Soul Sides

Candi Staton - Who's Hurting Now? (Honest Jon's, 2009)
Raphael Saadiq - The Way I See It (RCA, 2008/Sony UK, 2009)

Here are two albums both indebted to the vibrant soul tradition, but with a very different approach to production and execution. The return of Candi Staton to the secular mainstream has been one of the major soul revival stories and it’s slightly disappointing that a quick Google search reveals very little internet writing on this new album. Longstanding legacy artists like Staton of course don’t need the short term buzz and hype that the web provides (the likes of Grizzly Bear and Animal Collective, however, positively thrive on it). Yet I often find it slightly irritating that bloggers so often opt to concentrate exclusively on the shock of the new. Unsurprisingly, then, Raphael Saadiq’s second solo album, also excellent, generates more results for its sleek modernisation of the classic Motown sound.

Staton, perhaps wisely, has opted to stay with the same team that helmed her outstanding ‘His Hands’ album from a couple of years ago. Former Lambchop member Mark Nevers stays in the producer’s chair and Will Oldham contributes another superb song (the title track from ‘His Hands’ is among the best things he’s written, but perhaps there’s too much love for Will here at the moment). The album has a relaxed feel, with plenty of reserved but gritty grooving. It sounds convincingly recorded live, with the sort of house band feel that characterised the best Memphis recordings from the Stax era. Whilst there are no explicitly religious songs here, there’s plenty of gospel fervour, and Staton’s gospel heritage adds real depth and conviction to her take on Mary Gauthier’s ‘Mercy Now’.

Although Staton apparently had her reservations with Will Oldham’s contribution here, the selection of this and the Mary Gauthier track neatly demonstrate the links between deep southern soul and country music. The album also opens superbly with a relatively recent Dan Penn composition, one of the slow-burning, gutsy tracks that best suit Staton’s wonderful voice. It’s about a slow seduction, with the woman initially reserved and resistant. Staton assumed it was a song about weakness, and initially didn’t want to sing it, but later re-interpreted it to be about overcoming doubt and fear in relationships.

As is so often the case, soul singers and their chosen songs offer huge insight into human emotions and relationships. Will Oldham’s ‘Get Your Hands Dirty’ continues his preoccupation with concepts of work that can also be heard on his own ‘Beware’ album. Again, Candi brings a rawness and emotional clarity to his work – Oldham would have rendered it more elusive and translucent. Just as I was bemoaning the lack of intelligent songs about remaining single, a flurry of them seem to be emerging. ‘Lonely Don’t’ is a song that imagines ‘Lonely’ as a partner that won’t mistreat and neglect you in the way that real life partners often do. It’s a powerful, thought-provoking sentiment. Even more daring is Staton’s sole original contribution to this set, ‘Dust On My Pillow’, another smouldering deep soul ballad, but a novel one which genuinely seems to be about Viagra. Staton is interested in its negative effects on long term marriages as newly restored men seek younger girls.

At its best, be it with dirty grooves like the title track or gritty ballads, ‘Who’s Hurting Now?’ plays to Staton’s considerable strengths as a communicator and vocalist. If there’s a limitation to this album, it’s in the occasional over-familiarity of the material, which occasionally risks veering into soul cliché. There’s a nagging sense that a couple of the tracks (‘The Light In Your Eyes’, ‘I Don’t Know’) are slightly icky. Still, it’s a small quibble with an otherwise appetising set that provides a powerful reminder of how timeless and durable deep soul music can be.

Raphael Saadiq is a high profile writer, singer and producer in the States but is only just receiving his dues here in the UK. He was a member of the underrated group Tony! Toni! Tone! (I willingly admit I’m relying on Wikipedia to get the various Tonies in what is hopefully the right sequence). He then went on to produce the femal R&B supergroup Lucy Pearl and work with D’Angelo and Joss Stone, who guests on a track here. His debut album ‘Instant Vintage’ earned five grammy nominations, but didn’t seem to kick up too much of a storm here. It’s taken a while for ‘The Way I See It’ to get a full UK release (it’s been available in the US since late last year) but it has now at last arrived.

Suddenly, everyone seems to have latched on to Saadiq’s almost slavishly faithful facsimile of Motown gold (particularly the Holland-Dozier-Holland sound) and I see no reason not to join the chorus of approval. Unlike the Candi Staton album though, this is definitely not a live-in-the-studio recording though. Saadiq is much more open to modern studio techniques. As such, ‘The Way I See It’ reproduces a classic template, but filters this through the influence of contemporary R&B and hip hop, mostly without diluting its effect. This is somewhere where guest artists Stevie Wonder, Joss Stone and Jay-Z can all feel at home (although Jay-Z admittedly murders the second version of ‘Oh Girl’ with his awful half-rapping, half-singing).

As a singer, Saadiq doesn’t quite have the force and range of the great Motown voices, although there is a real insistent quality to his delivery that is difficult to resist. His vocal phrasing is as crisp and driving as his precise rhythm tracks. As a producer, he understands the crucial role played by the bass and the rhythm guitar in the construction of those irresistible grooves. The playing on the opening double whammy of ‘Sure Hope You Mean It’ and ‘100 Yard Dash’ is impeccable.

Saadiq also has a knack for combining musical and sexual impulses. ‘Let’s Take A Walk’ is a good deal less innocent than its naïve title suggests. In fact, it’s about as unsubtle a seduction song as has ever been penned, set to a suitably filthy groove. In fact, many of these tracks seem to be primarily physical, with both ‘100 Yard Dash’ and ‘Keep Marchin’ emphasising movement. Perhaps the Motown track this most reminds me of is Edwin Starr’s imperious ’25 Miles’, one of my very favourites.

Then there’s the more complex trick of setting life’s more difficult lessons to remarkably breezy, upbeat accompaniment (‘Staying in Love’) – this was one of Motown’s greatest stylistic tricks and is a general hallmark of successful pop music. Saadiq also proves himself capable of a sensitive touch, with a handful of equally well crafted ballads. Mercifully, these aren’t the token slow warblers that so often hamper contemporary R&B albums, but essential constituents of a successful whole.

‘The Way I See It’ is a spirited and enjoyable album, steeped in history but with an effective contemporary sheen. Given the buzz surrounding it at the moment, it will surely raise Saadiq’s stature in the UK. Clearly this has been long overdue.

A Contrarian Unmasked

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Beware (Domino, 2009)

The cover is deep black, with a remarkably striking portrait of the artist in white silhouette. The typography hints at Neil Young’s iconic ‘Tonight’s The Night’ sleeve. Then there are the song titles – ‘Death Final’, ‘You Are Lost’, ‘I Am Goodbye’. At first glance, ‘Beware’ looks like a more natural successor to the classic ‘I See A Darkness’ than anything Will Oldham has recorded in the intervening years.

This being the work of a prolific man with many guises, who enjoys confusing and confounding his admirers as much as his detractors, it predictably isn’t quite that simple. ‘Beware’ is another step on Oldham’s strange, questioning journey, and another refusal simply to repeat former glories. What is for sure, at least to these ears, is that this is his best, most confident work since the aforementioned first outing under the BPB name.

On his most recent albums, Oldham has been experimenting with the effects of working with different vocalists. In fact, it’s been surprising how well his characteristically wayward voice has blended with his female collaborators. On ‘Beware’ he has assembled something approaching a mass choir. Sometimes they provide swelling background harmonies, whilst at others they work (very effectively) in response to his calls. The result is what might be Oldham’s most expansive and extravagant album to date – a form of imposing Nashville soul that is both commanding and compelling.

If anything, ‘Beware’ is closest in sound to ‘Greatest Palace Music’, the album on which Oldham controversially covered himself in Nashville syrup. I’m not sure that ‘Beware’ is destined to follow that album’s unfair dismissal though. The songs here are simply too good to be ignored. Also, the notion that this represents some new ‘positive’ or ‘happy’ Oldham is far too schematic an interpretation. Whilst ‘Beware’ is certainly full of physical humour and even occasionally some warmth, its overall emotional landscape is a good deal more slippery and complex.

So, whilst ‘I Don’t Belong To Anyone’ examines the joys of fun-loving bachelor status (a far more enjoyable song than Morrissey’s surly ‘I’m OK By Myself’) and ‘You Don’t Love Me’ explores the virtues of non-committal lovemaking, there’s also the devastatingly poignant ‘Heart’s Arms’ and the mysterious, troubling ‘You Are Lost’. The former is as expressive and eloquent a break-up song as I’ve heard (‘I open this awful machine to nothing, where once your intimacies came pounding’) and the latter seems to recognise the need for a free spirited partner to escape the restrictions imposed by its protagonist (‘if you listen to me you are lost’).

What emerges clearly from this selection of songs is the tremendous human insight of Oldham’s writing. One of Oldham’s older songs ‘One With The Birds’, introduced the tricky concept of being ‘inhuman’ and perhaps not being as distant from animals as we might wish. ‘Beware’ seems to incorporate some of our less altruistic desires into a more intricate and complete portrait of being human. Sometimes this lies in directly confronting the more unpalatable sides of human nature, from selfishness and greed to controlling impulses. Sometimes it’s a recognition of the warmth that can be found in tiny physical details (the ‘belly laughs’ or ‘the way my stomach jiggles’). At other times, it’s even rueful or self deprecating (‘you say my kisses don’t even raise a six on a scale of one to ten’). It’s a richly nuanced depiction of human life that refuses to conform to anything as simplistic as a positive or negative viewpoint.

Elsewhere, he mischievously undercuts the tropes of the American blues tradition (‘I know everyone knows the trouble I have seen/That’s the thing about trouble you can love’) and seems preoccupied with the concept of work, particularly in relationships. At the moment, ‘My Life’s Work’ is striking me as one of his most powerful and strident songs to date.

Musically, the album is as confident and audacious a work as any in Oldham’s illustrious canon. The first interjection of the choir on ‘Beware Your Only Friend’ immediately betrays the album’s wry humour (‘I want to be your only friend’, sings Oldham, ‘does that sound scary?’ responds the choir). Throughout the album, backing vocals conspire to add depth and power. The instrumentation is also correspondingly lavish, with plenty of fiddles, flutes, cornets and even the odd saxophone solo. On ‘Heart’s Arms’, Oldham explores the dramatic potential of sudden dynamic contrasts.

Yet ‘Beware’ is also an embrace of country music’s subtleties as well as its potential for luxury. There’s the gentle shuffle of ‘I Don’t Belong To Anyone’ or the more reflective, delicate lilt of ‘Death Final’, both excellent songs. Often the rhythmic foundation comes more from hand percussion than a full drum kit, a neat trick that lends space to the music where it might otherwise have been cluttered. This works particularly well on the extraordinary, dream-like closing track ‘Afraid Ain’t Me’.

There’s also a melodic familiarity to some of the tracks here that somehow manages to be more of a strength than a weakness. Oldham has certainly done this before – with ‘One With The Birds’ having borrowed heavily from Gram Parsons’ ‘Hickory Wind’. Here, ‘Beware Your Only Friend’ reminds me slightly of ‘Octopus’ Garden’, although it’s admittedly hard to imagine Ringo Starr singing these words. More notably perhaps, ‘Without Work, You Have Nothing’ strongly resembles the old Jerome Kern standard ‘The Way You Look Tonight’. These borrowings make the songs sound rooted in history, but Oldham takes these melodies to a wildly different place.

Oldham has never made a bad album as such, but sometimes they’ve seemed either overly conceptual (‘Sings Greatest Palace Music’) or have hidden some depths within considerable subtleties (‘The Letting Go’). ‘Beware’ is an immediate and authoritative statement, but one that seems likely to have a durable quality too. Straightforwardly, for such a contrarian, these are outstanding songs, delivered with a distinctive authorial voice.

