but where that album largely saw Cave abandon his trademark menace for more spiritual and romantic concerns, ‘White Chalk’ is as unsettling and troubling a record as Harvey has yet produced. Similarly, comparisons with Tori Amos and Kate Bush are largely unhelpful. There is mercifully nothing of Amos’ forced kookiness here, and if ‘White Chalk’ echoes some of Bush’s recent preoccupations with nature, that is only in the propensity of the natural world to evoke feeling and prompt memory. ‘White Chalk’ occupies its own peculiar space – a world that is creepy and bleak but thoroughly bewitching. On the surface, it’s completely uninviting, but ultimately it’s irresistibly tempting.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Spaced Oddity
Elmore Judd - Insect Funk
Elmore Judd are an unusual group comprising some of North London’s finest musicians, including the superb drummer Tom Skinner and keyboardist-songwriter Jesse Hackett, with whom I used to attend Ian Carr’s jazz workshops at the WAC Performing Arts and Media College. Hackett has been both shrewd and fortuitous in making useful friends through his participation in Damon Albarn’s Mali Music project. The result was a deal with the excellent Honest Jon’s label (so far mainly responsible for the rediscovering of soul legends such as Candi Staton, Bettye Swann and Willie Hightower), in which Albarn has a stake.
The group have already been acclaimed as ‘genuine innovators’ by Blues and Soul magazine, although they undoubtedly wear their influences rather proudly. What is most interesting about Hackett’s approach is the way that he has conducted something of a smash-and-grab raid on recent musical history. The opening ‘Pirate Song’ sounds like a Tom Waits song, and could have fitted comfortably on Hal Wilner and Gore Verbinski’s ‘Rogue’s Gallery’ pirate compilation from last year. ‘Dead Men Walk In A Straight 9’, with its rather bizarre oom-pah backing, mines similar ground. Skinner’s drums, emphasising beats against the main pulse, pull it in other directions, creating a perplexing, perhaps drunken sense of creeping unease.
Elsewhere, the sound is deliberately skeletal, somewhere close to Hot Chip (particularly on the synth-heavy erotic squelch of ‘Funky Nerd’) but with the dry, ironic humour extracted. ‘Disco in 4 Time’ and ‘We Float In Time’ have a similarly relentless four-to-the-floor backbeat to that deployed by LCD Soundsystem and many of the other DFA acts. By way of contrast, though, the title track is radical and off-kilter, with peculiar interlocking cartoonish vocals. ‘Ultra Busy’ has a disorientating, sub-aquatic feel that may well have been influenced by ‘Bitches Brew’ era Miles Davis. They are both perverse delights.
Although Hackett, his brother Louis and drummer Skinner are all virtuosic talents, there’s more creativity than showmanship on display on ‘Insect Funk’ and it’s all the more successful because of this commendable restraint. The group dynamic involves exploring the full possibility of sound and its manipulation and there is an extraordinary attention to detail on display here. Few bands vary their texture so greatly simply through the drum sound for example – there are lightly brushed drums, electronically manipulated, flat-sounding drums, and intricate, expressive percussion tracks. The guitar and keyboard lines are carefully mapped too, always simple and adding something to the atmosphere or the groove. Hackett is not so techinically gifted as a singer, but he achieves a mysterious quality through his breathy falsetto and enigmatic murmurings. ‘Insect Funk’ is slippery but insidious and undoubtedly impressive. It would be great to see this band break out of the restrictive London bubble.
Elmore Judd are an unusual group comprising some of North London’s finest musicians, including the superb drummer Tom Skinner and keyboardist-songwriter Jesse Hackett, with whom I used to attend Ian Carr’s jazz workshops at the WAC Performing Arts and Media College. Hackett has been both shrewd and fortuitous in making useful friends through his participation in Damon Albarn’s Mali Music project. The result was a deal with the excellent Honest Jon’s label (so far mainly responsible for the rediscovering of soul legends such as Candi Staton, Bettye Swann and Willie Hightower), in which Albarn has a stake.
The group have already been acclaimed as ‘genuine innovators’ by Blues and Soul magazine, although they undoubtedly wear their influences rather proudly. What is most interesting about Hackett’s approach is the way that he has conducted something of a smash-and-grab raid on recent musical history. The opening ‘Pirate Song’ sounds like a Tom Waits song, and could have fitted comfortably on Hal Wilner and Gore Verbinski’s ‘Rogue’s Gallery’ pirate compilation from last year. ‘Dead Men Walk In A Straight 9’, with its rather bizarre oom-pah backing, mines similar ground. Skinner’s drums, emphasising beats against the main pulse, pull it in other directions, creating a perplexing, perhaps drunken sense of creeping unease.
Elsewhere, the sound is deliberately skeletal, somewhere close to Hot Chip (particularly on the synth-heavy erotic squelch of ‘Funky Nerd’) but with the dry, ironic humour extracted. ‘Disco in 4 Time’ and ‘We Float In Time’ have a similarly relentless four-to-the-floor backbeat to that deployed by LCD Soundsystem and many of the other DFA acts. By way of contrast, though, the title track is radical and off-kilter, with peculiar interlocking cartoonish vocals. ‘Ultra Busy’ has a disorientating, sub-aquatic feel that may well have been influenced by ‘Bitches Brew’ era Miles Davis. They are both perverse delights.
Although Hackett, his brother Louis and drummer Skinner are all virtuosic talents, there’s more creativity than showmanship on display on ‘Insect Funk’ and it’s all the more successful because of this commendable restraint. The group dynamic involves exploring the full possibility of sound and its manipulation and there is an extraordinary attention to detail on display here. Few bands vary their texture so greatly simply through the drum sound for example – there are lightly brushed drums, electronically manipulated, flat-sounding drums, and intricate, expressive percussion tracks. The guitar and keyboard lines are carefully mapped too, always simple and adding something to the atmosphere or the groove. Hackett is not so techinically gifted as a singer, but he achieves a mysterious quality through his breathy falsetto and enigmatic murmurings. ‘Insect Funk’ is slippery but insidious and undoubtedly impressive. It would be great to see this band break out of the restrictive London bubble.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Some Of The Dates Have Been Changed...
Nevermind US sub-prime mortgages - it was next Monday's album releases that were the most likely cause of financial disaster for me. Luckily, things are looking a little more staggered now. Here's an updated schedule for the next few weeks:
Sep 24th
Iron and Wine - The Shepherd's Dog
PJ Harvey - White Chalk
Bettye Lavette - Scene Of The Crime
Manu Katche - Playground
Oct 1st
Bruce Springsteen - Magic
Steve Earle - Washington Square Serenade (moved from Sep 24th)
Scott Walker - And Who Shall Go To The Ball? And What Shall Go To The Ball? (moved from Sep 24th)
Oct 8th
Supersilent - 8 (moved from Sep 24th)
Band Of Horses - Cease To Begin (moved from Oct 1st)
Robert Wyatt - Comicopera (already reviewed here!)
Sep 24th
Iron and Wine - The Shepherd's Dog
PJ Harvey - White Chalk
Bettye Lavette - Scene Of The Crime
Manu Katche - Playground
Oct 1st
Bruce Springsteen - Magic
Steve Earle - Washington Square Serenade (moved from Sep 24th)
Scott Walker - And Who Shall Go To The Ball? And What Shall Go To The Ball? (moved from Sep 24th)
Oct 8th
Supersilent - 8 (moved from Sep 24th)
Band Of Horses - Cease To Begin (moved from Oct 1st)
Robert Wyatt - Comicopera (already reviewed here!)
Languages of Love
Sylvie Lewis - Translations
Can I really be in love with a woman I’ve not even seen in person let alone met? Not really of course, but there’s certainly something rather enchanting about Sylvie Lewis. Born in Britain but now living in Rome, Lewis has led a remarkably itinerant lifestyle, including four years at the prestigious Berklee School of Music. This college is famous for having produced a number of quality jazz musicians, but its considerably rarer to find singer-songwriters among its alumni (and they tend towards the intellectual end of the spectrum – Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen for example).
Lewis’ lovely second album ‘Translations’ is loosely themed around complexities of language and communication and it has a delicate, old-time feel evidencing her formal training. Whilst there are elements of folk and classic pop, there are also strong hints of the jazz tradition, cabaret and show-tunes thrown into a thoroughly beguiling mix. In its deft handling of a variety of old-fashioned styles, it’s not a million miles from the recent explorations of Erin McKeown or Jolie Holland but there’s such a lightness of touch here that Lewis stands in a class of her own. Her consummate delivery is relaxed, effortless and commendably understated. There’s no attempt whatsoever to admonish the listener with crass dexterity or virtuosity, but rather a completely natural command of both phrasing and melody.
