Controlled Explosions: Wilco, Band of Horses and The Besnard Lakes live

Jeff Tweedy claims not to have a very good track record with London audiences, but for Wilco's triumphant London return on May 20th he needn't have worried. What a superb performance this really was, coming complete with all the components you could wish for in a rock band. The current Wilco line-up has terrific chops, immediately marking them out from their less inspired Americana contemporaries. Glenn Kotche's drumming, at turns vigorous and sensitive, both supports and propels the group, whilst Nels Cline is a guitar player of effortless fluidity, also capable of creating real drama from the fretboard. Pat Sansone now seems to play as much guitar as he does organ, and the result is a triple guitar assault arranged and controlled with real dynamic precision. The real revelation though is Tweedy's voice. Once a rather muffled, diminutive instrument content to settle in the hazy distance, he now dominates proceedings with clarity and commanding vision.

As I predicted, the songs from 'Sky Blue Sky' really blossom in live performance, especially the show opener 'Side With The Seeds' and 'Impossible Germany', both of which sound decidedly more adventurous than the more reductive of critics have decreed. They expand on the blueprint of songs from 'A Ghost is Born' and 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot', expanding 'Handshake Drugs' into something majestic and coruscating, whilst rendering 'Poor Places' mysterious and cinematic. The encore of 'Spiders' is explosive.

As Tweedy himself claims, though, they save the best for last. At the end of a generous two hour show, a dishevelled looking figure with long grey hair and bushy beard takes to the stage. It turns out to be legendary singer songwriter Bill Fay (about whom I wrote in an edition of John Kell's Unpredictable Same fanzine about three years ago), on a stage for the first time in over thirty years. He seems understandably reticent, and, duetting with Tweedy on a version of his great song 'Be Not So Fearful' he's unfortunately a little overwhelmed. Still, it's a great pleasure to see this most elusive and withdrawn of musicians back in a small amount of limelight - and if this goes any distance in making the rumoured collaboration with Wilco on new Fay material happen, it would be a gratifying result indeed.

At the Scala, Band of Horses don't quite manage the two hour marathon, if only because they're still a little shy of material. Still, in their not-quite-one-hour set they still manage to pack in the best moments from debut album 'Everything All The Time', along with three new songs and a rather brilliant David Allan Coe cover to round things off. Much has already been made (not least in this blog) of the band's uncanny resemblance to My Morning Jacket circa 'At Dawn', and whilst the band do little to dispel such comparisons in their musical execution, their genial good nature and ebullience throughout comes as something of a surprise. They are constantly thanking us all, and seem to be having a rather jolly time of it. This is great to see, and as a result they can get away with playing a previously unheard song and a cover in the encore, as well as opening with a particularly impressive new song.

The Besnard Lakes also have some superficial similarities with My Morning Jacket, although their sound is so diverse it's next to impossible to pin them down to simple comparisons. There are elements of the drone rock beloved of Spacemen 3 and the shoegazers, as well as some seriously unfashionable, slightly proggy 70s influences that come out much more clearly in live performance than they do on record, particularly in the form of some very long twin guitar solos which turn out to be surprisingly engaging. The Water Rats is a small and unassuming London pub venue, but The Besnard Lakes rock so unbelievably hard and loud that they make it seem like Earl's Court. Frankly, it's impressive that the foundations withstand the assault. The songs are mostly long, unpredictable and unashamedly adventurous. There's a great interplay within the band, particularly between the vocalists, and the careful orchestrations are pulled off with an almost casual confidence. They might be a bit earnest, were it not for the breadth of ambition and the quality of the playing, as well as the lyrical preoccupation with spies, which adds mystery and intrigue. It's a special gig, topped off with an hilariously ragged version of Fleetwood Mac's 'You Make Loving Fun' - so uncool it's brilliant. John Kell has it right though when he says that their lead singer looks like Mark Gatiss' tragic Creme Brulee character from the League of Gentlemen.