Playlist

Various kinds of work have left me unable to blog for a while now, so I thought I'd post one of those occasional playlists, mainly to remind me of the mountain of music I need to write about. I had wanted to write something about Ari Hoenig's fearsome gig at Road Trip last week (a nice little venue if it continues to be used as a jazz club), but maybe the time has passed for that now.

Raphael Saadiq - The Way I See It
Candi Staton - Who's Hurting Now?
Micachu - Jewellery
Super Furry Animals - Dark Days/Light Years
Marianne Faithfull - Easy Come Easy Go
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Beware
Sweet Billy Pilgrim - Twice Born Men
Beirut - March of the Zapotec/Realpeople: Holland
Emmy The Great - First Love
Alela Diane - To Be Still
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!
Oumou Sangare - Seya
DOOM - Born Like This (out on Monday)
Bill Callahan - Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle (out on Monday)
The Decemberists - The Hazards Of Love (on iTunes now, physical release on Monday)

Solo Pornography

AC Newman – Get Guilty (Matador, 2009)
Neko Case – Middle Cyclone (Anti, 2009)

This week two solo albums arrive from members of the infectious, zany power-pop supergroup New Pornographers. Whilst Neko Case has, over several albums now, established her own signature style, informed by backwoods country, Byrdsian twang and classic pop, AC Newman’s solo career has struggled to exist as a proposition distinct from his parent band. Newman writes the majority of the songs for New Pornographers, and their best albums arguably succeed because Dan Bejar’s excursions into weird, fantastical stream-of-consciousness provide some balance to Newman’s relentless pop sensibility. A whole album of Newman confections might well be difficult to digest.

‘Get Guilty’ is a big improvement on ‘The Slow Wonder’. That album had been frontloaded with excellent songs only to veer off into more obtuse, meandering territory. Whilst not quite as consistent as the best of the New Pornographers albums, ‘Get Guilty’ maintains a more engaging standard throughout. It succeeds partly through being more ramshackle and less overblown than the last New Pornographers outing, the disappointing ‘Challengers’. There’s a big emphasis on rhythmic clatter and percussive drive, most effectively on ‘Like A Hitman, Like A Dancer’. Whilst the arrangements are frequently lush, there’s a roughness around the edges that lends the music some endearing imperfections. In addition to this, there are unusual choices of instruments, including recorders and melodicas. It feels loose and fun, rather than over-composed.

The pomp-pop of ‘Challengers’ is refined into a more agreeable proposition on two tracks - the Spector-ish opener ‘There Are Maybe Ten Or Twelve’ and ‘The Changeling’, which seems to recast Dylan’s ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ as a drunken lurch. Both are bold, chiming, confident performances. On a second play, I wonder whether a better comparison might even be the lavish, irresistible early pop singles of the Bee Gees, minus the squeaky falsettos of course.

Elswhere, as might be expected, Newman’s predilection for relentlessly summery melodies presides. The first four tracks represent Newman at his strongest – combining this tendency with a slightly ragged musical delivery and an abundance of rhythmic quirks and tricks. ‘Too Many Prophets’ and ‘The Heartbreak Rides’ are among his most direct songs, where his tendency for lyrical verbosity and awkwardness doesn’t intrude too much on the overall performance. It would be easy to view Newman’s chirpy enthusiasm as irritating – but there’s also something undeniably delightful about their impact. Even the more translucent songs that constitute the final third of the record have a steely conviction and confidence.

Neko Case’s songs on ‘Middle Cyclone’ are less openly enthusiastic and insistent than Newman’s but, I suspect, ultimately more enduring. Here, she has refined and polished her sound without losing her idiosyncratic qualities as a songwriter. The BBC website describes ‘Middle Cyclone’ as a set of simple country songs but I can’t help feeling that underestes its achievement and misunderstands Case’s strategy. 2002’s ‘Blacklisted’ was something of a pivotal point in her career, the point at which she abandoned ‘Her Boyfriends’, took songwriting control and started to develop a stranger, reverb-laden sound evocative of fairytales and sinister menace. It was the perfect context for her unusual, sometimes creepy metaphors. Whilst ‘Middle Cyclone’ certainly presents a smoother, more approachable version of this sound, Case still inhabits her own unique space and in some ways it represents an expansion of her language.

‘People Got A Lotta Nerve’, the taster freely distributed around the internet, is in some ways quite misleading. Its twelve string guitar jangle and hummable chorus suggest an immediacy and directness not always in evidence elsewhere. Some of these songs are more complex creations. Indeed, sometimes when the surface appearance of a song is disarmingly simple, closer listening reveals that there’s much more than first meets the ear.

This is particularly true of the delightful title track. Its delicate strum and hushed, restrained vocal make it sound remarkably straightforward. The music box counter melody almost (but not quite) sends it into the realm of tweeness. Close listening, however, reveals an odd structure veering between bars of 5 and 6 in an unpredictable pattern. It’s a love song of sorts, or at least about the difficulty in accepting the need for love. The lyrics are both clever and achingly bittersweet. It’s a quiet gem and one of a handful of songs here to deal more directly with the feeling of falling in love.

There’s still a characteristic helping of magical realism though and Case’s preoccupation with the animal kingdom continues apace, now further enhanced by broader nature metaphors, as the title suggests. On the opening ‘This Tornado Loves You’, Case casts herself as a force of nature, wanting to ‘carve your name across three counties’. It’s one of many striking images liberally scattered throughout this album – another favourite is the key line from ‘Prison Girls’ – ‘I love your long shadows and your gunpowder eyes’.

For every crisp and immediate song here (the driving rock of ‘I’m an Animal’ is probably the closest thing here to something New Pornographers might produce), there is something distinctly odd. ‘Fever’ is full of weird and wonderful sounds, from the clicking sound of drum rims to discomforting guitar effects. Some of these tracks were recorded in Case’s rural barn, in which she utilised eight upright pianos.

‘Polar Nettles’ and ‘Vengeance is Sleeping’ both benefit from that underlying sense of barbarous threat that makes even her softest, most skeletal songs sound unusual. The longer ‘Prison Girls’ and ‘The Pharoahs’ essentially restate Case’s talent for narrative driven songs set to lilting shuffles. Neither perhaps breaks new ground for her (the former sounds like a slower version of ‘Deep Red Bells’) but both serve to emphasise her core talents with effortless ease.

The two judiciously selected cover versions also remind us how superb an interpreter Neko Case is. Her version of Sparks’ ‘Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth’, surgically removing any sense of playful irony or parody associated with the original band, is so good as to make me wonder whether all albums should be compelled to include a Sparks cover. Nilsson’s anguished, but also blackly humorous ‘Don’t Forget Me’ seems like a more obvious choice, but that shouldn’t take anything away from her thoughtful and composed delivery.

‘Middle Cyclone’ is a resplendent album that rewards more and more with every play. From the unashamed brutality of a line like ‘the next time you say forever, I will punch you in the face’ to the confessional tenderness of its title track, it contains a wealth of personal emotional directness not heard on its immediate predecessors. Yet it sacrifices little in its quest for broader appeal – this is still a strange, murky, half-fantastical world. My only reservation is the bonus track – a whopping 31 minutes of ambient sound from the pond at the aforementioned barn that is almost as long as the rest of the album. Sorry, but that’s just an unnecessarily large and wasteful file that almost undercuts the haunting beauty of everything that has gone before.

How To Reappear Completely

The Invisible - The Invisible (Accidental, 2009)

It seems only appropriate to follow the tribute to Ian Carr with a review of something involving people who have passed through his workshops. As a project, The Invisible follows on from the excellent Jade Fox, who gained a strong following and credible reputation but never delivered an official full-length album. Originally intended as a side project to Jade Fox, the ideas grew substantially until it became a more viable proposition. The Invisible’s line-up includes the towering guitarist Dave Okumu, the versatile bassist Tom Herbert (formerly of Acoustic Ladyland and still a vital presence in Polar Bear) and superb drummer Leo Taylor. All are experienced jazz musicians and whilst they perhaps bring a more adventurous harmonic sensibility to this music as a result, few would venture to call this album jazz. It is, however, one of the most exciting and engaging British pop albums I’ve heard for some time.

That being said, it’s not exactly forward thinking. Listening to it makes me wonder why, when there’s been such a tremendous hullaballoo about synth pop acts like La Roux and Little Boots, excitement surrounding The Invisible’s equally 80s-informed brew has been slower to build. Okumu’s group plunder a much wider array of potentially more fashionable 80s sources. Indeed, pretty much everything that populated Simon Reynolds’ wonderful book ‘Rip It Up and Start Again’ can be heard in ghostly voices here, from Talking Heads to Orange Juice and Scritti Politti. Another major influence, on the introspective lyrics as much as the music, is Robert Smith and The Cure.

What is exciting about The Invisible, then, is not so much their depth or originality, but the effectiveness of their synthesis, the quality of their songs and the thoughtful studio treatment of the material. If there is a more contemporary element to their sound, it lies in the treatment of Okumu’s vocals, which occasionally calls to mind TV on the Radio or Bon Iver. Yet in spite of the transparent influences, there isn’t really another comparable band at work in the UK – there’s something fresh and appealing about The Invisible’s presentation and feeling for the music.

Sometimes the sheer proficient tightness of their groove is electrifying, as on the slinky ‘Jacob and the Angel’. Throughout, Tom Herbert’s basslines are thrillingly danceable, his phrases carefully placed and punctuated to give the music momentum. How many bassists are equally as vital on both upright and fretted electric instruments? Taylor uses the complete drum kit to provide texture and colour, as well as that supreme rhythmic security which elevates The Invisible over lesser rock groups. It all comes together in exciting fashion on ‘Monster’s Waltz’, with its delicious syncopated guitar chords which then unexpectedly give way to an explosive chorus.

Whilst there’s certainly a cerebral quality of the music, it’s the immediacy and drive of a number of the tracks that really makes it click. ‘London Girl’, with a bassline that comes across as a combination of ‘Good Times’ and ‘Another One Bites The Dust’, is completely irresistible. ‘OK’ is the most infectious thing here – with its sugary harmonies and driving pace. In an alternative dimension, these sound like top ten hits.

I’m not entirely convinced by the isolation-by-numbers of some of Okumu’s lyrics. He sounds less self-conscious and more dynamic when simply enthusing about a girl as he does on ‘London Girl’. It’s possible that he’s more interested in sound than he is a songwriter per se – he’s certainly paid considerable attention to the sound of his voice and how it fits within the intricate musical whole. As a result, the clunkier aspects of his lyrics don’t intrude too much on the overall effect (much the same as with The Cure and New Order if we’re honest).

There are few bands who give so much consideration to the execution and delivery of their songs. Every element of this music is precise and well crafted. The result is an album that sounds hypnotic and sensuous – music with real presence and vitality.

Ian Carr 1933 - 2009: A Personal Tribute

It’s a sad and rare day when I get to write here about a significant figure in British music with a direct and personal influence on my life. For this reason, I’m not going to write too much about Ian Carr’s career and body of work. There are already some excellent obituaries online (to which I shall link at the end of the piece) that cover all this in much more detail than I can manage. It will suffice to say that those not familiar with Ian’s music and his considerable role in the jazz-rock movement should at least check out ‘Out of the Long Dark’ or the first two Nucleus albums (‘Elastic Rock’ and ‘We’ll Talk About It Later’). His playing is also well showcased on Neil Ardley’s adventurous ‘Greek Variations’ and ‘Kaleidoscope of Rainbows’ amongst many other notable sessions. His major contribution had finally been recognised in 2006 with the BBC Services to Jazz award, but by this time he was sadly already afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease. In this piece, I want to write more about Ian as an educator, the domain in which I came into contact with him and where I benefited from his considerable musicianship, experience and wisdom.

I was fortunate to attend a prestigious fee paying school with impressive facilities – computers with sequencing software for every student, numerous instruments, concert halls and a recording studio- but there were many ways in which the school’s music department was sorely lacking. One of these was its attitude to jazz. Everyone involved in teaching and performing jazz in the school was well meaning and polite – but they were not specialists and viewed improvisation as a skill far from the reach of teenage minds. Solos for the school jazz band tended to be written out, and there was an unappetising focus on the hoariest of standards, always played exactly ‘as written’ in a staid and organised ‘music for schools’ fashion. Spontaneity and interaction were not exactly encouraged.