The delicate, playful quality of these songs will no doubt mean that appreciation depends on the individual listener’s tolerance for whimsy. Personally, I find these songs whimsical in the most delightful way – charming, graceful, insightful and spellbinding. It’s not just a collection of great songs, but also packed full of captivating moments too, such as the coda to ‘Cheap Ain’t Free’, where the music suddenly veers away from jaunty barroom jazz to pure Burt Bacharach-meets-Karen Carpenter schmaltz. Alternatively, there’s also ‘Starsong’, which begins with a lushly romantic voice and guitar introduction before moving into a light-hearted ragtime bounce. There are also lovely touches in the instrumentation too, with the focus shifting between softly strummed acoustic guitar to subtle piano. Richard Swift provides entrancing swathes of mellotron on a handful of tracks, and there are some very canny arrangements for strings, brass and woodwind.
‘Translations’ is an apt title for this record in so many ways, not only dealing as it does with communication and the language of love, but also capturing shared experience between a variety of different situations. This is an open-minded collection of songs where a variety of narratives intertwine, with a handful of the songs seemingly written in character from a male perspective. Lewis’ lyrics are mostly direct and unpretentious, sometimes exploring a casual manipulation of language. The opening lines to ‘Say in Touch’ are particularly charming: ‘He’s got a lover in New York/Likes to mention her in casual talk/Whenever they meet, they don’t speak much/When they meet they say in touch.’ Throughout, there’s a strong sense of wisdom gained through experience, although it’s consistently delivered in an entertaining, playful spirit.
These songs conjure a plausible world where conventional impressions of beauty can be both inspiring and oppressive, and Lewis subtly manages to challenge these conventions in the process on songs such as ‘Cheap Ain’t Free’ and ‘Death By Beauty’. On ‘Happy Like That’ she perceptively observes the flirtations of married men in late night bars (‘You want to be wanted, just a taste/But you push it to the edge because you know that you’re safe’) and, by way of contrast, there’s also the wonderfully breezy settle-for-singledom charm of ‘If It Don’t Come Easy’, with its insistent handclaps and chiming guitars. ‘Old Queens, Monet and Me’ doesn’t just dare to rhyme ‘Dubonnet’ with ‘Monet’ but also comes with a healthy dose of irony (‘as for music, all the good songs are covers anyway!’).
The album’s centrepiece is a splendid piano-laden love ballad in waltz time called ‘Of Course, Isobel’ which comes with just enough ambiguity to withstand a number of possible interpretations. It starts off sounding like a heartfelt plea from father to daughter (‘you don’t write you don’t call….Three women in my life I have loved well/My mother, my wife and, of course, Isobel’), but it could even be a love song to an estranged lover (‘when I tell my side, you made a plaything of my heart/You make love entertainment when for me love is art!’). Either way, it’s an exquisite and beautiful song, satisfying in its conventional resolutions.
Whilst this album has a very pure and comforting sound, the fact that it ends on its most elusive and mysterious song (‘Your Voice Carries’, more reliant on atmosphere than melody) suggests that there are other directions in which Lewis could travel, should she opt to follow these paths. For now, though, ‘Translations’ is an invigorating breath of fresh air.
Can I really be in love with a woman I’ve not even seen in person let alone met? Not really of course, but there’s certainly something rather enchanting about Sylvie Lewis. Born in Britain but now living in Rome, Lewis has led a remarkably itinerant lifestyle, including four years at the prestigious Berklee School of Music. This college is famous for having produced a number of quality jazz musicians, but its considerably rarer to find singer-songwriters among its alumni (and they tend towards the intellectual end of the spectrum – Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen for example).
Lewis’ lovely second album ‘Translations’ is loosely themed around complexities of language and communication and it has a delicate, old-time feel evidencing her formal training. Whilst there are elements of folk and classic pop, there are also strong hints of the jazz tradition, cabaret and show-tunes thrown into a thoroughly beguiling mix. In its deft handling of a variety of old-fashioned styles, it’s not a million miles from the recent explorations of Erin McKeown or Jolie Holland but there’s such a lightness of touch here that Lewis stands in a class of her own. Her consummate delivery is relaxed, effortless and commendably understated. There’s no attempt whatsoever to admonish the listener with crass dexterity or virtuosity, but rather a completely natural command of both phrasing and melody.
The delicate, playful quality of these songs will no doubt mean that appreciation depends on the individual listener’s tolerance for whimsy. Personally, I find these songs whimsical in the most delightful way – charming, graceful, insightful and spellbinding. It’s not just a collection of great songs, but also packed full of captivating moments too, such as the coda to ‘Cheap Ain’t Free’, where the music suddenly veers away from jaunty barroom jazz to pure Burt Bacharach-meets-Karen Carpenter schmaltz. Alternatively, there’s also ‘Starsong’, which begins with a lushly romantic voice and guitar introduction before moving into a light-hearted ragtime bounce. There are also lovely touches in the instrumentation too, with the focus shifting between softly strummed acoustic guitar to subtle piano. Richard Swift provides entrancing swathes of mellotron on a handful of tracks, and there are some very canny arrangements for strings, brass and woodwind.
‘Translations’ is an apt title for this record in so many ways, not only dealing as it does with communication and the language of love, but also capturing shared experience between a variety of different situations. This is an open-minded collection of songs where a variety of narratives intertwine, with a handful of the songs seemingly written in character from a male perspective. Lewis’ lyrics are mostly direct and unpretentious, sometimes exploring a casual manipulation of language. The opening lines to ‘Say in Touch’ are particularly charming: ‘He’s got a lover in New York/Likes to mention her in casual talk/Whenever they meet, they don’t speak much/When they meet they say in touch.’ Throughout, there’s a strong sense of wisdom gained through experience, although it’s consistently delivered in an entertaining, playful spirit.
These songs conjure a plausible world where conventional impressions of beauty can be both inspiring and oppressive, and Lewis subtly manages to challenge these conventions in the process on songs such as ‘Cheap Ain’t Free’ and ‘Death By Beauty’. On ‘Happy Like That’ she perceptively observes the flirtations of married men in late night bars (‘You want to be wanted, just a taste/But you push it to the edge because you know that you’re safe’) and, by way of contrast, there’s also the wonderfully breezy settle-for-singledom charm of ‘If It Don’t Come Easy’, with its insistent handclaps and chiming guitars. ‘Old Queens, Monet and Me’ doesn’t just dare to rhyme ‘Dubonnet’ with ‘Monet’ but also comes with a healthy dose of irony (‘as for music, all the good songs are covers anyway!’).
The album’s centrepiece is a splendid piano-laden love ballad in waltz time called ‘Of Course, Isobel’ which comes with just enough ambiguity to withstand a number of possible interpretations. It starts off sounding like a heartfelt plea from father to daughter (‘you don’t write you don’t call….Three women in my life I have loved well/My mother, my wife and, of course, Isobel’), but it could even be a love song to an estranged lover (‘when I tell my side, you made a plaything of my heart/You make love entertainment when for me love is art!’). Either way, it’s an exquisite and beautiful song, satisfying in its conventional resolutions.
Whilst this album has a very pure and comforting sound, the fact that it ends on its most elusive and mysterious song (‘Your Voice Carries’, more reliant on atmosphere than melody) suggests that there are other directions in which Lewis could travel, should she opt to follow these paths. For now, though, ‘Translations’ is an invigorating breath of fresh air.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Old Friends, Sat On A Park Bench Like Bookends
Kevin Ayers - The Unfairground
Robert Wyatt - Comicopera
It’s a special couple of months that sees these two pioneering collaborators (both Soft Machine alumni) both releasing new albums. Wyatt’s output has stayed restlessly creative over recent years, with a series of largely home-recorded albums demonstrating the continued flowering of his remarkable genius. As a composer, he is continually pushing himself in new directions, and he remains one of the most insightful and inventive of pop writers. ‘Cuckooland’ and now ‘Comicopera’ may show him becoming increasingly accessible but he is still completely fearless in his themes and juxtapositions, far from any comfortable or classifiable terrain. Yet, in some ways, it’s the Ayers album, whilst decidedly more conventional, that is the more unexpected. It’s this hermetic figure’s first recording for over fifteen years, and it is a remarkably dignified and unassuming disc. Wyatt himself is among the numerous guests on ‘The Unfairground’, billed amusingly as The Wyattron, although it’s not clear exactly what his contribution entails.
The play on words in Ayers’ chosen title is so obvious that it’s difficult to believe it hasn’t been used before. In fact, it neatly sums up the directness and clarity of this deceptively simple collection. Ayers’ vocal style is delicate, clear and almost conversational, and his melodies take a while to ingrain themselves in the mind. Repeated listens to ‘The Unfairground’ reveal numerous pleasures in its elaborate arrangements and old fashioned dusty shuffles. There’s also something hugely endearing about its ruminative and reflective mood.
Ayers may have been passing the time drinking wine in the South of France, but he clearly hasn’t closed his ears to contemporary talent. Among the guests on this beguiling record are indie-jazz pianist Bill Wells, various members of The Ladybug Transistor, former Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci singer Euros Childs and one of the greatest songwriters of the past 20 years in Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake. The songs all benefit from detail in the arrangements, including strings, brass and harmony vocals. These never feel tacked on after the event, but are rather innate contributing factors to the relaxed, lightly entertaining feel of the music.