Haunting Voices: Elliott Smith's New Moon

Posthumous albums are almost always difficult to approach. There’s no way of knowing whether they reflect the artist’s intentions accurately – presumably there were always good reasons why tracks remained unreleased (unless the artist in question was as poor a judge of their own output as Bob Dylan was throughout the ‘80s). There’s also the thornier problem of ‘cashing-in’ – just who stands to gain from the endless Jeff Buckley live albums or ghastly 2Pac cast-offs?

When an artist dies in as dramatic and frankly macabre a way as Elliott Smith (Smith committed suicicide by stabbing himself in the heart), there’s the additional temptation to search for some bleak, comfortless worldview that might help explain the artist’s state of mind. Many people will approach Elliott Smith’s ‘New Moon’ from a strictly psychological viewpoint, but this will achieve little, and also misses the warmth and romantic vulnerability that lay alongside Smith’s angst and depression.

There’s already been one posthumous Elliott Smith release – ‘From A Basement on A Hill’ – due to have been a planned double album but never quite completed. Some find this album challenging and uncomfortable – but I rather admire its uneasy combination of sludgy rock and melancholy melodies. It combines the brutal with the unfathomably pretty in a way not many musicians could pull off.

‘New Moon’ is less confrontational, and takes a while to reveal its qualities. Its compilers are keen to emphasise that it is not an odds-and-sods collection, but rather represents a possible alternative canon to Smith’s back catalogue, drawn as it is exclusively from the sessions that produced Smith’s spare acoustic masterpieces ‘Elliott Smith’ and ‘Either/Or’.

Concerns over the value of ‘New Moon’ are mercifully alleviated pretty quickly, and there’s plenty of evidence of Smith’s subtle talents here, especially on the first disc. The trademark Smith sound helps this collection cohere – most tracks deploy the double tracking of vocals that Smith preferred, although this sometimes serves to emphasise his tremulous vulnerability rather than disguise it. There are some masterful moments, including the languid, melancholy ‘Go By’ which develops effectively through the layered multi-tracking of Smith’s vocal lines. ‘Angel in the Snow’ demonstrates Smith’s inventive harmonic sensibility, as well as his nimble guitar playing, rarely remarked upon in reviews.

Best of all is the infectious, touching ‘All Cleaned Out’. Where some of the songs in this set risk highlighting the more world-weary, profane dimensions of Smith’s lyric writing, ‘All Cleaned Out’ risks a more poetic approach, and suggests that Smith was at his best when combining barbed and cynical observations with a more playful quality. It has a great opening line (‘Here comes your pride and joy – the comic little drunk you call your boy’) and continues to exhibit Smith’s canny turn of phrase (‘Wearing clothes that clash/Wondering whether this is treasure or it’s trash…’).

The second disc is a little less immediate, and requires a little work. The most obvious delight is the charming ‘Whatever (Folk Song in C)’, with Smith at his most lush, with a McCartney-esque melodic flourish. The rest are more elusive, although I like the dusty, mysterious ‘New Disaster’ and the outstanding ‘Either/Or’, oddly missed off the album of the same name.

There are a handful of tracks which feature more of a ‘band’ sound, and they feel a little out of place on this otherwise spare collection. ‘New Monkey’ and ‘Fear City’ are both uncharacteristically evasive on melody and sound a little aggressive. Both seem to be in search of clear direction.

Some of the tracks might feel superfluous to all but the most ardent of collectors – there are alternate versions of ‘Pretty Mary K’ and ‘Miss Misery’ (the song from the Good Will Hunting soundtrack that brought Smith to wider recognition, included here with radically different lyrics). There’s also a cover of Alex Chilton’s ‘Thirteen’ which initially seems slavishly faithful. Listen closely, though, and the very essence of Smith’s come through. Where the Big Star original was innocent and nostalgic, Smith’s delivery quivers, and implies sadness, melancholy and regret, as if nothing in life can ever compete with the residual warmth of first love. It’s a beautifully intimate moment – and a reminder that Smith had an extraordinary ability for individual communication. At his best here, the unadorned arrangements genuinely capture not just the sound, but the feeling of a man alone in a room – singing directly to a single listener.