Thank goodness, then, for Ian’s workshops at Weekend Arts College, then located in a dilapidated but vibrant shack next to Kentish Town West train station (now located in the classier environment of Hampstead Town Hall). I first attended Ian Carr’s workshops in September 1995, when I was just 14 years old. I had already developed a taste for jazz at least in part from my Dad’s record collection but also from Gerry Hunt’s wonderful classes for younger children at the college on Saturdays. Here I earned myself a bit of a reputation for being prepared to try out almost any instrument, from steel pan to bass guitar, but more focus and higher standards were demanded from Ian's classes. I duly opted to concentrate on drums. At £1.50 for three hours, these classes cost a small fraction of my school music lessons but contributed so much more to my knowledge and experience. In Ian’s classes, improvisation was an essential ingredient of music, and a liberating force.

Crucially, making mistakes was an inherent part of the learning process. Ian was always full of pithy, wise phrases, but the one I remember most clearly is ‘jazz is the art of recovery’. It was in Ian’s classes where I learned the value of getting things wrong. The important mark of a good musician was in how they took risks and recovered when things didn’t quite work: ‘If you fail, fail again but fail more successfully’. Improvised music was a necessarily imperfect art form where learning never stops, no matter what standard you might attain.

Ian was therefore as passionate about the learning process as he was about teaching us – ‘I’m still learning every day - if you have stopped learning, you should stop altogether’, he often used to say. Although he could certainly be a tough taskmaster with some very strong, ingrained opinions, he also enjoyed working with his students as much as working for them. As a result, he was never patronising. When we eventually got to perform our repertoire for the term, he would often play with us, and would be tremendously guilty about taking a long solo for himself when his passion and enthusiasm simply wouldn’t allow him to sit out. He once told a guitarist in our group: ‘Tom, I’m so sorry, I think I took your solo – but it was so damn groovy I just had to play!’ In these situations, he couldn’t be stopped and, as a rhythm section, we got the undoubted benefit of supporting him.

Ian could be particularly tough on the rhythm section, and as a somewhat unconfident teenager, this could sometimes present a challenge. It would sometimes feel as if he might be singling out particular individuals for censure over apparently trivial issues. Only when our analysis of the structure and function of a piece of music progressed did it become clear how sensitive and attuned his attention to detail was. As a trumpeter and keyboardist, he didn’t teach me so much about playing the drums but he taught me a great deal about music and the wider role of the drums within it. He would often put drummers on the spot with questions about harmony or possible scales, making it clear that drummers could not get away with just hitting things and knowing next to nothing about the form or harmonic structure of the music. He was particularly intolerant of virtuosity for its own sake – bass players had to master a solid and dependable walking feel before they varied their placements and he would be far more enthusiastic about a drummer with comfortable time feel than one with dexterous chops and poor judgment over which ideas to play. I remember him castigating poor Alex Gould (a technically excellent drummer) for not placing the cross-rim on beat four of the bar during ‘Milestones’. ‘That rimshot on beat four is the absolute crux of the piece!’ he would enthuse – ‘it cannot be put just where you want it!’ I learnt quickly to focus on my ride cymbal feel and get to grips with the structure of the piece, before attempting to impose my individual contribution.

It was really through Ian’s classes that I learned how to listen. It’s this quality he recognised in my playing at the time – an ability to listen to the contributions of other members of an ensemble and to play supportively. He also directed my listening in the broader sense, with his encyclopaedic knowledge of jazz history and artists’ discographies. He would be offer very specific recommendations – Oliver Nelson’s ‘Blues and the Abstract Truth’ was one of ‘the key albums of the 1960s’, whilst ‘Tales of Another’ by Gary Peacock, Keith Jarrett and Jack DeJohnette was another of his all time favourites. I doubt I would have even heard of George Russell, a major but underestimated presence in jazz history, were it not for Ian’s praise of him and subsequent radio broadcast.

It was often hard to elicit praise from Ian but when it came, he would deliver it in spectacular fashion. We worked on an aggressive, driving rendition of Wayne Shorter’s ‘Elegant People’ (still among my favourites of his compositions) to which Ian remarked: ‘Daniel that was so deep down in the swamp I thought you’d changed colour!’ Lack of political correctness aside, I could only take that as a very sincere compliment.

Then there were his wonderful, lengthy stories – of encounters with Miles Davis and Keith Jarrett, of his experiences performing (those infamous ‘double diminisheds!’) and, latterly, writing. He had certainly experienced a lot in his lengthy and illustrious career, not all of it positive, but all of it somehow valuable and informative.

Perhaps Ian’s most transparent flaw was his innate suspicion of free improvisation. More recently, having enjoyed the music of Evan Parker, Tim Berne, David Torne and many others, I’m not sure that I share Ian’s views here. He certainly saw few limits to improvising within a compositional structure – indeed, his teaching often emphasised just how wide the choice of scales and ideas could be. Yet whenever we requested to improvise completely freely, he was well out of his teaching comfort zone. Fairly understandably, our attempts at free improvisation were often tentative, sometimes even plain embarrassing. Perhaps Ian merely felt we needed to get to grips with a tradition and a language first. I remain unsure as to what his true opinions were here but I think it stemmed from his emphasis on the importance of time to all music. He felt that ‘time’ could never be entirely abandoned (‘play two notes, or even the same note twice, and you are playing time’) and maybe therefore that the free improvisers’ quest to escape these strictures was rather futile. Indeed, the possibilities of playing time were so vast that it needn’t be seen as a stricture at all.

It could sometimes feel as if Ian was condemning you with faint praise. His final report on me said something like ‘Daniel is starting to become a very good drummer’. It was perhaps the phrase that followed that that was more significant though, and I’m only now starting to understand what he meant. ‘Where he goes now is up to him’. This seemed quite an ambiguous and mysterious statement to my 18 year old self but it now seems very simple. A clear conception of your direction and what you want to achieve is vital to your progress as a musician. I certainly don’t regret studying history instead of music. At the time, I was quite hot-headed and fervently believed that studying music or literature might risk destroying my personal passions for the art I loved. I now believe this opinion to be ignorant and naive and am finally, ten years on, taking the steps I think Ian was encouraging me to take then. I’m doing it later than most, but there is still time and I will long be grateful to Ian for setting me off on a very long road.

I was lucky to catch Ian at the end of his teaching career. His playing had started to deteriorate and he would often be visibly frustrated by this in classes, although he had lost none of his enthusiasm for the music or for communicating. He retired from WAC a year after I left to study history at University. Subsequently, Tim Whitehead, Jonny Phillips and Ricky Mian have all ably stepped into his shoes, inheriting and developing a great tradition of jazz education at the college.

It’s deeply sad that Ian’s career was cruelly cut short by health problems at precisely the time he was gaining both a new audience and the wider recognition he’d long deserved. He’d often been unfairly portrayed as being in the shadow of his hero, Miles Davis, when his contribution to jazz-rock was actually contemporaneous with that of Miles. Some extraordinary musicians passed through Ian’s workshops at WAC - Julian Joseph, Courtney Pine, Jason Rebello, Mark and Michael Mondesir and many of the pack of musicians now revitalising British music – Zoe Rahman, Naadia Sheriff, Tom Herbert, Tom Skinner, Dave Okumu, Jesse Hackett of Elmore Judd and many others. This is testament to his manifest qualities as a teacher and his legacy will live on through these musicians for many years to come. Personally, I respect him for managing to combine pretty much all of my personal interests in one career. He composed music that crossed the often unnecessary boundaries between classical, jazz and rock (accompanied by an open-minded appreciation for a variety of musical forms), he wrote passionately and authoritatively about jazz, and even became an excellent broadcaster too.

Some links to more informative and objective obituaries covering Ian’s life and music:

http://www.iancarrsnucleus.net/IanCarrobituary.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/ian-carr-trumpeter-and-composer-whose-band-nucleus-was-at-the-forefront-of-the-jazzrock-movement-1633339.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article5810825.ece

Wordless Thoughts

Mountains - Choral (Thrill Jockey, 2009)
Lars Horntveth - Kaleidoscopic (Smalltown Supersound, 2009)
Joshua Redman - Compass (Nonesuch, 2009)
Enrico Rava - New York Days (ECM, 2009)

Maybe it's a result of being slightly frustrated by some of the song-based music released so far this year but I find myself absorbed by a fine selection of instrumental music at the moment. With new albums from Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Alasdair Roberts and Bill Callahan imminent, this may not however last very long, so I'll revel in it while I can.

If you should never judge a book by its cover, then you certainly shouldn’t judge the contents of an album from its title. ‘Choral’ is the third album from electronic duo Mountains but, aside from the odd buried whisper or moan, it contains no human voices whatsoever. Instead, it’s one of those deceptively minimal, thoroughly engrossing tapestries of sound akin to those constructed by Christian Fennesz.

For the most part, it’s a good deal less abrasive and disturbing than much of this music can be. Its embracing, hazy fuzz distances Mountains from the more terrifying work of artists such as Xela or Elegi. Instead, it comes with a warmth and open-heartedness that might broaden its appeal, without compromising the ethos or power of the music. By mostly rejecting confrontation and noise for its own sake, Mountains nimbly escape cliché, and make their comparably rare burst of more aggressive sound at the album’s conclusion more brutally effective.

‘Choral’ is more in keeping with other contemporary electronic music by rejecting demands for conventional harmonic movement, rhythmic impetus or melodic hooks. Two tracks stretch over the twelve minute mark mostly built on layering drones upon each other. The emphasis is therefore more on sound, timbre, mood and atmosphere. The frequent interjection of acoustic guitars or modest percussion instruments imbues the somnambulant textures with benevolent, human presence. The gently rolling ‘Map Table’ is particularly impressive in this regard.

‘Choral’ is a haunting and distinctive individual contribution to a still-burgeoning genre. Its music slowly and gently unravels in a beatific and engaging way. There is a strong sense that, with ‘Choral’, Mountains have crafted a form of avant-garde folk music where tradition allies comfortably with innovation.

Jaga Jazzist multi-instrumentalist Lars Horntveth describes ‘Kaleidoscopic’, a single 37-minute composition, as an attempt to reflect what he enjoys listening to, without consciously striving to copy anything specific. Eleni Karandiru, Gil Evans, Bernard Hermann, Jean-Claude Vannier, Robert Wyatt, Jim O'Rourke, John Fahey, Astor Piazzolla, Colin Blunstone, Dr. John, Steve Reich, Van Dyke Parks, David Lynch and Yma Zumac all appear on his list of admired artists. Even limited to just these artists, Horntveth has clearly absorbed an inspired cross section of contemporary music. Unsurprisingly as a result of all this digestion, ‘Kaleidoscopic’ is an absorbing listen.

It’s arguable that perhaps it dives too swiftly across the musical map. Textures and sounds are rarely given enough time to settle, and fairly conventional melodic themes disappear as quickly as they’ve emerged. The music is most effective when Horntveth focuses on simple ideas – an insistent ostinato, for example – and threads other motifs around it. It’s this combination of minimalism and adventure that would appear to provide the most fertile ground for his musical imagination.

Horntveth’s writing is also confident and assured in its catering for quirky ensembles of instruments within the wider orchestra. ‘Kaleidoscopic’ effortlessly merges electronic and acoustic textures, incorporating harp, guitar, vibraphone and saxophone. None of this sounds in any way awkward or self-conscious, although the overall mood of the piece is peaceful and serene, rather than dissonant or aggressive.