The jauntiness of the opening ‘Only Heaven Knows’ or the delightfully infectious ‘Walk On Water’ border on twee, but never quite stray into that unpleasant pastiche territory coveted by Belle and Sebastian in their recent work with Trevor Horn. There’s also an important counterweight to be found elsewhere in the murky, dense trudge of ‘Brainstorm’ or the charming Cajun melancholy of ‘Baby Come Home’. The feel of much of this music is restrained and subtle, from the dusty shuffle of ‘Shine A Light’ to the multi-faceted rhythmic adventures of the title track, which bears a strong resemblance to Bob Dylan’s ‘Mozambique’.
Much of ‘The Unfairground’ deals with disappointment and uncertainty, and how age and experience do not by themselves bring greater insight. These are quite brave themes, although the reflective, whimsical humour with which Ayers confronts these subjects ensures that these songs are not overly weighty. Indeed, far from it, for there’s an admirable lightness of touch throughout the album. The resignation of ‘Cold Shoulder’ might be merely weary, or it might be wise (‘old shoulders become cold shoulders, nothing left to lean on’), whilst ‘Friends and Strangers’ neatly encapsulates the difficulties when the boundaries between friendship and love become blurred (‘funny how a situation changes, love can turn the best of friends into strangers’).
Those familiar with the oddball quirkiness Ayers displayed on albums like ‘Whatevershebringswesing’ might well find the relative straightforwardness and unashamed whimsy of ‘The Unfairground’ underwhelming. I have a clear sense that this is one of those delightfully modest albums that is all too easy to underestimate. It’s lovingly crafted, with an intriguing set of guests who have real empathy with Ayers’ unassuming approach.
Robert Wyatt claims that ‘Comicopera’ is about ‘the unpredictable mischief of real life’ and what greater, more sophisticated backdrop for an artistic statement could there be? He also claims that he doesn’t like to limit himself through prior planning or conceptual restrictions, although ‘Comicopera’ is an intelligently structured work neatly divided into three acts. Wyatt has a unique ability to make his work sound simultaneously both unfinished and utterly complete – there is as much space in this music as there is sound, and the low key production values allow for imperfections and real feeling.
So much has been made of Wyatt’s obfuscation or the challenge his music poses to ears more attuned to conventional pop music. His name has even become a verb – to ‘Wyatt’ now refers to the act of deliberately selecting the most outrageous or provocative track on a pub jukebox. Listening to ‘Comicopera’, though, I don’t feel that Wyatt’s music is without broader appeal. Whilst he’s undoubtedly preoccupied with sound in the broadest sense, and also with the traditions of improvisation and harmonic extension not usually explored in conventional pop writing, he has such a sensitive ear for melody and elegant chord progressions that much of the music here is both touching and approachable. Take the brief but charming ‘A Beautiful Peace’ for example, its delicate rustle and strum having an effortless charm. The music on ‘Comicopera’ is also subtle and considerably nuanced however, and therefore lacks the insistence or immediacy of much mainstream pop music. Like the best composition in any genre, it demands close attention, and rewards the effort handsomely.
Much of Wyatt’s last album (the outstanding ‘Cuckooland’) was fuelled by audacious examinations of the Middle East situation. ‘Comicopera’ advances this preoccupation by pivoting on the most original and intelligent expression of anger at the Iraq war any musician has yet mustered. Its second act sees Wyatt playing opposing roles, as a gung-ho bomber and an innocent victim of bombings. Then, in the album’s third (and most unconventional) act, Wyatt abandons the English language for Italian and Spanish, an expression of his perceived political and cultural alienation from the Anglo-American axis. This is a much more lucid, nuanced and powerful expression of dislocation than the uncontrolled anger Neil Young indulged on the massively overrated ‘Living With War’ album last year.
Ultimately, though, ‘Comicopera’ is as much personal as it is political, and even its most confrontational moments build broad pictures from individual perspectives. Wyatt and his wife and co-lyricist Alfreda Benge may be rivalled in 2007 only by Bjork and Feist for their insight into human behaviour. There are love songs here, but they are free from the burden of sentimentality and rarely predictable in their outlook. Sometimes, as much of the emotion and feeling is hidden as it is revealed (I particularly like ‘A.W.O.L’ with its lyrics about ‘thinking in riddles and waving to trains that no longer run’). Yet occasionally, Wyatt and Benge manage to be strikingly direct, as on ‘Just As You Are’ which manages to revisit that well-worn theme of constancy in love without sounding tired or jaded.
This album is so stylistically diverse and scattershot that it shouldn’t hang together nearly as coherently as it does. Its overarching themes and musical preoccupations provide a consistent thread, and there’s an engaging mystery neatly introduced by the eerie interpretation of Anja Garbarek’s ‘Stay Tuned’.
The three act scheme also helps to add shape and form, even if it was, as Wyatt suggests, an afterthought. The first act, subtitled ‘Lost In Noise’ is notable for its smoky, entrancing arrangements focussing on trumpet and saxophone. These performances are not just lovingly arranged (particularly the wonderful ‘Anachronist’ which is both hypnotic and discomforting) but also carefully recorded, capturing the natural live sound and tone of these instruments.
The first part of the middle act most explicitly conjures the comic mood the album’s title suggests. This being a Robert Wyatt album, however, the humour is particularly dry. On the quirky deconstructed blues ‘Be Serious’, he quips ‘how can I express myself when there’s no self to express?’, a peculiar inversion of existentialist philosophy. The act ends with the album’s most politically confrontational material, but is glued together by the endearingly ramshackle instrumental ‘On The Town Square’, essentially an extended improvisation for saxophone and steel pan over just one insistently repeated guitar chord. ‘A Beautiful War’ is devastating in its sardonic cynicism in the face of war, Wyatt playing the role of gleeful bomber privileged with a promise of freedom and security denied to his targets (‘I open the hatch, and I drop the first batch/It’s a shame, I’ll miss the place, but I’ll get to see the film within days…the replay of my beautiful day’). Immediately afterwards, on the brilliantly disorientating ‘Out Of The Blue’, Wyatt switches roles to play the part of the beleaguered victim of war (‘Beyond all understanding you’ve blown my house apart/You set me free…You’ve planted all your everlasting hatred in my heart’). It sounds appropriately confusing and terrifying, but also underlines a sense of anger and fearless righteousness.
The final act, subtitled ‘Away With The Fairies’ seems to enter another world completely, a land that is both romantic and disconcertingly dark, with Wyatt both forsaking the English language and veering into his most inventive musical terrain. ‘Cancion de Julieta’ might be the album’s most difficult moment but it’s also a clear highlight, setting a Lorca poem to appropriately dramatic and evocative music. It builds from just Wyatt’s uniquely conversational intoning set against a discreet double bass glide, into a swirling, malevolent concoction in asymmetrical time. The take on Orphy Robinson’s ‘Pastafari’ is equal parts Steve Reich and Lionel Hampton, far more engaging than a simple interlude. After ‘Fragment’ echoes some of the themes from the first act, the album ends with the Latin-tinged ‘Hasta Siemore Comandante’, which manages to be at once elusive and forthright, foreboding and celebratory.
It would be easy to take Wyatt for granted because he consistently produces music that is this weird and wonderful – it is exactly what his audience expects from him. But let’s be clear – there is no other male solo artist working on this level and nobody this unafraid to combine ideas and sounds that might otherwise be assumed to be in conflict with each other. ‘Comicopera’ is yet another vivid masterpiece in a career that has not yet produced anything less.
Robert Wyatt - Comicopera
It’s a special couple of months that sees these two pioneering collaborators (both Soft Machine alumni) both releasing new albums. Wyatt’s output has stayed restlessly creative over recent years, with a series of largely home-recorded albums demonstrating the continued flowering of his remarkable genius. As a composer, he is continually pushing himself in new directions, and he remains one of the most insightful and inventive of pop writers. ‘Cuckooland’ and now ‘Comicopera’ may show him becoming increasingly accessible but he is still completely fearless in his themes and juxtapositions, far from any comfortable or classifiable terrain. Yet, in some ways, it’s the Ayers album, whilst decidedly more conventional, that is the more unexpected. It’s this hermetic figure’s first recording for over fifteen years, and it is a remarkably dignified and unassuming disc. Wyatt himself is among the numerous guests on ‘The Unfairground’, billed amusingly as The Wyattron, although it’s not clear exactly what his contribution entails.
The play on words in Ayers’ chosen title is so obvious that it’s difficult to believe it hasn’t been used before. In fact, it neatly sums up the directness and clarity of this deceptively simple collection. Ayers’ vocal style is delicate, clear and almost conversational, and his melodies take a while to ingrain themselves in the mind. Repeated listens to ‘The Unfairground’ reveal numerous pleasures in its elaborate arrangements and old fashioned dusty shuffles. There’s also something hugely endearing about its ruminative and reflective mood.
Ayers may have been passing the time drinking wine in the South of France, but he clearly hasn’t closed his ears to contemporary talent. Among the guests on this beguiling record are indie-jazz pianist Bill Wells, various members of The Ladybug Transistor, former Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci singer Euros Childs and one of the greatest songwriters of the past 20 years in Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake. The songs all benefit from detail in the arrangements, including strings, brass and harmony vocals. These never feel tacked on after the event, but are rather innate contributing factors to the relaxed, lightly entertaining feel of the music.