Adventurers United

I’ve been attempting to catch up on some records this week, so here are some of the results…

I have to confess to an element of ‘genre tokenism’ when it comes to specialist dance music. I don’t pick up that many dance records in the course of a year, and I’m certainly no expert in the field. I’m certainly appreciating the new album from The Field though (oh dear, do you see what I did there?). I’m not sure that Axel Willner’s breed of minimalist techno is bracingly original, but it’s certainly mesmerising and effective, as this music should be. All the individual elements of this music are steadfastly basic, from the skeletal drum programming (which initially seems unadventurous) to the repetition ad nauseum of various vocal samples and ambient effects. Yet this is anything but background music. The effect is such that very subtle shifts in texture become unexpectedly dramatic. With the four to the floor beat pushed into the background, the emphasis is more on sound and atmosphere than rhythm. The rippling synth figures of ‘The Little Heart Beats So Fast’ hark back to the acid house movement, whilst the more prominent ideas in tracks like ‘Over the Ice’ and ‘Everyday’ create an eerie calm unusual for dance music. This is music that sounds simultaneously detached and immediate – elusive, mysterious but captivating. The title seems eerily appropriate – this seems to capture what the process of sublimation might sound like.

‘Mirrored’ is the first album proper from avant-rock Warp signings Battles, and it seems to be dividing opinion somewhat. There are some that find it overly cerebral and irritating, whilst others seem to admire its rhythmic drive and foot-tapping qualities. The band certainly have technical pedigree, featuring former members of Don Caballero and Helmet, as well as Tyondai Braxton, son of free jazz legend Anthony Braxton. They are completely unafraid to show their chops – the opening ‘Race: In’ is about as dexterous and technically impressive as rock music gets. Luckily, it’s as exhilarating as it is confounding. Elsewhere, they prefer things quirky and goofy, as on lead single ‘Atlas’ with its peculiar vocals that completely eschew language. The best of the album provokes physical or visceral reactions, and the group interplay (particularly in the deft juxtaposition of electronic and conventional rock elements) is frequently compelling. The group become less engaging when they veer into abstraction though, and there’s a short section of the album (the close of ‘Rainbow’ leading into ‘Bad Trails’) that seems forced and out of place. Still, by the exhuberant, playful ‘Tij’ they’re more than back on track, and ‘Mirrored’ proves that rock music can still be bold and adventurous.

‘Noise Won’t Stop’ is the UK debut from Shy Child, a drums and synth duo that has inevitably been tagged with the rather ludicrous nu-rave label. The album shares some tracks with another album, ‘One With The Sun’, released elsewhere in the world last year, but unfortunately ignores the group’s two best moments (the outrageous ode to auto-fellatio ‘Down on Yourself’ and the insistent, clattering single ‘Technicrats’). There are plenty of treasures here in spite of this though, and what is likely to elevate this group above their similarly nostalgic contemporaries is the real sense of fun here. This is a tremendously entertaining record, all single finger synth lines, jittery drum beats, silly lyrics and bleepy noises. The collaboration with quirky rap outfit Spank Rock fits in perfectly. ‘Drop The Phone’, ‘Pressure to Come’ and ‘Kick Drum’, all three jerky and off kilter (essentially this seems to be club music for people who can’t dance), make for a killer opening trio. The group’s minimalism is perhaps a little limiting, and when they try for a smoother, more melodic sound on ‘Summer’ and ‘What’s It Feel Like?’ they come unstuck. ‘Cause and Effect’ is memorably delirious though – a fitting conclusion to a hugely enjoyable record.