I have no qualms whatsoever, even at this very early stage, in hailing ‘Compass’, the latest album from saxophone virtuoso Joshua Redman, as one of the albums of the year. Redman has openly acknowledged the influence of Sonny Rollins’ classic trio date ‘Way Out West’ (going as far as to call his previous album ‘Back East’ in tribute) but his use, on five tracks here, of a quintet with two bassists (Larry Grenadier and Reuben Rogers) and two drummers (Brian Blade and Gregory Hutchinson) also perhaps owes a debt to Ornette Coleman. Whilst Redman has always had the chops and language to stand beside such lofty influences, his music has at times perhaps been too taut and controlled. ‘Compass’ sounds loose and liberated, in the best possible way.

Redman had deployed this unconventional quintet in a musically satisfying way, avoiding the temptation simply to gain more momentum and power from the extra rhythmic impetus. Instead, the musicians engage in intelligent conversation with each other, and the ideas germinate as much from leaving space as from making statements. Helpfully, when two drummers are used, considered stereo panning helps us distinguish the individual contributions. As a result, ‘Compass’ is particularly well suited to listening on headphones.

When the full quintet is not being used, Redman assembles a variety of trio configurations, all exploring that fascinating world where harmony is implied rather than stated. What is perhaps most impressive about the music on ‘Compass’ is its strong sense of harmonic progression, in spite of the absence of a chordal instrument. This is immediately apparent on the beautiful opening ballad ‘Uncharted’, brief at just two minutes, but speaking volumes in that time.

Redman’s themes on ‘Compass’ are mostly conventional and striking in their simplicity. It may well be precisely this that has created the sense of freedom and space in the rest of the music and which has resulted in such thrilling interaction within the various ensembles. Often, as on ‘Insomnomaniac’ and ‘Un Peu Feu’, the themes are driven by rhythmic syncopation, but Redman also proves himself capable of real emotion too, as on ‘Moonlight’, which places Beethoven in an entirely different context, where the feeling seems to come from a restraint rather than from an outward expression. It’s remarkable in its austere sadness.

Redman’s playing is consistently superb – with its clear, crisp tone and confident extemporising. Nevertheless, ‘Compass’ could hardly work as well as it does without the sheer artistry of the ensemble players. Blade and Hutchinson particularly are magical, coming as close as possible to making the drums sing. ‘Compass’ is a rare gem – a cerebral jazz album with spontaneous chemistry that also has an immediate emotional impact.

Larry Grenadier, as in demand as ever, makes another appearance on ‘New York Days’, the latest set from Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava, a record very different in tone and spirit from Redman’s. In keeping with the grand tradition of the ECM label, this is a record more preoccupied with lyricism and atmosphere. Having said that, the kind of sublime subtle musical conversations evident on albums such as Bobo Stenson’s outstanding ‘Cantando’ is also evident here, particularly on the two meditative free improvisations.

These largely gentle, contemplative performances do not necessarily leap from the page and are slow to unravel. Instead, they require (and reward) close attention. The most transparent quality here lies in Rava’s trumpet melding effortlessly with the contributions of saxophonist Mark Turner – they seem to both contemplate and embolden each other’s playing. Much of the supporting playing is characteristic of the individual preoccupations of the musicians involved. Stefano Bollani remains an impressionistic and ruminative pianist, sometimes even opaque, although the peculiar intricacies of his accompaniments are often highly original. Paul Motian’s superlative drumming remains unique in its deployment of texture and colour. It is never purely about rhythm, but as much about phrasing, both directing the other musicians and responding to them.

If this music might on the surface seem bereft of the creation and release of tension that characterises the most exciting jazz, closer listening reveals hidden fruits. The two improvisations work as the group gradually convenes, bringing order from an initial wash of calm thoughts. Even with curiously introspective titles such as ‘Outside’ or ‘Interiors’, much of the music still has a warm and romantic quality which rescues it from seeming aloof and detached, a pitfall that ECM’s less successful releases sometimes fall into. As ever, Manfred Eicher’s production has an audiophile’s sensitivity, and every sound and stroke is precisely rendered.

For those that recognise some kind of dichotomy between European and American schools of jazz, Rava might just be the connecting point between the two, having spent much of his career playing and studying in the US. Miles Davis is an obvious influence on his playing, and he also cites Duke Ellington as a major influence here. Yet the music does not swing in the exaggerated, American style – it has the fluidity and languid grace of European music.

Hold Your Horses...

M Ward - Hold Time (4AD, 2009)

Reviewing records is a difficult business sometimes, and as this blog is very much a labour of love, I don’t even get the satisfaction of financial remuneration. Partially for that reason I prefer my writing here not to focus too much on carping and negativity. But I also want to write about this new M Ward album and all the reservations I have with it, in much the same way as I wanted to write about My Morning Jacket’s ‘Evil Urges’ or Spiritualized’s ‘Songs in A & E’.

I’ve so far liked pretty much everything Matt Ward has produced, from his John Fahey-inspired works for guitars to his brilliant conceptual pop albums ‘Transfiguration of Vincent’ and ‘Transistor Radio’, the latter a particular favourite. His more recent albums have seen him move arguably in a more conventional direction. This has been unproblematic though given his complete mastery of the pop song form. Last year’s collaboration with actress and singer Zooey Deschanel was as straightforward and reverential a record as he has yet produced, but the songs were suitably infectious and charming. So why am I struggling so much with ‘Hold Time’, a record that in many ways feels like a natural progression from ‘Post War’ and the She & Him album and which some writers are proclaiming as his best work to date?

Everything about ‘Hold Time’, from its syrupy sound to its handsome packaging, seems like an attempt by Ward to broaden his audience. In principle, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this of course. Who could resent a musician of such quality filling larger concert halls or actually selling some records? Nevertheless, it ought to be possible for this to happen without Ward sacrificing too many of his idiosyncratic qualities. Almost every track on ‘Hold Time’ seems to present a reduced, watered-down version of Ward’s characteristic timeless songcraft. Where once his writing sounded effortless, it now begins to sound more like pastiche. Sometimes these weaker facsimiles of his signature style are bolstered with saccharine strings, as it to hide the rather transparent weaknesses in the songs. The bizarre addition of echo-laden glam rock drums on a handful of tracks also feels like a conspicuous error of judgement.

Some of these songs are undeniably pretty (‘One Hundred Million Years’, the nimble shuffle of ‘Fisher of Men’, the jaunty single ‘Never Had Nobody Like You’) but none appear to be all that memorable or affecting. Somewhat unexpectedly, if there’s a connecting theme to this record it appears to be one of born again Christianity. Again, I don’t have a particular problem with this – but it would be good if the delivery of the songs could match the gospel fervour of some of the song’s themes. Instead, Ward mostly sounds comfortable, laconic, sometimes even detached. This is particularly noticeable on the light, bland strum of the opener ‘For Beginners’.

I’ve not taken issue with his voice before, even though he’s never been a technically gifted singer. Yet the use of the same old-timey microphone effect on every song here has possibly now become a repetitive and lazy trope. So much of ‘Hold Time’ sounds insincere or ironic but Ward’s obvious love of classic pop suggests this isn’t intentional at all.

Even in areas where he was once supremely assured, Ward can now be found floundering. His interpretations of the songs of others often imbued them with mystery or strangeness, particularly that fine version of David Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’. The ghastly, protracted and painful-for-all-the-wrong-reasons duet with Lucinda Williams on Don Gibson’s ‘Oh Lonesome Me’ may be the worst thing he’s recorded. Lucinda’s usually convincing grittiness somehow sounds forced and affected in this context, and the string arrangement is horrendous. He makes a more conscious attempt to reinvent his source material with the take on Buddy Holly’s ‘Rave On’ but it’s something of a failure nonetheless. By lobotomising the song’s energy and impetus, it ends up occupying a fairly meaningless limbo. It’s too lightly swinging to be melancholy, but not vibrant enough to be celebratory. It’s the sort of thing which would work marvellously in Susanna Wallumrod’s hands – she would have transformed it into something unbearably sad. Ward just renders it emotionless.

The point of comparison that keeps creeping into my mind is Lambchop’s ‘Aw C’Mon/No, You Come On’ double set, where some decent songs were smothered in arrangements that too frequently had more schmaltz than soul. In Ward’s case, things pick up considerably towards the end of the album when he abandons the lavishness and opts for something more fundamental – ‘Epistemology’ has a driving rhythm, whilst ‘Shangri-La’ is appealing in its dustiness. It’s arguably too little too late though.

For the all the effort to spruce up the sound, ‘Hold Time’ ends up sounding like a musical shrug. There’s a dispassionate distance and aloofness to many of these songs. Where critical reservations have been expressed about this album, they have focussed on the transparent lack of Ward’s dexterous, quirky guitar playing. I don’t think this is the main problem, as that had already started to be pushed into the background on ‘Post War’. There’s something else missing – something less tangible but much more significant - an allure, a sense of mystery or palpable emotion. It’s somehow very dry and unmoving.

Are there any other M Ward admirers feeling the same way about ‘Hold Time’? I’d like to hear your thoughts in the Comments field below!

Joining The Dots

Various Artists - Dark Was The Night (Red Hot Organisation/4AD, 2009)

As the very endearing character JJ from Skins might put it – ‘oh my giddy, giddy aunt!’ ‘Dark Was The Night’ is a charity compilation curated by Aaron and Bryce Dessner from The National for the Red Hot AIDS awareness organisation. As someone who has contributed music to a charity album myself, I strongly support Red Hot’s contention that music can be a positive force for social change. Quite how much awareness a group of North American artists can raise in the areas where it’s most needed is probably a moot point but the project is undoubtedly a worthy one. It’s a rare charity undertaking where quality is in the ascendancy rather than vanity. Having quite this much excellent music spread across two discs is in itself really rather wonderful.

It features a whole host of inspired artists demonstrating that North American music is currently in remarkably vibrant health. The Dessners are clearly very well connected – but attempts to assert this as some kind of scene seem a little far-fetched. You could make the case for the thriving Brooklyn groups and there’s the predictable host of Canadian artists too. Inevitably, composer and string arranger du jour Nico Muhly also makes a contribution. Quite where Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Belle and Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch, Buck 65 and the Kronos Quartet fit into this spectrum is anyone’s guess but the set coheres surprisingly well.

The compilation has no concept as such, beyond showcasing independent artists refashioning traditional themes in a contemporary way. Mercifully, this rubric doesn’t preclude original compositions, although almost everything here borrows something from the great American folk tradition. The first disc is presented as the darker of the two discs, inspired by Blind Willie Johnson’s piece that gives the project its title and which the Kronos Quartet present in a decidedly avuncular manner. Some of the contributions to this disc are indeed quite theatrical and morose. The second disc is supposedly lighter and brighter, although it certainly has its fair share of quietly affecting moments.

The set opens with some dream collaborations. First of all, David Byrne teams up with the marvellous Dirty Projectors. ‘Knotty Pine’ actually turns out to be a good deal more conventional than might be expected, but its syncopated rhythms are in keeping with Dave Longstreth’s lurching, confusing style of composition. Its chorus could almost be described as infectious – one wonders if this is the influence of Byrne’s melodic maturity, or whether it hints at a poppier direction for Longstreth’s forthcoming albums. The Books work with Jose Gonzalez on an electronic version of Nick Drake’s ‘Cello Song’ that sounds exactly as you’d hear it in your dreams. Perhaps the best of these meeting of minds is Feist duetting with Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard on a lovely version of Vashti Bunyan’s ‘Train Song’, which is thoroughly Americanised with a surprising infusion of the blues.

Other specially commissioned collaborations later in the disc include Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon (aka Bon Iver) which somehow manages to combine the bourbon-soaked wistfulness of The National with Vernon’s appetising introspection. Those clamouring for Antony Hegarty to find a new context for his over-exposed voice need look no further than his beguiling version of Dylan’s ‘I Was Young When I Left Home’, accompanied by the feathery pluckings of Bryce Dessner. Perhaps its overkill to have Feist crop up again, but the exquisite and mysterious backdrop provided for her by Grizzly Bear (whose new album I am eagerly anticipating) on ‘Service Bell’ works perfectly.