The jauntiness of the opening ‘Only Heaven Knows’ or the delightfully infectious ‘Walk On Water’ border on twee, but never quite stray into that unpleasant pastiche territory coveted by Belle and Sebastian in their recent work with Trevor Horn. There’s also an important counterweight to be found elsewhere in the murky, dense trudge of ‘Brainstorm’ or the charming Cajun melancholy of ‘Baby Come Home’. The feel of much of this music is restrained and subtle, from the dusty shuffle of ‘Shine A Light’ to the multi-faceted rhythmic adventures of the title track, which bears a strong resemblance to Bob Dylan’s ‘Mozambique’.
Much of ‘The Unfairground’ deals with disappointment and uncertainty, and how age and experience do not by themselves bring greater insight. These are quite brave themes, although the reflective, whimsical humour with which Ayers confronts these subjects ensures that these songs are not overly weighty. Indeed, far from it, for there’s an admirable lightness of touch throughout the album. The resignation of ‘Cold Shoulder’ might be merely weary, or it might be wise (‘old shoulders become cold shoulders, nothing left to lean on’), whilst ‘Friends and Strangers’ neatly encapsulates the difficulties when the boundaries between friendship and love become blurred (‘funny how a situation changes, love can turn the best of friends into strangers’).
Those familiar with the oddball quirkiness Ayers displayed on albums like ‘Whatevershebringswesing’ might well find the relative straightforwardness and unashamed whimsy of ‘The Unfairground’ underwhelming. I have a clear sense that this is one of those delightfully modest albums that is all too easy to underestimate. It’s lovingly crafted, with an intriguing set of guests who have real empathy with Ayers’ unassuming approach.
Robert Wyatt claims that ‘Comicopera’ is about ‘the unpredictable mischief of real life’ and what greater, more sophisticated backdrop for an artistic statement could there be? He also claims that he doesn’t like to limit himself through prior planning or conceptual restrictions, although ‘Comicopera’ is an intelligently structured work neatly divided into three acts. Wyatt has a unique ability to make his work sound simultaneously both unfinished and utterly complete – there is as much space in this music as there is sound, and the low key production values allow for imperfections and real feeling.
So much has been made of Wyatt’s obfuscation or the challenge his music poses to ears more attuned to conventional pop music. His name has even become a verb – to ‘Wyatt’ now refers to the act of deliberately selecting the most outrageous or provocative track on a pub jukebox. Listening to ‘Comicopera’, though, I don’t feel that Wyatt’s music is without broader appeal. Whilst he’s undoubtedly preoccupied with sound in the broadest sense, and also with the traditions of improvisation and harmonic extension not usually explored in conventional pop writing, he has such a sensitive ear for melody and elegant chord progressions that much of the music here is both touching and approachable. Take the brief but charming ‘A Beautiful Peace’ for example, its delicate rustle and strum having an effortless charm. The music on ‘Comicopera’ is also subtle and considerably nuanced however, and therefore lacks the insistence or immediacy of much mainstream pop music. Like the best composition in any genre, it demands close attention, and rewards the effort handsomely.
Much of Wyatt’s last album (the outstanding ‘Cuckooland’) was fuelled by audacious examinations of the Middle East situation. ‘Comicopera’ advances this preoccupation by pivoting on the most original and intelligent expression of anger at the Iraq war any musician has yet mustered. Its second act sees Wyatt playing opposing roles, as a gung-ho bomber and an innocent victim of bombings. Then, in the album’s third (and most unconventional) act, Wyatt abandons the English language for Italian and Spanish, an expression of his perceived political and cultural alienation from the Anglo-American axis. This is a much more lucid, nuanced and powerful expression of dislocation than the uncontrolled anger Neil Young indulged on the massively overrated ‘Living With War’ album last year.
Ultimately, though, ‘Comicopera’ is as much personal as it is political, and even its most confrontational moments build broad pictures from individual perspectives. Wyatt and his wife and co-lyricist Alfreda Benge may be rivalled in 2007 only by Bjork and Feist for their insight into human behaviour. There are love songs here, but they are free from the burden of sentimentality and rarely predictable in their outlook. Sometimes, as much of the emotion and feeling is hidden as it is revealed (I particularly like ‘A.W.O.L’ with its lyrics about ‘thinking in riddles and waving to trains that no longer run’). Yet occasionally, Wyatt and Benge manage to be strikingly direct, as on ‘Just As You Are’ which manages to revisit that well-worn theme of constancy in love without sounding tired or jaded.
This album is so stylistically diverse and scattershot that it shouldn’t hang together nearly as coherently as it does. Its overarching themes and musical preoccupations provide a consistent thread, and there’s an engaging mystery neatly introduced by the eerie interpretation of Anja Garbarek’s ‘Stay Tuned’.
The three act scheme also helps to add shape and form, even if it was, as Wyatt suggests, an afterthought. The first act, subtitled ‘Lost In Noise’ is notable for its smoky, entrancing arrangements focussing on trumpet and saxophone. These performances are not just lovingly arranged (particularly the wonderful ‘Anachronist’ which is both hypnotic and discomforting) but also carefully recorded, capturing the natural live sound and tone of these instruments.
The first part of the middle act most explicitly conjures the comic mood the album’s title suggests. This being a Robert Wyatt album, however, the humour is particularly dry. On the quirky deconstructed blues ‘Be Serious’, he quips ‘how can I express myself when there’s no self to express?’, a peculiar inversion of existentialist philosophy. The act ends with the album’s most politically confrontational material, but is glued together by the endearingly ramshackle instrumental ‘On The Town Square’, essentially an extended improvisation for saxophone and steel pan over just one insistently repeated guitar chord. ‘A Beautiful War’ is devastating in its sardonic cynicism in the face of war, Wyatt playing the role of gleeful bomber privileged with a promise of freedom and security denied to his targets (‘I open the hatch, and I drop the first batch/It’s a shame, I’ll miss the place, but I’ll get to see the film within days…the replay of my beautiful day’). Immediately afterwards, on the brilliantly disorientating ‘Out Of The Blue’, Wyatt switches roles to play the part of the beleaguered victim of war (‘Beyond all understanding you’ve blown my house apart/You set me free…You’ve planted all your everlasting hatred in my heart’). It sounds appropriately confusing and terrifying, but also underlines a sense of anger and fearless righteousness.
The final act, subtitled ‘Away With The Fairies’ seems to enter another world completely, a land that is both romantic and disconcertingly dark, with Wyatt both forsaking the English language and veering into his most inventive musical terrain. ‘Cancion de Julieta’ might be the album’s most difficult moment but it’s also a clear highlight, setting a Lorca poem to appropriately dramatic and evocative music. It builds from just Wyatt’s uniquely conversational intoning set against a discreet double bass glide, into a swirling, malevolent concoction in asymmetrical time. The take on Orphy Robinson’s ‘Pastafari’ is equal parts Steve Reich and Lionel Hampton, far more engaging than a simple interlude. After ‘Fragment’ echoes some of the themes from the first act, the album ends with the Latin-tinged ‘Hasta Siemore Comandante’, which manages to be at once elusive and forthright, foreboding and celebratory.
It would be easy to take Wyatt for granted because he consistently produces music that is this weird and wonderful – it is exactly what his audience expects from him. But let’s be clear – there is no other male solo artist working on this level and nobody this unafraid to combine ideas and sounds that might otherwise be assumed to be in conflict with each other. ‘Comicopera’ is yet another vivid masterpiece in a career that has not yet produced anything less.
Reunion Madness
How unfortunate that the Led Zeppelin reunion has directly coincided with the release of Robert Plant's rather excellent new record with Alison Krauss. Given that Page and Plant performed Led Zep material together, somewhat indifferently, as recently as the late 90s (the only difference now being the participation of John Paul Jones), I'm actually surprised that demand for the reunion show has been quite this massive. People seem perfectly prepared to pay the outrageous asking price (£150 + for one concert is simply obscene), whilst also paying the additional costs involved in travelling substantial distances.
At least with Led Zep, there still seems to be some kind of bond of friendship and mutual empathy between the main parties. The Police reunion hardly seems to have quashed the antipathy between Stewart Copeland and Sting, who seem to have set aside their considerable differences purely for the purpose of making some cold, hard lucre.
Now comes the most ridiculous of them all - the Sex Pistols reuniting yet again! Can there be any spirit of rebellion left in these craggy old rockers? Another trudge through 'God Save The Queen' and 'Anarchy in the UK' at half the original tempos? No thanks. The most galling aspect of this particularly reunion for this writer is its timing - neatly coinciding with yet another anniversary reissue of 'Nevermind The Bollocks...' I still view this as one of the most overrated records of all time - profoundly uninteresting both musically and lyrically, and nowhere near as significant as John Lydon's later work with PiL, which was far more creative, challenging and unexpected. To my ears, the Pistols' music remains stodgy, soulless and ugly. It's no wonder it inspired Noel Gallagher. The assumption that 1976 was the year of punk, and that the Sex Pistols were at its vanguard is a massive assumption that still remains unchallenged. The protest spirit that catalysed punk surely began in the US with Iggy and The Stooges and arguably even The MC5. On this small island we seem obsessed with our capacity for musical and cultural innovation - yet it's so often based substantially on myth-making and distortion. I want to hear something original, fresh and exciting from these shores, not another trip down a memory lane almost entirely devoid of cultural value.