For those that like their indie rock to come with a hefty dose of melodrama, ‘Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters’, the debut album from Scotland’s The Twilight Sad may just be the perfect tonic. One need only look at the titles to discern the group’s shameless lunges for grandeur (‘that summer, at home I had become the invisible boy’, ‘mapped by what surrounded them’, ‘and she would darken the memory’ – all set in consistently lower case letters). Yet, amidst the loftiness and grandiose theatrics there’s also plenty to like. The alternately shimmering and thunderous epic rock dynamics distance this music from the tepid template of most contemporary British guitar music. There’s also something inherently endearing in singer James Alexander Graham’s refusal to disguise his thick Scottish vowels and exaggerated consonants. For all the obvious swelling guitar crescendos, it’s the foregrounding of melody and emotive vocal lines that make this music effective. Similarly, the frequent use of accordion prevents the arrangements from becoming too swamped by the walls of abstract guitar noise. It’s interesting that all this has earned the band some serious plaudits – it sounds quite unfashionable in the current musical climate and if I can think of a clear reference point for this, it’s underrated Irish epic rockers Whipping Boy who spring most immediately to mind. A good friend of mine abandoned his early taste for indie rock by dismissing it as all about ‘trying to regress to the womb’. It’s an interesting notion, and one that this album does little to disprove, such is its focus on the torment of adolescence. Yet there’s an admirable empathy and perceptiveness at this album’s core that prevents it lapsing into caricature or mere bombast. It feels like a series of emotional highs and lows, which is exactly as it should feel.

It’s been a while since I’ve latched on to anything from the Kill Rock Stars label, but ‘In Advance of the Broken Arm’ by Marnie Stern is one of the albums of the year so far. It’s furious, high velocity rock and roll combining the visceral blues of Sleater Kinney with an unhinged and demented intricacy. It’s essentially a totally frenetic mess, but Stern is somehow gifted with the ability to shape these uncompromising elements into spirited, joyful and exhilarating music. It helps that she has the outrageously gifted drummer Zach Hill to work with. For Hill, a simple backbeat is never appropriate, and whilst he veers off in several unexpected tangents simultaneously, he always anchors the music to a clear pulse too, albeit usually a completely beserk one. Stern’s guitar playing rejects conventional riffing or soloing in favour of a constantly energetic high-end noodle, as if she’s been mainlining caffeine. With titles like ‘Plato’s Fucked Up Cave’ and (my personal favourite) ‘Put All Your Eggs in One Basket and Then Watch That Basket!!’, there’s also plenty of humour here too. She’s supporting the outstanding Animal Collective at the Coronet in London in July – definitely a show not to miss.

More to come later this week – including albums from The National, Fennesz/Sakomoto and Elliott Smith as well as my thoughts on the superb Wilco gig last weekend. There’s also a whole set of inspirational releases from the ECM label that I need to get round to writing about!

Dahling, You Were Fabulous: Rufus Wainwright's Camp Cabaret

Opulent, camp, grandiose, extravagant, excessive, theatrical, operatic, romantic – these are all words that spring immediately to mind when listening to Rufus Wainwright’s latest magnum opus. Even the CD itself is bright pink, for heaven’s sake. Never one to under-egg the pudding, he has continued the orchestral preoccupations of the Want double set on ‘Release The Stars’, albeit with a generous helping of sensitivity and restraint for the sake of balance. It may be his most considered and effective work to date. Those who feared that Neil Tennant’s appearance as Executive Producer might have made for an album of throwback synth-pop need not have been concerned.