There are original compositions from Bon Iver (‘Brackett, WI’ is a dirtier, more rhythmically driven take on his majestic choral wonders) and Yeasayer. The latter are on solid form, with ‘Tightrope’ as percussive, intricate and fascinating as anything on ‘All Hour Cymbals’. It is, however, perhaps the hardest track to reconcile with the folk tradition that informs the collection as a whole. As with most of the group’s music, it draws on a diverse and unpredictable array of unfashionable influences.

Perhaps the most striking contrast on the album is established by the juxtaposition of The Decemberists’ ‘Sleepless’, one of their more extravagant ballads, with ‘Die’, a contribution from Iron and Wine so brief it would be easy to skip past it altogether. Sam Beam’s voice sounds bolder and more forthright than usual here and the song is so stark and simple as to lack his usual lyrical flights of fancy. It’s an interesting diversion for a talented writer.

My Brightest Diamond’s interpretation of ‘Feeling Good’ (originally from ‘Roar of the Greasepaint’ but arguably most closely associated with Nina Simone) is mercifully a good deal more subtle than Muse’s ghastly demolition of it. In fact, it’s a rather haunting and memorable deconstruction of a song usually delivered much more emphatically.

The track most likely to catch people’s attention (and divide opinion) is Sufjan Stevens’ uncharacteristically overcooked ten minute rendering of The Castanets’ ‘You Are The Blood’. It’s particularly interesting for reintroducing Stevens’ electronic preoccupations, something not heard since his bizarre ‘Enjoy Your Rabbit’ album. This acts as the album’s grand centrepiece, reappearing as it does in radically reimagined form in the second disc by hip hop artist Buck 65. Stevens has clearly gone to more effort than most here – there’s seemingly nothing he hasn’t thrown into this precocious melting pot. It has an elaborate brass section, immediately followed by a classical piano cadenza (is this played by Stevens himself?). You can’t fault him for ambition but, to my mind, it’s a strangely self-conscious addition to his impressive output.

The second disc is never quite as wilfully unpredictable, but it has many pleasures. Arcade Fire contribute ‘Lenin’, a reduced budget version of their orchestrated chugging which has the benefit of sounding as if it would be more at home on ‘Funeral’ than on ‘Neon Bible’. Similarly, Zach Condon delivers an accordion and brass band offcut that could have sat quite comfortably on ‘The Flying Club Cup’. There’s nothing in any way revelatory about either, and they feel more at home as part of their artists’ already established catalogues than on this compilation, but both are dependably enjoyable.

The second disc contains two solid gold gems. My Morning Jacket’s ‘El Caporal’, recorded back in 2007 before the unfortunate ‘Evil Urges’, proves where their more fertile and comfortable ground lies. This is a swaying country-tinged saloon-bar ballad, with some strange lyrics (‘I just hope, love, that my kisses will linger/On your sweet, confused captain’s face’) and a swooning, lovely vocal from Jim James. It teeters on the brink of schmaltz but stays the right side throughout. It’s perhaps most closely related to James’ sterling version of Bob Dylan’s ‘Goin’ To Acapulco’ from the ‘I’m Not There’ soundtrack.

The second gem sees violinist and troubadour Andrew Bird taking on one of my favourite songs of all time, The Handsome Family’s ‘The Giant of Illinois’. It can’t be coincidence that my favourite Bird tracks are both Handsome Family covers, and this is every bit as flavoursome as his magisterial version of ‘Don’t Be Scared’. His skill is to reshape the melody completely, without losing the power and melancholy of the original. It remains a sweet fable in his capable hands and his music is much more palatable when divorced from his self-conscious, ultimately rather meaningless lyrics. Rennie Sparks is mercifully a much more direct, generous and insightful storyteller, and her words fit perfectly on this project.

Of the rest, New Pornographers offer up ‘Hey, Snow White’, a Dan Bejar song that is oddly more in keeping with Carl Newman’s ornate pop songcraft than with his usual verbose streams of consciousness. Stuart Murdoch reworks ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’ into a contemporary folk song of his own, whilst Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings’ faithful but groovy rendering of Shuggie Otis’ superb ‘Inspiration Information’ sticks out here like a sore thumb, albeit in a good way. Gillian Welch and David Rawlings team up with Coner Oberst for a version of the latter’s ‘Lua’. Oddly, I find myself preferring the original in spite of all my reservations about Oberst and his histrionics. It seemed more brutally honest and intimate than this more straightforward and restrained version, although if this is a sign that Welch and Rawlings are finally springing back into action that would be most welcome indeed. Is it inappropriate or all-too-appropriate that an AIDS awareness project should end with Kevin Drew’s surprisingly wistful ‘Love vs. Porn’?

‘Dark Was The Night’ is an intelligently compiled selection of riches, from a wide variety of excellent artists. Bryce and Aaron Dessner’s sterling work here may well direct me to see The National in a different light, as they clearly have a thorough understanding of American musical tradition as well as being well connected with its contemporary flourishing. Comparisons will inevitably be made with ‘No Alternative’ that other great Red Hot compilation that featured the likes of Nirvana and Sonic Youth. Many of those bands had already become iconic. With the exception of Arcade Fire, there’s nobody here with that kind of devoted following and subsequent influence. Yet what ‘Dark Was The Night’ amply demonstrates is that the various pockets of brilliance in modern American music can combine to create something noble and meaningful. Could Britain have produced something this impressive? Who might have organised it?

Refusing to Budge

Morrissey - Years Of Refusal (Polydor, 2009)

Describing a Morrissey album as a bit patchy is a bit like saying a packet of peanuts may contain nuts. With the exception of ‘Vauxhall and I’ and perhaps ‘Viva Hate’, all of his solo albums to date have featured the odd clunker or two. The least favourable reviews of ‘Years of Refusal’ have dubbed it his worst album since 1997’s ‘career nadir’ ‘Maladjusted’. Would it be too controversial to state that I don’t think ‘Maldajusted’ is all that bad? It contains two of his very best songs in ‘Trouble Loves Me’ and ‘Satan Rejected My Soul’ and one of his very worst in ‘Roy’s Keen’. I certainly prefer it to ‘Kill Uncle’ anyway. It’s also worth noting that I also prefer it to the much lauded ‘Ringleader of the Tormentors’. Yes, that album had three great tracks in ‘Dear God, Please Help Me’, ‘Life is a Pigsty’ and ‘At Last I Am Born’, but the rest of it was largely generic midtempo rock.

Most commentators are portraying ‘Years of Refusal’ as a regressive step after the candour and grandness of ‘Ringleader’. Production is from the late Jerry Finn, who also helmed the triumphant comeback ‘You are the Quarry’. Much of the musical backdrop is tough, unsentimental and unsubtle, dominated by the pounding, dirty rhythm section of Matt and Solomon Walker (how many drummers has Moz dispensed with now?). In a sense it’s appropriate given the defiance and ugly nature of many of the lyrics. We’ve been here before – but it’s rarely sounded this aggressive or clamorous.

In what is now typical of Morrissey’s attitude to contractual obligations (and, indirectly, toward his paying fans), two of the tracks have already been released as extra tracks on last year’s pointless ‘Greatest Hits’ set. Neither of them is altered in any way here, although their thunderous chugging perhaps makes more sense in context.

There’s nothing here that will cause controversy in the manner of ‘National Front Disco’ or ‘Bengali in Platforms’ but there are times amidst this dislikeable mix of self-aggrandisement, self-pity and self-parody that one yearns for something more outrageous. Yet again there’s a parade of uncharitable public figures (or at least, uncharitable towards Steven Patrick Morrissey) – the ‘uncivil servants’ and ‘a QC without humility’. Then there’s a lot of really rather churlish and tedious moaning. I still think there’s a good song to be written about the benefits of long term singledom but ‘I’m OK By Myself’ certainly isn’t it. Morrissey merely sounds like a moody teenager here. ‘That’s How People Grow Up’ seems to suggest that maturing means accepting that you are doomed to romantic failure. ‘I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris’ sounds nice enough, but it’s another of those songs presenting its anti-hero as essentially incapable of reciprocal love. Last night I dreamt that Morrissey rewrote the same song again. Oh look, it was a premonition!

Moz used to be able to do this sort of thing with knowing humour but for most of ‘Years of Refusal’ he just sounds morose and unpleasant. ‘All You Need Is Me’ audaciously accuses the world of preferring to carp on about him than address its more significant problems. So why does he spend even more time and energy admonishing everyone for criticising him if the criticism itself is so trivial? If Morrissey is simply looking for people to admire him again, he needs to provide us with some evidence that he’s more than just a rather nasty and petty individual.

That being said, some of the nastiness on ‘Years of Refusal’ is characteristically delicious. There’s a run of superb songs in the second half of the set incorporating ‘One Day Goodbye Will Be Farewell’, ‘It’s Not Your Birthday Anymore’ and ‘You Were Good In Your Time’. The latter two stand out for veering away from the brash, angry style of the rest of the album, instead sounding lush and extravagant in the best possible way. If one thing has progressed and improved during Moz’s solo career it’s his voice. Once an idiosyncratic but wavering and unmusical device, it has in recent years become an instrument of real depth and character. These songs provide the most supportive musical context for that expression. There’s also the splendid ‘When Last I Spoke To Carol’, a song as curt and devastating as ‘Girlfriend In A Coma’, bolstered by a military rhythm and some Mariachi horns, not stylistic features that we’d usually associate with Moz.

Even when he’s stuck in the more generic rock mode, he can still sometimes throw out a gem. As he rattles off a gleeful list of anti-depressant medication, the excoriating opener ‘Something Is Squeezing My Skull’ at least demonstrates that Moz is still able to articulate the absurdity that accompanies the pain in modern living. This distinctive brand of black humour has always been a hallmark of his best work. We could probably have done with a bit more of it.

‘Years of Refusal’ is a crisp and brutally insistent record that finds Morrissey in particularly fine voice. The rare moments of adventure suggest that there are still possibilities for a late period masterpiece should he choose to focus more on the experiments and less on the reliable, overly familiar filler. Perhaps we wouldn’t have Morrissey be anything other than a stubborn, isolated icon now. Nevertheless, I can’t help feeling that it’s a weakness that whilst this album has plenty of bite, it doesn’t have much in the way of humour or real feeling.

Going Down In Musical History

Richard Thompson's 1,000 Years Of Popular Music, The Barbican, 3rd February 2009

I must admit to being something of a latecomer to the work of Richard Thompson. Whilst I’ve long been an admirer of that superb trilogy of Fairport Convention albums on which he played a major part (What We Did On Our Holidays, Unhalfbricking, Liege and Lief), their appeal was always mainly for the contributions of Sandy Denny and the vigorous reworkings of folk material. His own catalogue, along with the excellent albums made with his former wife Linda, has always seemed dauntingly vast. Where exactly does one start? I’ve started to delve in quite recently, and now have most of his recent recordings (Sweet Warrior, Mock Tudor, Front Parlour Ballads, The Old Kit Bag) as well as the classic albums with Linda (I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight, Shoot Out The Lights), but there’s still so much to devour.

Luckily, this concert didn’t require too much prior knowledge of Thompson’s own writing. The project began as a witty but meaningful repost to the storm of list-making that accompanied the turn of the millennium. Pundits asked to compile their favourite music of the millennium inevitably tended to concentrate solely on the twentieth century. Thompson opted to examine the whole 1,000 years. In doing so, he drew ties between various strands of folk music, and successfully outlined the powerful connections between seemingly disparate musical forms.

Performing with the excellent singer Judith Owen, as well as vocalist and percussionist Debra Dobkin, the first half of the performance consistently fascinated, introducing me to a whole world of music about which I am relatively ignorant. We were treated to pastoral songs, ballads, sea shanties, mining songs and madrigals, all performed as much with fun as with reverence.