At least with Led Zep, there still seems to be some kind of bond of friendship and mutual empathy between the main parties. The Police reunion hardly seems to have quashed the antipathy between Stewart Copeland and Sting, who seem to have set aside their considerable differences purely for the purpose of making some cold, hard lucre.
Now comes the most ridiculous of them all - the Sex Pistols reuniting yet again! Can there be any spirit of rebellion left in these craggy old rockers? Another trudge through 'God Save The Queen' and 'Anarchy in the UK' at half the original tempos? No thanks. The most galling aspect of this particularly reunion for this writer is its timing - neatly coinciding with yet another anniversary reissue of 'Nevermind The Bollocks...' I still view this as one of the most overrated records of all time - profoundly uninteresting both musically and lyrically, and nowhere near as significant as John Lydon's later work with PiL, which was far more creative, challenging and unexpected. To my ears, the Pistols' music remains stodgy, soulless and ugly. It's no wonder it inspired Noel Gallagher. The assumption that 1976 was the year of punk, and that the Sex Pistols were at its vanguard is a massive assumption that still remains unchallenged. The protest spirit that catalysed punk surely began in the US with Iggy and The Stooges and arguably even The MC5. On this small island we seem obsessed with our capacity for musical and cultural innovation - yet it's so often based substantially on myth-making and distortion. I want to hear something original, fresh and exciting from these shores, not another trip down a memory lane almost entirely devoid of cultural value.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Unexpected Pleasures
Robert Plant/Alison Krauss - Raising Sand
It’s difficult to admit it now, but one of my earliest infatuations as a teenager was with Led Zeppelin. Not so much the quasi-mystical nonsense of ‘Stairway To Heaven’, but rather the primal rush of ‘Communication Breakdown’ or the effortless and thoroughly peculiar melding of Eastern strings and pounding drums on ‘Kashmir’. Since those days, I’ve rather fallen out of love with their considerable legacy and can’t bring myself to care much about the imminent reunion gig, even if Dave Grohl does attempt to fill John Bonham’s enormous drum shoes. Foolishly, I opted to watch Page and Plant’s indulgent tedium over the Super Furry Animals at 1998’s Reading Festival, and much of Robert Plant’s solo work has left me rather cold. ‘Raising Sand’ therefore comes as a curious and entirely gratifying surprise.
It’s not a Plant solo album as such, but rather a collaboration with the extraordinarily popular bluegrass singer Alison Krauss, about whom I am usually very much agnostic. Her own music has tended to sound overly polite and sanitised, the songs often sounding forced rather than hard-lived. Yet her soft, somewhat vulnerable tones here provide a sterling foil for Plant, who is uncharacteristically restrained throughout. Indeed, it’s only on ‘Fortune Teller’ that he even comes close to resembling the sexualised urgency of his Zeppelin vocal performances. There’s only one Plant original here (‘Please Read The Letter’), and even that is cribbed from the Page/Plant album ‘Walking Into Clarksdale’. This is mainly a somewhat studied, but thoroughly easygoing foray into American roots music, neatly melding country, blues and soul into a delicately enchanting and hypnotic hybrid.
Sometimes the sound is comfortingly familiar, with swathes of pedal steel guitar and lightly brushed drums, but in places they veer into unusually eerie, gothic territory. ‘Polly Come Home’ doesn’t sound a million miles away from the harmony-directed minimalism of Low, although the slightly Irish lilt to the melody lends it an additional timeless quality. The superb opener ‘Rich Woman’ crackles and bristles with an oddly reserved energy, whilst Krauss handles the melodic line of ‘Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us’ with masterful subtlety.
The percussion throughout sounds particularly otherworldly and transcendent, perhaps slightly reminiscent of Malcolm Burn’s production work for Emmylou Harris on ‘Red Dirt Girl’ and ‘Stumble Into Grace’, particularly on the haunting take on Tom Waits’ ‘Trampled Rose’. The loose-limbed clatter that glues these songs together also prevents this from being too academic or reverential an exercise.
There’s a relaxed, consummate alchemy between Plant and Krauss that is thoroughly unexpected. Whilst it’s not quite as pure and original a partnership as that of Gram Parsons and Emmylou, it’s both respectful of that particular heritage and keen to develop it in unpredictable directions. The effortless grace of their harmony singing on ‘Stick With Me Baby’ is sublime.
What a shame therefore that Plant is undermining the promotion of this satisfying record by submitting to corporate pressures for a one-off Led Zeppelin reunion show. At least it looks unlikely to become a behemoth tour in the manner of this year’s other reunions (Genesis, The Police). I would rather focus on the quiet and intoxicating majesty of this beautiful record.
It’s difficult to admit it now, but one of my earliest infatuations as a teenager was with Led Zeppelin. Not so much the quasi-mystical nonsense of ‘Stairway To Heaven’, but rather the primal rush of ‘Communication Breakdown’ or the effortless and thoroughly peculiar melding of Eastern strings and pounding drums on ‘Kashmir’. Since those days, I’ve rather fallen out of love with their considerable legacy and can’t bring myself to care much about the imminent reunion gig, even if Dave Grohl does attempt to fill John Bonham’s enormous drum shoes. Foolishly, I opted to watch Page and Plant’s indulgent tedium over the Super Furry Animals at 1998’s Reading Festival, and much of Robert Plant’s solo work has left me rather cold. ‘Raising Sand’ therefore comes as a curious and entirely gratifying surprise.
It’s not a Plant solo album as such, but rather a collaboration with the extraordinarily popular bluegrass singer Alison Krauss, about whom I am usually very much agnostic. Her own music has tended to sound overly polite and sanitised, the songs often sounding forced rather than hard-lived. Yet her soft, somewhat vulnerable tones here provide a sterling foil for Plant, who is uncharacteristically restrained throughout. Indeed, it’s only on ‘Fortune Teller’ that he even comes close to resembling the sexualised urgency of his Zeppelin vocal performances. There’s only one Plant original here (‘Please Read The Letter’), and even that is cribbed from the Page/Plant album ‘Walking Into Clarksdale’. This is mainly a somewhat studied, but thoroughly easygoing foray into American roots music, neatly melding country, blues and soul into a delicately enchanting and hypnotic hybrid.
Sometimes the sound is comfortingly familiar, with swathes of pedal steel guitar and lightly brushed drums, but in places they veer into unusually eerie, gothic territory. ‘Polly Come Home’ doesn’t sound a million miles away from the harmony-directed minimalism of Low, although the slightly Irish lilt to the melody lends it an additional timeless quality. The superb opener ‘Rich Woman’ crackles and bristles with an oddly reserved energy, whilst Krauss handles the melodic line of ‘Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us’ with masterful subtlety.
The percussion throughout sounds particularly otherworldly and transcendent, perhaps slightly reminiscent of Malcolm Burn’s production work for Emmylou Harris on ‘Red Dirt Girl’ and ‘Stumble Into Grace’, particularly on the haunting take on Tom Waits’ ‘Trampled Rose’. The loose-limbed clatter that glues these songs together also prevents this from being too academic or reverential an exercise.
There’s a relaxed, consummate alchemy between Plant and Krauss that is thoroughly unexpected. Whilst it’s not quite as pure and original a partnership as that of Gram Parsons and Emmylou, it’s both respectful of that particular heritage and keen to develop it in unpredictable directions. The effortless grace of their harmony singing on ‘Stick With Me Baby’ is sublime.
What a shame therefore that Plant is undermining the promotion of this satisfying record by submitting to corporate pressures for a one-off Led Zeppelin reunion show. At least it looks unlikely to become a behemoth tour in the manner of this year’s other reunions (Genesis, The Police). I would rather focus on the quiet and intoxicating majesty of this beautiful record.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Belated Mercury Musings
I've been out of the loop a bit due to having spent the last few days on an intensive and highly fulfilling residential music course in an isolated property on the coast of Devon. So I missed yesterday's Mercury announcement completely.
I guess Klaxons are exactly the sort of over-hyped media fodder regular readers of this blog might expect me to rail against venomously, but I actually think they have some merit. Not, I must concede, because they are doing anything especially original (to me they sound more like early Super Furry Animals than a 'rave' band) but because some of the songs are clever, punchy and viscerally exciting.
Yet the nagging question remains - is this really the best record a British artist can come up with? Will it be remembered as a classic, pioneering achievement in even 10 years' time? Frankly, I doubt it. Like previous winners Franz Ferdinand and Arctic Monkeys, Klaxons seem designed far more for instant thrills than serious longevity. What has happened to the long term career trajectory in this country's fractured and damaged music industry? When exactly did it become a common assumption that artists make their most radical and innovative statement with their debut albums, leaving them nowhere left to go?
Surely the strident leap in delivery and sheer quality Amy Winehouse has made between her first and second albums deserved some recognition, in spite of her turbulent lifestyle? If her first album suffered a little from overbearing force of personality, this album amply demonstrated her sheer class as a performer and artist. Has there been a better collection of songs with such timeless quality released in the past twelve months? Plus it's now been five years since PJ Harvey was the last woman honoured with the award.
Alternatively, when will this prize actually justify its existence by selecting one of the 'token' nominations as a winner? The most subtle, inventive and engaging album in the shortlist by some distance was Basquiat Strings, misguidedly presented as a nomination for drummer Seb Rochford, rather than for the group's leader and composer, the highly talented cellist Ben Davis.
So it's been yet another missed opportunity for this beleagured cultural institution and with every year the judges strip away yet more value from what was initially a worthwhile and important concept.
I guess Klaxons are exactly the sort of over-hyped media fodder regular readers of this blog might expect me to rail against venomously, but I actually think they have some merit. Not, I must concede, because they are doing anything especially original (to me they sound more like early Super Furry Animals than a 'rave' band) but because some of the songs are clever, punchy and viscerally exciting.
Yet the nagging question remains - is this really the best record a British artist can come up with? Will it be remembered as a classic, pioneering achievement in even 10 years' time? Frankly, I doubt it. Like previous winners Franz Ferdinand and Arctic Monkeys, Klaxons seem designed far more for instant thrills than serious longevity. What has happened to the long term career trajectory in this country's fractured and damaged music industry? When exactly did it become a common assumption that artists make their most radical and innovative statement with their debut albums, leaving them nowhere left to go?
Surely the strident leap in delivery and sheer quality Amy Winehouse has made between her first and second albums deserved some recognition, in spite of her turbulent lifestyle? If her first album suffered a little from overbearing force of personality, this album amply demonstrated her sheer class as a performer and artist. Has there been a better collection of songs with such timeless quality released in the past twelve months? Plus it's now been five years since PJ Harvey was the last woman honoured with the award.
Alternatively, when will this prize actually justify its existence by selecting one of the 'token' nominations as a winner? The most subtle, inventive and engaging album in the shortlist by some distance was Basquiat Strings, misguidedly presented as a nomination for drummer Seb Rochford, rather than for the group's leader and composer, the highly talented cellist Ben Davis.
So it's been yet another missed opportunity for this beleagured cultural institution and with every year the judges strip away yet more value from what was initially a worthwhile and important concept.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Forthcoming Attractions
As if 2007 hadn’t yet proved wonderful enough, take a look at this rather tasty list of what the rest of the year has in store:
Aesop Rock – None Shall Pass (released in the UK today – one of modern hip hop’s great masters)
Dirty Projectors – Rise Above (11th Sep in the US – one of the most innovative and exciting bands I’ve heard in a long while)
Gravenhurst – The Western Lands (10th Sep – no doubt more electronica-tinged folksmithery)
Murcof – Cosmos (17th Sep - atmospheric electronica on the wonderful Leaf label)
Supersilent – 8 (17th Sep - I can’t express how much I’m looking forward to this – more unplanned free improv from Arve Henriksen, Helge Sten et al)
Kevin Drew – Broken Social Scene Presents Kevin Drew’s Spirit If (Sep 17th – ‘solo’ project from Broken Social Scene mainman sounds excellent)
PJ Harvey – White Chalk (Sep 24th – reportedly sees Polly at the piano, sounds very promising)
Manu Katche – Playground (Sep 24th – outstanding percussionist/composer on ECM)
Scott Walker – And Who Shall Go To The Ball? And What Shall Go To The Ball? (Sep 24th – the results of SW’s recent commission for a ballet project at the Royal Festival Hall)
Iron and Wine – The Shepherd’s Dog (Sep 24th – features more collaborations with Calexico and no doubt another fine album from one of America’s greatest contemporary songwriters, now on Transgressive in the UK).
Steve Earle – Washington Square Serenade (Sep 24th – The politically daring Earle returns with an album inspired by America’s capital)
Bettye Lavette – Scene Of The Crime (Sep 24th – The great overlooked soul singer continues her comeback, this time with an album of songs written by men).
Beirut – The Flying Cup Club (reportedly influenced by chanson music – out in October??)
Bruce Springsteen – Magic (Oct 1st – ‘Show a little faith, there’s magic in the night’ – Bruce returns with his most straight ahead rock record for some time).
Underworld – Oblivion With Bells (Oct 1st – dependable dance pioneers return)
Band Of Horses – Cease To Begin (Oct 1st – 2nd album from excellent My Morning Jacket soundalikes)
Robert Wyatt – Comicopera (Oct 8th – The return of a living genius)
Black Dice – Load Blown (Oct 8th – one of the better set of laptop experimentalists)
Prefuse 73 – Preparations (Oct 23rd – more stuttering, unpredictable hip hop)
Boxcutter – Glyphic (tbc – playful dubstep extraordinaire)
Shortwave Set – Replica Sun Machine (tbc – junkyard pop)
Also tbc – Spiritualized, REM, Portishead (but maybe now delayed until 2008?)
Aesop Rock – None Shall Pass (released in the UK today – one of modern hip hop’s great masters)
Dirty Projectors – Rise Above (11th Sep in the US – one of the most innovative and exciting bands I’ve heard in a long while)
Gravenhurst – The Western Lands (10th Sep – no doubt more electronica-tinged folksmithery)
Murcof – Cosmos (17th Sep - atmospheric electronica on the wonderful Leaf label)
Supersilent – 8 (17th Sep - I can’t express how much I’m looking forward to this – more unplanned free improv from Arve Henriksen, Helge Sten et al)
Kevin Drew – Broken Social Scene Presents Kevin Drew’s Spirit If (Sep 17th – ‘solo’ project from Broken Social Scene mainman sounds excellent)
PJ Harvey – White Chalk (Sep 24th – reportedly sees Polly at the piano, sounds very promising)
Manu Katche – Playground (Sep 24th – outstanding percussionist/composer on ECM)
Scott Walker – And Who Shall Go To The Ball? And What Shall Go To The Ball? (Sep 24th – the results of SW’s recent commission for a ballet project at the Royal Festival Hall)
Iron and Wine – The Shepherd’s Dog (Sep 24th – features more collaborations with Calexico and no doubt another fine album from one of America’s greatest contemporary songwriters, now on Transgressive in the UK).
Steve Earle – Washington Square Serenade (Sep 24th – The politically daring Earle returns with an album inspired by America’s capital)
Bettye Lavette – Scene Of The Crime (Sep 24th – The great overlooked soul singer continues her comeback, this time with an album of songs written by men).
Beirut – The Flying Cup Club (reportedly influenced by chanson music – out in October??)
Bruce Springsteen – Magic (Oct 1st – ‘Show a little faith, there’s magic in the night’ – Bruce returns with his most straight ahead rock record for some time).
Underworld – Oblivion With Bells (Oct 1st – dependable dance pioneers return)
Band Of Horses – Cease To Begin (Oct 1st – 2nd album from excellent My Morning Jacket soundalikes)
Robert Wyatt – Comicopera (Oct 8th – The return of a living genius)
Black Dice – Load Blown (Oct 8th – one of the better set of laptop experimentalists)
Prefuse 73 – Preparations (Oct 23rd – more stuttering, unpredictable hip hop)
Boxcutter – Glyphic (tbc – playful dubstep extraordinaire)
Shortwave Set – Replica Sun Machine (tbc – junkyard pop)
Also tbc – Spiritualized, REM, Portishead (but maybe now delayed until 2008?)
The One U Wanna C?
Prince at the 02 Arena
Reports on Prince’s 21 night stand in London have so far been mostly ecstatic. The few murmurings of dissent seem to have been judged as tantamount to some unforgivable act of treason. Those lucky enough to attend the opening night (and I suspect the same will be true of the closing night too) were treated to a lengthy set concluding with a generous three encores. Elsewhere in the run, he seems to have been onstage for barely 70 minutes. The ticket price, set at his magic number of £31.21 may be reasonable – but all are paying the same amount, even for the ghastly seats at the top level of the 02, set back at a severe distance from the stage, and where the sound quality was horrific.
My own experience of two of the shows suggests that the minority of dissenters have been right to express their reservations. Although the show on Friday 17th August was considerably better than the earlier show on the 7th, there was little in either performance to imply that Prince was doing anything other than hitting the button marked ‘cruise control’. The second show was never anything less than entertaining – but surely this is the very least we expect from someone with Prince’s star quality? He is not, after all, a Janet Jackson or a Madonna – being as much an immensely versatile musician and outrageously gifted songwriter as great performer.