Thompson’s engaging warmth and humour was evident from the outset. Beginning on the Hurdy Gurdy, he refused to use it as a tokenistic gesture for just one song. ‘When I get something big strapped on, I like to keep it there for quite a while’ he jested, with surprising frankness. This style of banter continued throughout the show.

His introductions to the material, even the better known songs, proved as engaging and entertaining as the music itself. Before performing a beautiful reading of ‘Shenandoah’ he explained: ‘It’s kind of a call and response thing. I’ll call….and I’ll respond…just to avoid any confusion’. Performing songs in medieval Italian, French and Latin, he often gamely translated, at least giving a strong sense of the music’s themes and preoccupations.

One early highlight was an appropriately eerie version of ‘The False Knight on the Road’. The song is well known in the folk canon, having been performed in a much faster version by Steeleye Span amongst others. Thompson’s slower version has more mystery and power. This song, and many others, benefited from Thompson’s dexterous but always musical guitar playing.

There was plenty of wry and amusing flirtation between Thompson and his co-performers, particularly the entrancing Judith Owen, and he allowed both plenty of space for their own contributions. Owen’s delivery of ‘Down By The Sally Gardens’, an elegant and spare misremembering of what had already been a folk song anyway by the poet WB Yeats. Owen’s performance is achingly haunting, delivered in a pure, controlled voice that sadly gave way to irritating mannerisms in her contributions to the second half of the concert. In writing about Feist’s song ‘Intuition’, I remember observing that whilst there are plenty of songs about break-ups or unrequited love, there are relatively few about the regret that sometimes follows rejected love. Here was a prime example of such a song, a testament to the power of the theme in its endurance. I was struck by its elegant simplicity, both lyrically and musically. Sometimes what is most simple really is most profound.

As an enthusiast for contemporary music of all stripes, I never thought I’d argue this, but with all these riches in the first half of the performance, the second half’s focus on the twentieth century gave it undue prominence. Perhaps it’s just that the journey from the music halls to contemporary R&B traverses more familiar terrain, but I felt this section of the concert also suffered from some errors of judgement.

First and foremost, the movement from Cole Porter standards to Rock n’ Roll and Country seemed to ignore the most important contribution to contemporary popular music, that of the blues. Surely, at the very least, a song from one of the Delta Blues performers would have been essential? Whether intentional or not, what we were left with was a history of popular music that largely sidelined the contribution of black music. But the blues was and still is surely one of the purest forms of folk music.

Also, the restraint and clarity of the performances of the early music, so powerful and meaningful, was inexplicably abandoned in favour of some clattering deliveries lacking in nuance. Maybe this was purely to communicate the new music’s emphasis on relentless rhythm and energy, but Debra Dobkin’s trap set drumming, effective on a handful of songs, quickly became an intrusive nuisance, especially when the tempos drifted. Similarly, Judith Owen’s voice, characterised by real feeling and honesty in the first set, became more affected and abstruse, particularly on the jazzier material (which apparently is where her own interests lie). The beauty of the standard repertoire is that it can be taken on two levels – Owen emphasised the banality more than the insight. Neither Dobkin nor Thompson seemed entirely comfortable with swing.

Nevertheless, the second half of the show was hardly a complete failure. Thompson made some judicious and surprising selections. He acknowledged the influence of the Kinks (originally The Ravens) on his North London childhood by performing ‘See My Friends’, one of Ray Davies’ greatest achievements, also hinting at the contribution of Indian folk traditions to western pop in the 1960s. The closing clatter of Nelly Furtado’s ‘Maneater’, interspersed with a medieval section in Latin, was spirited and fun.

Whilst Thompson has suggested that his purpose in undertaking this project was to uncover some of the ideas and forms buried in ‘the dustbin of history’, I rather suspect its effect has been to do the complete opposite. Tonight’s concert suggested, to me at least, that there has been plenty of consistency in what has made music ‘popular’. Directness and simplicity, in the right hands, can indeed be artful, and often succeed in bringing people together with a sense of common purpose and spirit. There is a rich tradition in musical communication that survives today, in spite of music’s often more nakedly commercial impulse.

In Limbo

Antony and the Johnsons - The Crying Light (Rough Trade, 2009)

Reactions to ‘The Crying Light’ so far seem to have hinged upon the degree to which commentators have tired of Antony Hegarty’s over-exposed vocal mannerisms. It’s possible that in light of his star turn on last year’s Hercules and Love Affair album that expectations had run unrealistically high for a radical change of direction. The novelty value of hearing a towering gender-confused man deliver an achingly vulnerably vibrato can, it seems, only last for one album before dissipating.

It’s unlikely that Antony’s vocal and musical stylings are going to change all that dramatically. The success of ‘The Crying Light’ therefore depends upon its development and progression of these previously lauded qualities. Any objective assessment of the album depends on a judgment of its myriad subtleties and nuances, of which there are many. For example, few reviewers so far seem to have observed the greater variety in Antony’s execution here. He’s comparatively restrained to match the gentle waltz that accompanies him on the beautiful ‘Epilepsy is Dancing’ (what a curious title). By way of contrast, he’s fuller and bolder on ‘Kiss My Name’ and the impassioned lopsided soul of ‘Aeon’.

Similarly, the arrangements, some of which come from the prodigious pen of the young American composer Nico Muhly, mostly deploy small, meaningful gestures over grand flourishes. Given the number of credited musicians and arrangers, it’s remarkable how delicate much of ‘The Crying Light’ sounds. The interjections of wind and horns are sensitive rather than aggressive and even the more theatrical pieces offer light and shade. Only the lengthy, overwrought ‘Daylight and the Sun’ veers into histrionic territory.

The idea that this is Antony’s ‘nature’ album also seems a little reductive. Some have seen the lead single ‘Another World’ as a mournful lament for an earth ravaged by pollution and climate change. I’m not sure it’s anything of the sort – more the voice of a dying man aware of his imminent departure, perhaps even reluctantly deciding on it. A good deal of the album seems to be concerned with death and rebirth, or a peculiar state of limbo between life and death. Antony himself uses this explanation for the selection of the image of a nonogenarian butoh dancer on the cover. These thematic preoccupations are rather more woolly than the stridently personal concerns with gender and sexuality on ‘I Am A Bird Now’ but they ought also to be more universal. Paradoxically, though, Antony’s grasp for more general and accessible territory may have rendered his songs less powerful and moving.

It’s a matter of personal taste as to whether this album’s most striking track, ‘Dust and Water’, comes across as affecting or affected. Perhaps there is something irritating about the enunciation, not just in the way he insists on saying ‘mmmmhwatarr’ (as Alexis Petridis observed in The Guardian), but also in the way he says ‘dutttthhht’. This inevitably reminds me of Matt Lucas’ Marjorie Dawes character in Little Britain, undoubtedly an unintended association! If we accept these mannerisms in good faith though, there is something haunting and compelling about this piece. It sounds strange, mysterious and, most importantly, unexpected. Many have been calling for Antony to find a new context for his voice – but this does something both braver and more beguiling. It removes the context altogether.

A few more audacious gambits like this might have made ‘The Crying Light’ more distinctive. As it stands, it’s an assured and mostly understated work made by an artist of real talent. There’s something about it that means it doesn’t quite chime with me as much as its predecessor. Perhaps it’s the rather clichéd new-agey titles (‘One Dove’, ‘Everglade’, ‘Daylight and the Sun’, ‘Another World’ etc). There’s a nagging sense that all this quasi-pagan imagery is a little less individual and visionary than one might expect from Antony. It’s the kind of thing that Kate Bush and Bjork have both handled more adroitly. At its best, ‘The Crying Light’ is quietly mesmerising and repeated plays are revealing further rewards, but it might be one of those albums I’ll come to admire more than like.

A New Hope

Bruce Springsteen - Working On A Dream (Columbia, 2009)

I’m increasingly wary of hyperbole at the moment (Gary Mulholland’s observation in this month’s Observer Music Monthly that Lily Allen is one of the ‘greatest lyricists and singers of her time’ struck me as particularly absurd), so let’s get a few things straight at the outset. Whilst I have no qualms about being a massive Springsteen fan, I’m not one of these strangely deluded people that think his ‘return to pop production’ on ‘Magic’ marked one of his greatest achievements. That being said, I’m certainly not averse to this late prolific period, and a companion piece to ‘Magic’ couldn’t really be a bad thing.

‘Working on a Dream’ continues Springsteen’s extraordinary talent for judging the American mood. ‘The Rising’ brought him out of a quasi-retirement and it seemed like a well-judged tonic of moderation in an otherwise stark post 9/11 landscape. Springsteen has recently derided the Bush administration for its lack of knowledge and understanding of the past, so perhaps the wonderful Seeger Sessions project was his personal response to that – an attempt to forge new links with the American folk tradition. Now ‘Working On A Dream’ arrives riding the crest of the wave of ‘Yes we can’ positivism that now characterises America. From ‘My Lucky Day’ to ‘What Love Can Do’ via the title track, ‘Working On A Dream’ presents an essentially positive view of what human relationships can achieve. This acts as a typically personal metaphor for the current American political climate. It seems appropriate writing about it on the day of Barack Obama’s inauguration.

The good news is that, on first few listens, it seems like a marginally better album than ‘Magic’. It plays to that album’s strengths – most specifically, its love for the lavish pop flourishes of Phil Spector and Roy Orbison. There are more songs in the sonic model of ‘Girls In Their Summer Clothes’ here and, mercifully, less in the ponderous mould of ‘Devil’s Arcade’ or the plodding manner of ‘You’ll Be Comin’ Down’. In fact, ‘This Life’ perhaps resembles ‘Girls…’ a little too closely.

The sweeping narrative of the epic opener ‘Outlaw Pete’, an original Springsteen song that transplants the spirit of the Seeger Sessions onto the E Street Band, makes for one of the very best songs from these sessions. It’s an elaborate, lengthy story with a huge arrangement to match, once again giving Soozie Tyrell’s violin a pivotal role in the new E Street sound. It harks back to an exciting, wild and dangerous past (and to his more theatrical, dramatic side that he’s neglected on recent albums) but it’s a bit of a smokescreen for many of the lush, bittersweet songs that follow.

It’s possible that some may see these mostly straightforward pop songs as lightweight by Springsteen’s often weighty standards. Sometimes, though, simplicity is exactly what is required and there’s a sense that Springsteen is enjoying getting back to the basics of songwriting. Perhaps it’s particularly audacious of him to write a light country shuffle with lyrics collecting a series of borderline clichés and call it ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ – but this seems to be typical of the unburdened mood in which Springsteen currently finds himself. The jaunty, insistent ‘My Lucky Day’ and ‘Surprise Surprise’ wouldn’t have been out of place on the now unfairly maligned ‘Lucky Town’, but this is no bad thing. Both are rousing, irresistibly infectious pop songs. The general mood of the album is summed up brilliantly by ‘Kingdom of Days’. This work seems like an acceptance that what humans can achieve may be limited, but we must grasp for our full potential.

For the most part, Brendan O’Brien’s sound is a little less muddy here. There’s a little more room for individual parts and it’s particularly good that the supreme foundations provided by Garry Tallent’s basslines are now more audible. Unfortunately, O’Brien still can’t resist unnecessary flourishes and trickery. Springsteen’s voice, which has always alternated between impassioned howl and brow-beaten melancholy, has never been an instrument in need of reverb or double tracking. For this listener at least, these effects only serve to diminish his message.

The album ends with a sparse piece of great beauty – ‘The Last Carnival’, which is comfortably the most poetic and enthralling song here. It’s soft, blissful coda of gospel-infused vocals is an appropriate note on which to end – a sound that captures a strong sense of human creativity and invention. Perhaps it’s inappropriate that it is followed on limited edition versions by Springsteen’s title song from Darren Aronofsky’s film ‘The Wrestler’, however marvellous and insightful that song may be. Thinking again, though, perhaps even this character study shares the album’s abiding faith. Springsteen here seems to be adding his own weight to the great Studs Terkel’s observation that ‘a realist is someone who hopes’. Let’s hope that Obama too delivers on this essential promise and positive view of human nature. It has long been needed.