Prince’s great contribution to popular music has been to break down stereotyped boundaries – there is no ‘white’ and ‘black’ in his music and he remains as likely to be as influenced by new wave and soft rock balladry as George Clinton’s P-Funk. Similarly, even when his albums have been completely lacklustre (sadly the new ‘Planet Earth’ album falls squarely into this category – giving it away free with the Mail generated hype the content alone could never have mustered), none has sounded remotely like its immediate predecessor.
The centrepiece of the set on the 7th was a lengthy and somewhat lumbering funk jam session giving legendary JBs saxophonist Maceo Parker a little too much space to blow. Parker has impressive power and muscularity, but little in the way of subtlety and this is hardly what most punters paid to see. ‘Musicology’ was supremely groovy, but segueing it into a covers of ‘Pass The Peas’ and ‘Play That Funky Music’ (complete with unwitting members of the audience dancing onstage – presumably only those with the VIP tickets near enough to get picked out) seemed pointless and indulgent. Similarly, the ghastly cabaret jazz take on ‘What A Wonderful World’ that enabled Prince to make the first of two costume changes (mercifully there were no ‘wardrobe malfunctions’ in this show) was a step too far into the realms of mouldy cheese.
Whilst the set list for the 7th available at fansite housequake.com lists 29 songs, I only counted 12 original songs played in full, which for an artist now on his 26th album is simply not enough. There was a strange and surreal aura to this show which mostly served to emphasise Prince’s diva tendencies rather than his manifest talents. Prince opened the show alone with his guitar, playing a rather tantalising medley of some of his greatest songs (‘Little Red Corvette’, ‘Alphabet Street’, ‘Sometimes It Snows In April’). This would have been a masterful way to open an intimate club show, but in the cavernous environment of the hellish former millennium dome, it hardly constituted playing to the gallery. Also, if anyone rashly assumed that this would presage a barrage of hits played in full with the band, they would have been left mightily disappointed. Prince somehow managed to make this worse by breaking up the set with a second medley performed alone at the piano. Both medleys demonstrated his technical ability, but left me with a curiously dissatisfied feeling – a little inappropriate given that much of Prince’s lyrical output focuses on his ability to satiate!
This show seemed to demonstrate Attention Defecit Disorder more than stamina. The closing run of ‘Kiss’ and ‘Purple Rain’ and the delightfully energetic encore of ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ provided crowd pleasing moments, particularly the mass singalong that ended ‘Purple Rain’, but it all seemed too little too late really. He obviously remains convinced of his own genius, breaking off from the lyric of Purple Rain to exclaim ‘I just love this song!’ Well, quite right, so do we – but we love plenty of other Prince songs too, and he could do so much more than treat his catalogue with brash and arrogant contempt.
The set on the 17th was structured much more sensibly for the nature of the venue, with the full band starting the show immediately with ‘1999’. How much better that the whole audience was brought to its feet from the very outset! Similarly, moving the segue of ‘I Feel For You’ into ‘Controversy’ to the end of the show gave it greater prominence, and emphasised the quality of Prince’s early material as much as his mid-period hits.
The funk jam was tauter and more spirited this time and we were ‘treated’ to an endearingly shambolic vocal and dance from Bourne Ultimatum actress Julia Stiles, who conveniently happened to have a front row seat. It was a shame she didn’t brush up on her lyrics! The inclusion of ‘7’ (one of his better New Power Generation-era moments) provided a welcome surprise in the main set and mercifully he restricted himself to just one medley this time, this one delivered with more humour and less bravado. Sadly, it contained mere snippets of some of his greatest songs – there’s simply no justification for only delivering ten seconds apiece of ‘Raspberry Beret’ and ‘When Doves Cry’ in order to favour much less interesting songs such as ‘Cream’, ‘Guitar’ and ‘Musicology’ in the main set!
The ‘in the round’ stage design was a clever gimmick but not, in the event, particularly well utilised. Prince spent most of his time facing one way, so a sizeable part of the audience paid to look directly at the back of his head. He proved better at engaging the side stands, moving to either side of the stage (predictably designed to replicate his androgynous symbol) and giving the lively crowd plenty of encouragement.
The quality of sound at both shows was hopeless – even close to the stage there was little definition. There seems little point in having two keyboardists in the band if there’s precious little possibility of distinguishing the individual parts above a nasty low-end rumble. Sometimes even Prince’s vocals became inaudible. This is clearly something this enormous venue needs to work on, although as arenas go, it’s clearly preferable to Wembley simply by virtue of serving good beer (Murphy’s ?!?!) and relatively adventurous fast food.
Prince is justified in bragging (‘too many hits – too little time!’), and maybe it would have been better had he graced London with his presence more than once in the last ten years. The tremendous weight of expectation has rendered it difficult to judge these concerts with any real degree of objectivity. As an entertainer, Prince may have lived up to those expectations but he has surely failed to seize a golden opportunity by not surpassing them.
Reports on Prince’s 21 night stand in London have so far been mostly ecstatic. The few murmurings of dissent seem to have been judged as tantamount to some unforgivable act of treason. Those lucky enough to attend the opening night (and I suspect the same will be true of the closing night too) were treated to a lengthy set concluding with a generous three encores. Elsewhere in the run, he seems to have been onstage for barely 70 minutes. The ticket price, set at his magic number of £31.21 may be reasonable – but all are paying the same amount, even for the ghastly seats at the top level of the 02, set back at a severe distance from the stage, and where the sound quality was horrific.
My own experience of two of the shows suggests that the minority of dissenters have been right to express their reservations. Although the show on Friday 17th August was considerably better than the earlier show on the 7th, there was little in either performance to imply that Prince was doing anything other than hitting the button marked ‘cruise control’. The second show was never anything less than entertaining – but surely this is the very least we expect from someone with Prince’s star quality? He is not, after all, a Janet Jackson or a Madonna – being as much an immensely versatile musician and outrageously gifted songwriter as great performer.
Prince’s great contribution to popular music has been to break down stereotyped boundaries – there is no ‘white’ and ‘black’ in his music and he remains as likely to be as influenced by new wave and soft rock balladry as George Clinton’s P-Funk. Similarly, even when his albums have been completely lacklustre (sadly the new ‘Planet Earth’ album falls squarely into this category – giving it away free with the Mail generated hype the content alone could never have mustered), none has sounded remotely like its immediate predecessor.
The centrepiece of the set on the 7th was a lengthy and somewhat lumbering funk jam session giving legendary JBs saxophonist Maceo Parker a little too much space to blow. Parker has impressive power and muscularity, but little in the way of subtlety and this is hardly what most punters paid to see. ‘Musicology’ was supremely groovy, but segueing it into a covers of ‘Pass The Peas’ and ‘Play That Funky Music’ (complete with unwitting members of the audience dancing onstage – presumably only those with the VIP tickets near enough to get picked out) seemed pointless and indulgent. Similarly, the ghastly cabaret jazz take on ‘What A Wonderful World’ that enabled Prince to make the first of two costume changes (mercifully there were no ‘wardrobe malfunctions’ in this show) was a step too far into the realms of mouldy cheese.
Whilst the set list for the 7th available at fansite housequake.com lists 29 songs, I only counted 12 original songs played in full, which for an artist now on his 26th album is simply not enough. There was a strange and surreal aura to this show which mostly served to emphasise Prince’s diva tendencies rather than his manifest talents. Prince opened the show alone with his guitar, playing a rather tantalising medley of some of his greatest songs (‘Little Red Corvette’, ‘Alphabet Street’, ‘Sometimes It Snows In April’). This would have been a masterful way to open an intimate club show, but in the cavernous environment of the hellish former millennium dome, it hardly constituted playing to the gallery. Also, if anyone rashly assumed that this would presage a barrage of hits played in full with the band, they would have been left mightily disappointed. Prince somehow managed to make this worse by breaking up the set with a second medley performed alone at the piano. Both medleys demonstrated his technical ability, but left me with a curiously dissatisfied feeling – a little inappropriate given that much of Prince’s lyrical output focuses on his ability to satiate!
This show seemed to demonstrate Attention Defecit Disorder more than stamina. The closing run of ‘Kiss’ and ‘Purple Rain’ and the delightfully energetic encore of ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ provided crowd pleasing moments, particularly the mass singalong that ended ‘Purple Rain’, but it all seemed too little too late really. He obviously remains convinced of his own genius, breaking off from the lyric of Purple Rain to exclaim ‘I just love this song!’ Well, quite right, so do we – but we love plenty of other Prince songs too, and he could do so much more than treat his catalogue with brash and arrogant contempt.
The set on the 17th was structured much more sensibly for the nature of the venue, with the full band starting the show immediately with ‘1999’. How much better that the whole audience was brought to its feet from the very outset! Similarly, moving the segue of ‘I Feel For You’ into ‘Controversy’ to the end of the show gave it greater prominence, and emphasised the quality of Prince’s early material as much as his mid-period hits.
The funk jam was tauter and more spirited this time and we were ‘treated’ to an endearingly shambolic vocal and dance from Bourne Ultimatum actress Julia Stiles, who conveniently happened to have a front row seat. It was a shame she didn’t brush up on her lyrics! The inclusion of ‘7’ (one of his better New Power Generation-era moments) provided a welcome surprise in the main set and mercifully he restricted himself to just one medley this time, this one delivered with more humour and less bravado. Sadly, it contained mere snippets of some of his greatest songs – there’s simply no justification for only delivering ten seconds apiece of ‘Raspberry Beret’ and ‘When Doves Cry’ in order to favour much less interesting songs such as ‘Cream’, ‘Guitar’ and ‘Musicology’ in the main set!
The ‘in the round’ stage design was a clever gimmick but not, in the event, particularly well utilised. Prince spent most of his time facing one way, so a sizeable part of the audience paid to look directly at the back of his head. He proved better at engaging the side stands, moving to either side of the stage (predictably designed to replicate his androgynous symbol) and giving the lively crowd plenty of encouragement.
The quality of sound at both shows was hopeless – even close to the stage there was little definition. There seems little point in having two keyboardists in the band if there’s precious little possibility of distinguishing the individual parts above a nasty low-end rumble. Sometimes even Prince’s vocals became inaudible. This is clearly something this enormous venue needs to work on, although as arenas go, it’s clearly preferable to Wembley simply by virtue of serving good beer (Murphy’s ?!?!) and relatively adventurous fast food.
Prince is justified in bragging (‘too many hits – too little time!’), and maybe it would have been better had he graced London with his presence more than once in the last ten years. The tremendous weight of expectation has rendered it difficult to judge these concerts with any real degree of objectivity. As an entertainer, Prince may have lived up to those expectations but he has surely failed to seize a golden opportunity by not surpassing them.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Soy Super Bien!
Super Furry Animals - Hey Venus!
It’s perhaps understandable that Super Furry Animals have recently diminished in status from national treasure to a dependable band rather taken for granted. This has much to do with the rather assuming nature of their previous two albums, particularly 2005’s ‘Love Kraft’. A collaboration between SFA and Beastie Boys producer Mario Caldato Jr., ‘Love Kraft’ should have been inspired. Unfortunately, the result sounded like an album made under the influence of too many depressive substances – occasionally enlightened (‘Zoom’, ‘Laser Beam’ and ‘Cyclone’ are among their best songs) but mostly hazy, slothful and lacking in energy. All bands have to undergo an inevitable maturing process but in this case the gonzo spirit that informed the first three SFA albums seemed to have been surgically removed rather than merely tempered. It was the first SFA album that couldn’t even begin to match the exuberant qualities of Pete Fowler’s artwork.
‘Hey Venus!’ goes some distance in restoring that enthusiasm and restless creativity and it makes for a much more satisfying record as a result. The album’s concept about a runaway girl might well be a loose afterthought, but the sound (now controlled by Broken Social Scene’s remarkable engineer Dave Newfeld) is coherent and intelligent. ‘Hey Venus!’ at last sees SFA make inventive use of the studio again.
It also restores the maverick sense of humour that ‘Love Kraft’ transparently lacked. The opening ‘Gateway Song’ lasts a mere 45 seconds, neatly presaging the fun and games that follow, with Gruff Rhys boasting that ‘it brings us up nicely to the harder stuff and once you get hooked, you can’t get enough’. The Phil Spector-esque ‘Run-Away’ begins with a rather wonderful piece of spoken explanation – ‘this next song is based on a true story, which would be fine if it wasn’t autobiographical!’ He sounds rather like a Welsh Jarvis Cocker at this point and indeed ‘Run-Away’ would have fitted rather neatly on Jarvis’ recent solo album. ‘Hey Venus!’ also benefits from some spectacularly silly song titles – ‘Carbon Dating’, ‘Battersea Odyssey’, ‘Baby Ate My Eightball’ – the group clearly haven’t lost their delirious love of wordplay.
There’s still a lingering sense of disappointment in the fact that the band have settled for emphasising their more conservative 60s and 70s psychedelic influences over the rush of lo-fi magic that made ‘Mwng’ so captivating, or the experiments with techno and electronica that permeated ‘Rings Around The World’ and ‘Guerilla’. ‘Show Your Hand’, the album’s first single, whilst undeniably pretty, is really nothing more than you’d expect from a band with a barely restrained infatuation with ‘Surf’s Up’-era Beach Boys. There was a time when SFA seemed to have no care whatsoever for categorisation or the expectations of their audience, successfully challenging people to embrace whatever they had to offer. Nowadays, they seem to have settled into some kind of quirky pop-meets soft rock bracket.
The positive response to this is that the band has blessed ‘Hey Venus!’ with some genuinely memorable tunes (the delicate doo-wop of ‘Carbon Dating’, the brass laden stomp of ‘Battersea Odyssey’ or the ELO-esque harmonies of ‘The Gift That Keeps Giving’). There are some moments when the band’s masterful synthesis of old and new shines through with real clarity (the deliciously funky ‘Into The Night’ or the enjoyable ‘Neo Consumer’) Even the more lightweight moments come with a tremendous sense of fun (the fuzzy disco of ‘Baby Ate My Eightball’). It’s also worth recognising that ‘Hey Venus!’ is SFA’s eighth album proper, which is quite an achievement in itself. Kindred spirits The Boo Radleys sadly couldn’t manage that kind of longevity, unfairly maligned as they now are. ‘Hey Venus!’ doesn’t exactly break any new ground for SFA and, at just 36 minutes, many may feel a little short changed on duration. Let’s not take them for granted though, eh?
It’s perhaps understandable that Super Furry Animals have recently diminished in status from national treasure to a dependable band rather taken for granted. This has much to do with the rather assuming nature of their previous two albums, particularly 2005’s ‘Love Kraft’. A collaboration between SFA and Beastie Boys producer Mario Caldato Jr., ‘Love Kraft’ should have been inspired. Unfortunately, the result sounded like an album made under the influence of too many depressive substances – occasionally enlightened (‘Zoom’, ‘Laser Beam’ and ‘Cyclone’ are among their best songs) but mostly hazy, slothful and lacking in energy. All bands have to undergo an inevitable maturing process but in this case the gonzo spirit that informed the first three SFA albums seemed to have been surgically removed rather than merely tempered. It was the first SFA album that couldn’t even begin to match the exuberant qualities of Pete Fowler’s artwork.
‘Hey Venus!’ goes some distance in restoring that enthusiasm and restless creativity and it makes for a much more satisfying record as a result. The album’s concept about a runaway girl might well be a loose afterthought, but the sound (now controlled by Broken Social Scene’s remarkable engineer Dave Newfeld) is coherent and intelligent. ‘Hey Venus!’ at last sees SFA make inventive use of the studio again.
It also restores the maverick sense of humour that ‘Love Kraft’ transparently lacked. The opening ‘Gateway Song’ lasts a mere 45 seconds, neatly presaging the fun and games that follow, with Gruff Rhys boasting that ‘it brings us up nicely to the harder stuff and once you get hooked, you can’t get enough’. The Phil Spector-esque ‘Run-Away’ begins with a rather wonderful piece of spoken explanation – ‘this next song is based on a true story, which would be fine if it wasn’t autobiographical!’ He sounds rather like a Welsh Jarvis Cocker at this point and indeed ‘Run-Away’ would have fitted rather neatly on Jarvis’ recent solo album. ‘Hey Venus!’ also benefits from some spectacularly silly song titles – ‘Carbon Dating’, ‘Battersea Odyssey’, ‘Baby Ate My Eightball’ – the group clearly haven’t lost their delirious love of wordplay.
There’s still a lingering sense of disappointment in the fact that the band have settled for emphasising their more conservative 60s and 70s psychedelic influences over the rush of lo-fi magic that made ‘Mwng’ so captivating, or the experiments with techno and electronica that permeated ‘Rings Around The World’ and ‘Guerilla’. ‘Show Your Hand’, the album’s first single, whilst undeniably pretty, is really nothing more than you’d expect from a band with a barely restrained infatuation with ‘Surf’s Up’-era Beach Boys. There was a time when SFA seemed to have no care whatsoever for categorisation or the expectations of their audience, successfully challenging people to embrace whatever they had to offer. Nowadays, they seem to have settled into some kind of quirky pop-meets soft rock bracket.
The positive response to this is that the band has blessed ‘Hey Venus!’ with some genuinely memorable tunes (the delicate doo-wop of ‘Carbon Dating’, the brass laden stomp of ‘Battersea Odyssey’ or the ELO-esque harmonies of ‘The Gift That Keeps Giving’). There are some moments when the band’s masterful synthesis of old and new shines through with real clarity (the deliciously funky ‘Into The Night’ or the enjoyable ‘Neo Consumer’) Even the more lightweight moments come with a tremendous sense of fun (the fuzzy disco of ‘Baby Ate My Eightball’). It’s also worth recognising that ‘Hey Venus!’ is SFA’s eighth album proper, which is quite an achievement in itself. Kindred spirits The Boo Radleys sadly couldn’t manage that kind of longevity, unfairly maligned as they now are. ‘Hey Venus!’ doesn’t exactly break any new ground for SFA and, at just 36 minutes, many may feel a little short changed on duration. Let’s not take them for granted though, eh?
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