Same Tricks, Different Results

Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavillion (Domino, 2009)
Bon Iver – Blood Bank (Jagjaguwar, 2009)

On the surface, you couldn’t find two acts more appreciably different than Animal Collective and Bon Iver. The former are synaesthetic, expansive, sometimes confrontational but more often these days full of unbridled joy. Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon has, so far, excelled at making music that is spare, hauting, melancholy and introspective, in the best possible way. Yet listening to the two new releases by these most inspired of artists, I’m struck by a common ground in their understanding of the power and emotional impact of the human voice. Much of the appeal of AC comes from the interaction of the voices of Avery Tare and Panda Bear, and in their deployment of various yelps and other vocal quirks. Justin Vernon uses his multitracked choir as a means both of self-expression and self-examination.

Animal Collective have always played a risky game in straddling that very fine boundary between infectious and infuriating. On ‘Merriweather Post Pavillion’, they push that distinctive style to the very limit. The resulting music is delirious, intoxicating and completely irresistible. Resistance is clearly futile. Just listen to ‘Summertime Clothes’, a song about wandering aimlessly during nights when it’s too hot to sleep. There’s a vibrant explosion in the song’s chorus – ‘I want to walk around with you! Justyoujustyoujustyou!’ – it’s wonderful. Or then there’s the extended, radical closing track ‘Brothersport’, where the near ecstatic nature of the voices, combined with the sharp rhythmic interplay, sounds informed by African music.

The influence of electronic and dance music seems to have been pushed to the forefront on this record. ‘My Girls’ even seems to slyly reference the sound of something like The Source and Candi Staton’s ‘You Got The Love’. As such, it’s the logical conclusion of their experiments with insistence and unrelenting rhythm. For my ears, it’s a much more interesting area than their earlier experiments with pure noise, whimsical acid folk and feedback. Perhaps one of the reason why there is such a buzz around AC at the moment is that they are one of the few bands to have really progressed and developed. Where their earlier records had a loose, ramshackle charm and a childlike core, ‘Merriweather…’ feels multi-layered, rich, exotic and carefully composed. This isn’t to say that they’ve lost their drive for spontaneity or radicalism, just that the group’s internal systems are now operating on a more sophisticated level.

Listening to ‘Merriweather..’ on headphones is like diving into a swimming pool filled with honey. Sonically, at first it is hardly subtle, but beneath the pulsing heartbeats, electro glam stomps and background noise there is also plenty of nuance. If you embrace the group’s positivity and worlds of possibility wholeheartedly, there is much to discover. Some of the album’s most compelling moments occur when the insistence dissipates a little. There’s the way that ‘Daily Routine’ mysteriously and unexpectedly evaporates, or when the opener ‘In The Flowers’ performs the precise inverse function, exploding into a clattering barrage of percussion from a rather elusive, slippery introduction.

Those who felt (wrongly in my view) that ‘Strawberry Jam’ was too infectious, and therefore some form of artistic compromise, might be further challenged by the blissful, fulfilled nature of ‘Merriweather…’. The regressive sense of whimsy seems to have given way to a broader sense of awe and fascination, a feeling that often seems to be expressed as total euphoria. A large chunk of this album constitutes a celebration of immediacy and physicality, from ‘Guys Eyes’ expressing a desire ‘to do exactly what my body wants to’ to the experience of liberation through dancing on ‘In The Flowers’ or stepping outside in ‘Summertime Clothes’. So much of this comes through the dynamics and sonority of the voices of Avey Tare and Panda Bear.

Perhaps this is too reductive an analysis given the increasingly elaborate means AC deploy to achieve these goals (hello asymmetrical time signatures!), or when ‘My Girls’ expresses a more homely sentiment focusing on the joy of family life. Either way, it’s surprising and refreshing to hear an album, particularly in these difficult times, that is so devoid of melancholy or sadness. Listening to ‘Merriweather…’ for the fourth time now, I’m struck that it’s an album that works on multiple levels. It’s an immediately loveable statement, but full of unpredictable, highly creative avenues to explore on further listening. Time alone will tell if it’s a classic, but there’s definitely something exciting and fresh in its modern take on psychedelia. It’s a series of enriching auditory hallucinations.

The ‘Blood Bank’ EP is the first new material from Justin Vernon since his rapturously received debut album. Pleasingly, it shows few signs of performance anxiety, or uncertain direction. Instead, the title track represents a grander version of his core musical vision. It uses similar tricks to those deployed by AC – the multi layered vocals and harmonies, the insistent pulsating heartbeat. Yet the impact is not one of euphoria, but one of bittersweet reminiscence. It’s a strangely comforting sound at first, but the smouldering crescendos that are more familiar from Bon Iver live performances than from Vernon’s recordings imbue it with real intensity.

Typical of Vernon too are the disarmingly weird lyrics. ‘Well I met you at the blood bank/We were looking at the bags’ is a rather unconventional opening gambit for what might ostensibly be a love song. It’s also a song about how our secrets are sometimes our very life blood, a rather fascinating and intriguing sentiment that Vernon leaves teasingly under-developed.

Elsewhere, the EP provides further, equally fruitful paths through which Vernon might advance his interests in sounds and effects. The rather intimate feel of ‘For Emma..’ is welded into something more strident and confident with the minimal but austere piano of ‘Babys’. Most shocking of all is ‘The Woods’, in which a multi-tracked chorus of Vernons is fed, ‘808s and Heartbreaks’-style, through an auto-tuner. The effect, rather than being self-consciously cheesy, is actually uneasy and uncomfortable. It’s the sound of someone lost and trying to reconnect. It’s a particularly audacious move given how important the reverb-laden vocal sound was to ‘For Emma…’ Here, Vernon has abandoned it in favour of the least natural vocal sound conceivable, but one which in his control still sounds convincingly emotional.

In between all this is the relatively conventional ‘Beach Baby’, which serves as a neat bridge back to Vernon’s isolation on ‘For Emma..’. The addition of steel guitar adds a positive, playful touch. The four tracks together suggest that rather than a premature apotheosis, ‘For Emma…’ really was just the beginning.

New Year Fun

My good friend and musical associate Oscar Lomas today sent me a personal list of the best albums ever. Actually, rather than being some phoney selection of the greatest albums ever made - his list aimed at describing himself and his mindset in ten albums. He challenged me and some others to do the same. I've come up with 20 which, as of today, present a pretty interesting cross-section of me at various stages in my life. Bob Dylan and The Byrds are two of my favourite artists but I now tend to approach them more through the songs that I love rather than through specific albums. Perhaps The Velvet Underground and Nico should be in there, particularly as there was a key time when I listened to 'I'll Be Your Mirror' more than any other song - but it's just too obvious. I’ll follow the same lines as Oscar in picking albums with significant personal impact and influence. They are by no means necessarily THE BEST ALBUMS IN THE WORLD EVER. It's just some subjective fun!

Me in 10 albums, as of today:

THE O’JAYS – SHIP AHOY (Philadelphia International, 1973)
THE DRAMATICS – A DRAMATIC EXPERIENCE (Stax, 1973)
STEELY DAN – Can’t Buy A Thrill (MCA, 1973)

Was 1973 really the best year for music before my birth? Probably not in most people’s eyes (who would opt for it over ’56, ’66, ’67 or ’76?), but somehow these three albums had a massive impact on my childhood.

I’ve always had a love of the great soul vocal groups and I can remember The O’Jays and Dramatics albums from my Dad’s extensive vinyl collection. Both are over-conceptual and a bit clunky, at least thematically. ‘Ship Ahoy’ deals with a number of issues – from financial greed (‘For The Love Of Money’) to air pollution (‘This Air I Breathe’) via slavery (the title track). ‘A Dramatic Experience’ was an album centred around the issue of drug dependence. It has a genuinely terrifying image of The Devil on its cover and presents drug dealers as the devil’s agents. The message was clear – get hooked and you are essentially being dragged to eternity in hell. It put me off crack for ever but there’s probably something embarrassing about its righteousness and simplicity. If you want to stop your future progeny taking drugs though, believe me, you only have to play them this album.

The music on both, however, is something else entirely. Listening to these albums now, with a greater sense of history and context, gives the lie to the notion that the best popular music comes from creative auteurs and is in sense ‘manufactured’ or ‘produced’. Of course, part of the reason that I love these albums is the character, quality and depth of the vocal performances. The main reason, though, comes with the ambition and richness of the arrangements and the production. The Stax label’s move away from singles to concept albums with lavish orchestration basically caused its downfall – but this music is so stirring and rewarding it seems criminal that it has been so overlooked in favour of the shorter, sweeter classic singles. It’s also a shame that the whole Philadelphia scene is better remembered for its more banal disco nuggets (great though many of those records are) than for the more extended constructs on the ‘Ship Ahoy’ album. Perhaps the social consciousness movement in soul is better represented on albums like ‘What’s Going On’ and ‘Innervisions’ but I still return to these relative obscurities.

My first drum teacher introduced me to Steely Dan (probably when I was about 8). I was smitten instantly – but I appreciate them on an entirely different level now. Now I ‘get’ Donald Fagen’s wry, ironic wit and his quirky lyrics. I love their knowing hipster stance and I’ve even come to appreciate their ludicrous perfectionism, although I ultimately think it’s futile. Later on, they stopped being a band, used session musicians and high profile guests, became jazzier and later, very precise and metronomic. The earliest albums (‘Can’t Buy A Thrill’ is the debut) work best for me because they manage to combine hints of most of the music I love – jazz, soul, blues, the slide and steel guitar playing hinting at country too. It’s wonderful stuff played by some unbelievably gifted musicians.

IAN CARR’S NUCLEUS – OUT OF THE LONG DARK (Capitol, 1979, Reissued on CD in a twofer with ‘Old Heartland’ by BGO in 1998)

‘In A Silent Way’ is comfortably my favourite Miles Davis album and maybe should be included here. Yet I have to concede that I approached Miles through the medium of Ian Carr’s inspiring teaching (he taught me much of what I know about collective music-making and how to approach it) and through reading his excellent biography of Miles. Few people recognise that Ian was exploring jazz-rock fusions contemporaneously with Miles – he wasn’t simply ripping him off. ‘Out of the Long Dark’ contains some of Ian’s best compositions (and he was a superb composer) – performing ‘Lady Bountiful’ and ‘Gone With The Weed’ prove some of the most enduring memories of my teenage years, and this music continues to inform my thinking.

Ian probably paid me the greatest compliment I have ever received (‘Daniel you were so deep down in the swamp on that groove I thought that you’d changed colour!’) and what I remember most about those years was the great joy he took in playing and performing with his students. I remember him saying to Tom Hancock (a great guitarist – a prize to anyone who can locate him for me…) - ‘I’m sorry Tom, I stole your solo, but it was so damn groovy I just had to play on it’! It’s great that Ian now gets the recognition for his pioneering work as a musician as much as his work as a jazz writer, broadcaster and educator - what a shame that his health has left him unable to play to these new audiences.

TEENAGE FANCLUB – GRAND PRIX (Creation, 1995)

Perhaps the two most important bands of the 90s for me were The Lemonheads and Teenage Fanclub. The former initiated one of my longest standing friendships and got me into my first proper rock band (you can hear Hyperfuzz on the Abuse Your Friends Vol 1 compilation but it ain’t a pleasant sound). The latter have stayed with me. I still firmly believe that Teenage Fanclub are the best writers of basic guitar pop music the UK has produced since The Beatles. They are not sophisticated musicians (in fact, they’ve been through a whole string of rather unimaginative drummers). But their words are honest, heartfelt and often uplifting and their mastery of chiming guitars and vocal harmonies cannot fail to lift my mood. Even their melancholy moments are chirpy – ‘Mellow Doubt’ is among my favourite songs about unrequited love (something I was very familiar with back in the mid-to-late 90s, ho hum) but it actually features a whistling solo! They’re also one of the few bands to make real democracy work – three songwriters, each with their own character and charm, who now contribute equal numbers of songs to each of their albums.

APHEX TWIN – RICHARD D JAMES ALBUM (Warp, 1996)
An album that reminds me of gatherings where all my friends were on ecstasy or pills and I was merely under the influence of alcohol – events which were always very surreal and slightly awkward occasions. As synaesthetic an album as this is, I was always able to appreciate it without the added stimulation, simply because it’s so playful and musically inventive. As complicated as the music sometimes is, it’s purely and uniquely enjoyable. It’s one of the greatest achievements in electronic music so far and still Richard D James’ best work. In fact, he’s really struggled to produce anything coherent since.

BT EXPRESS – DO IT ‘TIL YOU’RE SATISFIED (Pye, 1974)
This album is etched on my memory because at the innocent and naïve age of about four, I left my Dad’s vinyl copy in the sun and warped it (I had played the record many, many times before I destroyed it). CDs were only just becoming commonplace at that time, and the reissue industry had yet to swing into full gear. Thus began a twelve year quest to find a replacement. I eventually succeeded when a particularly adventurous geography teacher at my school ran a course on Afro-American music (I can still remember the hapless Jonny Holliday’s question: ‘is that like Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’ sir?’) and included a track from BT Express in his playlist one week. I explained I’d been looking for a copy of this album for many years, and he ran me off a cassette copied from his own vinyl edition, but not without passing moral judgement. “Your Dad played you this album when you were four?! But it’s all FILTHY!’. Indeed it is – it’s repetitive, groovy, dirty funk that is all about sex. I didn’t know that when I was four of course – it just sounded like fun to me. Funnily It still does.

REM – Up (Warner Bros, 1998)

I seem to be in a select group of about three people who think this is REM’s best work by a country mile. I am so far away from the critical grain here (why on earth I would listen to ‘Automatic For The People’ over this is beyond me, and I massively prefer it to the apparent return to form ‘Accelerate’) but I know why I love it. I love it first and foremost because many of the songs affect me personally in very powerful ways and have assumed new significance with different experiences over the years since its release. Lyrically, it’s a very confessional album, and I’ve been very much in the mood for that over the past couple of years. It is, mainly, languidly paced and lush, but there’s also something overwhelmingly positive about it – ‘Walk Unafraid’ seems like a statement of defiance – other songs seem to be about accepting one’s flaws and moving on.

I also love it because it’s fascinating to hear a band reconfigure themselves so dramatically and fascinatingly after losing a key member. So, they used more keyboards and drum machines. So what? Does a band have to play four square rock with jangly guitars for its entire existence? Many people find ‘Up’ clinical and cold – I find it deeply humane and compassionate.

TALK TALK – SPIRIT OF EDEN (EMI, 1988)

So cruelly ignored at the time, ‘Spirit of Eden’ is now rightly considered a modern classic, and one that demonstrates just how adventurous contemporary rock music can be when it dares to look beyond its own confines. It’s extraordinary to think that Talk Talk began life as new romantics, touring with Duran Duran. Whilst that period resulted in some splendid pop songs (‘It’s My Life’ particularly), even as early as ‘The Colour of Spring’, it was clear that Mark Hollis had loftier ambitions. He earned himself a reputation for being grumpy and miserable, but I’m not sure that there has been a British musician since to be so completely and thoroughly consumed by his passion for music. So much so that he strained his professional and personal relationships to breaking point and now hasn’t made a record for some ten years. Although there’s an argument that the next Talk Talk album, 1991’s ‘Laughing Stock’, is even better, this is the standard classic, and as close to art as rock music gets. Recorded in a Cathedral with carefully judged microphone placings and a whole range of instruments rarely incorporated in rock music, it’s a beautiful, spacious, haunting work. In the short term, it was commercial suicide but in the long term, it’s led to Hollis becoming some sort of elusive musical saint. This is such absorbing music – I feel like I could live inside it – every play brings out some new nuance or subtlety and it always sounds so visionary and strange.

BJORK – VESPERTINE (One Little Indian, 2001)

I don’t have much time for certain aspects of feminism, but I wonder why contemporary music of almost all kinds is still so inherently sexist. Bjork has unlocked a whole world of distinctively female artistry for me – and how perceptive, intelligent and exotic she is. Some people deride ‘Vespertine’ because of its intimacy but, for me, this is its greatest triumph. Her lyrics are unusually candid, and she writes about sex with a mature honesty and open-mindedness that I’ve yet to find in any other artist (‘Cocoon’ is just wonderful – and far, far better than anything on Kid A, which attempts a similar sound without the sensuality or human warmth). The Icelandic choir makes a beautiful sound, and there is a sense here that Bjork understands better than anyone that life can be full of mystery, awe, excitement and wonder.

The next 10….

THE MAGNETIC FIELDS – 69 LOVE SONGS (Merge, 1999)

What is not to love about this album – from its cheeky, absurd concept to the playful brilliance of its execution? I love the smarmy irony, the effortless pastiche of multiple genres (‘pastiche’ needn’t be pejorative) and the prickly wit that Stephin Merritt brings to every song. Yet, accept them on another level – and they are songs full of real insight. The use of guest vocalists and experimentation with gender and sexuality adds extra layers of fun. It does what it says on the tin – but it does a whole lot more besides and it soundtracked much of my time at Cambridge. I’ve been reminded of its greatness by the gig I did with Jeremy Warmsley a few weeks back covering a selection of its 69 songs. Expect some ten year anniversary deluxe edition this year no doubt.

CHARLES MINGUS – THE BLACK SAINT AND THE SINNER LADY (Impulse, 1963)

I remember my Dad highly recommending this album to me for some time, but that his own copy had been stolen. A few months later, I found a cassette copy at my next door neighbour’s house whilst looking after their kids for an evening. I’m not sure this was my first experience with Mingus – I’d certainly been playing ‘Goodbye Pork Pie Hat’ and ‘Nostalgia In Times Square’ in various jazz ensembles – but this was my first taste of his more elaborate constructions. This suite of music harks back to Mingus’ love of Ellington but there’s also something daring and audacious about the orchestrations that still sounds radical, fresh and, most importantly, highly emotional.

LEONARD COHEN – I’M YOUR MAN (Columbia, 1988)

Last year, Leonard Cohen’s critical reputation was enshrined by his wonderful comeback concerts – which demonstrated his humour and dignity more than his famed glumness and pessimism. ‘I’m Your Man’ is actually an album full of humour, and I fell in love with the English language as much through enjoying these songs as through reading great literature. I’m beginning to think that Cohen is the best of all lyricists – and this might be his best collection of songs, in spite of (or perhaps even because of) the cheesy synth backings. Plus how good is the cover shot of him eating a banana? Just perfect.

ARTHUR RUSSELL – ANOTHER THOUGHT (Point, 1994)

I’m not sure if this qualifies as an album, given that it’s essentially a posthumously issued compilation – but Russell made relatively few complete albums during his lifetime (just ‘World of Echo’ and Dinosaur L’s ’24-24 Music’). Compiling his vast amount of music has since become an industry in itself, and his great contribution to contemporary music is finally now being recognised. This collection of Russell’s songs, his vulnerable, sensitive voice mostly accompanied solely by his electronically treated Cello, is probably the warmest of his collections. The way his voice and the Cello intertwine, sometimes playfully, sometimes elegantly, is rapturous. That he composed under the inspiration and guidance of the avant garde (Philip Glass helped get this particular album released), produced energising club music and wrote country-tinged pop songs is testament to his considerable charm, open-mindedness and spirit of adventure. He simply went wherever he wanted to go. I also admire the concise, monosyllabic directness of his lyrics – they are some kind of affecting anti-poetry. At the moment, he’s probably the single biggest influence on my writing and my way of thinking about music, hence his inclusion here.

DEVO – Q: ARE WE NOT MEN? A: WE ARE DEVO (Virgin, 1978)

One of my more errant childminders gave me a cassette once. It started with a song I could identify – ‘Blue Jean’, one of David Bowie’s less inspired moments. It continued with what I for a long time assumed was more Bowie. It was only much later – when a teenager – that I discovered it was in fact about 70% of Devo’s debut album. This jerky, angular music sounded so much more weird and interesting than the punk music that the media focussed on. It sounded like a version of punk for the geeky outsider rather than the snotty rebel. Naturally, I remained hooked on it. Plus there was a concept behind it: that mankind was de-volving rather than evolving. The version of The Rolling Stones’ ‘Satisfaction’ remains one of my favourite covers of all time. You might think that song, and its killer riff, were untouchable. You’d be wrong….

SPIRITUALIZED – LADIES AND GENTLEMEN WE ARE FLOATING IN SPACE (Dedicated, 1997)

Anyone who has read my somewhat scathing review of ‘Songs in A&E’ will know that my tastes have changed and that my views on Spiritualized have cooled somewhat in recent years. Back in 1997 though, they were probably the most important band for me – inspiring a band I was writing for at the time, and acting as a gateway to so much other music. Perhaps that’s how I view even their best work now – as a collection of intriguing influences to identify and investigate. Yet ‘Ladies and Gentlemen’ had more than that combination of acidic ambience, skronky mess and raw garage rock and roll – it had real emotional depth too, and the obvious weight of human experience. It’s more moving than anything else they’ve done, particularly when it veered away from the obsession with pharmaceuticals.

WAYNE SHORTER – ALEGRIA (Verve, 2003)

Perhaps the greatest living jazz musician (OK there’s Sonny Rollins and Cecil Taylor as heavy competition – but it’s not too outlandish a statement), with ‘Alegria’ adding weight to this judgement. Shorter is one of those people who has seemingly been everywhere and done everything, from being a crucial part of one of Miles Davis’ best groups, to spearheading the fusion era with Weather Report. His own series of albums for Blue Note are crucial to the jazz canon – but in many ways this latest reinvention is more important because of how late it has come. To be approaching 70 (as he was when ‘Alegria’ was recorded) and still be this imaginative and free thinking is a massive achievement. His reworkings of old compositions change them radically, whilst his exploration of English folk music is a bold new step which yields transcendent results. An absolute inspiration.

PARLIAMENT – MOTHERSHIP CONNECTION (Casablance, 1975)

Spaceships, spacesuits, the funk, the groove, and what Alexis Taylor rightly recognised as ‘the joy of repetition’. Enough said, surely? Reminds me why I briefly wanted to be an astronaut. I wouldn’t have been cut out for it though.

CHAIRMEN OF THE BOARD – SKIN I’M IN (Invictus, 1974)

The most schizophrenic album here – veering as it does between a side of colossal, attacking funk and a side of mostly low key keening falsetto soul ballads. Like The Dramatics and O’Jays records I highlighted in the first ten, this took a soul band far beyond their expected comfort zone. In fact, for large stretches of the ‘Life and Death’ suite, the group themselves do absolutely nothing. Brilliantly, though, they are backed by the original line up of Funkadelic, and the music sounds incredible. Jeffrey Bowen didn’t hit the big league of modern soul producers in the manner of Gamble and Huff or Norman Whitfield, but his creations here are every bit as bold and ambitious. ‘Life and Death’ is one of the best hedonistic clarion calls I know – ‘if it feels good it’s alright!’

OLIVER NELSON – BLUES AND THE ABSTRACT TRUTH (Impulse, 1961)

This band – featuring Eric Dolphy, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers and Roy Haynes – take the blues and make it speak vibrantly and clearly, without recourse to language. It’s one of the key albums from the 1960s, but rarely mentioned where it should be – perhaps because it’s simple and direct rather than revolutionary or wild. It helped me get into what can often seem like a closed, elite world - accessible as it is without being in any way compromised, uninteresting or smooth.