Rufus’ most overblown creations continue to work because they come with a deliciously self-mocking sense of their own absurdity. His own arrangement for ‘Do I Disappoint You?’ is hysterical, and even the introduction of a child’s choir fails to destroy its music hall cabaret spirit. It’s hard not to raise a smile as Rufus bellows ‘why does it always have to be….CHAOS?!!’. Similarly, the portentous ‘Slideshow’ works because it is also hilarious, its chorus featuring a decidedly smug Rufus demanding ‘and I’d better play a prominent part in your next SLIDESHOW!’. Most ridiculous of all, from its title to its ludicrous outro complete with Sian Phillips voiceover, is ‘Between My Legs’, a sharper, more infectious take on the punchier rock sound of ‘Movies of Myself’. Even when the arrangements are less embellished, Waiwright still can’t resist excess. ‘Tulsa’ is apparently an ode to Killers frontman Brandon Flowers, and comes with a quite extraordinary opening gambit (‘You taste like potato chips in the morning/You face has the Marlon Brando club calling’).

Wainwright is a true romantic of course, and elsewhere this album contains some moments of real beauty. The lush ‘Tiergarten’ is entrancing, and yet again demonstrates Wainwright’s mastery of vocal harmony arrangements, through which he continues to extend his musical language. ‘Not Ready to Love’ sounds painfully candid, and is as a result heartbreaking. It’s easily the most subtle and controlled song Wainwright has yet delivered. Similarly, ‘Leaving for Paris No. 2’ is tinged with genuine sadness. These songs hark back to the finest moments on ‘Poses’.

His romanticism is more playful on the excellent ‘Rules and Regulations’ and the exotic ‘Sanssouci’, on which he delivers two quite masterful vocal performances. In fact, his voice is much improved throughout the record – there’s much less slurring of words and he’s relying more now on his ability to vary dynamics to give the songs shape and direction.

Wainwright’s greatest gift may be his ability to make the trivial sound vital, and to make the superficial sound beautiful. It’s quite a trick, but whilst ‘Release the Stars’ continues to make beauty a paragon of virtue, it also captures a more tender side as well. Some will see these as conflicting extremes, pulling Wainwright in two directions. I find it easier to view them as two sides of the same coin – and this album makes Wainwright sound more multi-faceted and intriguing than ever. He’s a star himself.

Impossible Synthesis?: Wilco's 'Sky Blue Sky'

Whilst it would be a Herculean task to argue that ‘Sky Blue Sky’ is in the same league as Wilco’s best work, the critical reaction to it has still left me somewhat perplexed. Its harshest critics seem to be not only labouring under the misapprehension that Wilco are at the vanguard of experimentalism, but also assuming that music can be compartmentalised into neat, mutually exclusive categories. For these writers, an album is either experimental or retrogressive, forward thinking or backward looking.

The argument in pretty much every review has been that ‘Sky Blue Sky’ represents a major volte-face and a retrenchment from the adventurous wilds of ‘Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’ and ‘A Ghost is Born’. The Observer this weekend called it a futile exercise in ‘rock archaeology’. I rather like the idea of ‘rock archaeology’ actually – it suggests an uncovering of something hitherto undiscovered from music’s illustrious past, rather than a simple homage or borrowing. Even more lazily, Rob Mitchum on Pitchfork suggests it reveals the ‘dadrock’ side the band has ‘always tried to hide’.

This is palpable nonsense – Wilco have always worn their influences rather proudly. Even the more outré moments on ‘A Ghost is Born’ (the krautrock ‘Spiders’ for example) have harked back mainly to the 1970s for inspiration. Even on ‘Yankee…’ and ‘…Ghost…’, Wilco’s raison d’etre was never to experiment, but rather to synthesise (extremely successfully) a range of musical approaches. They have never simply been a ‘dadrock’ band in the manner of Ocean Colour Scene or Kula Shaker (bands that even resorted to dressing as if from an earlier decade), but they’ve hardly been determined modernists either.

I can find plenty of evidence to suggest that the band’s striving for synthesis continues on ‘Sky Blue Sky’. With its current line-up including the intuitive, nimble guitarist Nels Cline and brilliant drummer Glenn Kotche, Wilco has more of a group dynamic than on previous studio albums, and I don’t agree that the band are ‘passive’ or ‘sidelined’ on this album as some have suggested. Comparisons with Fleetwood Mac or Supertramp are pretty lazy – much more accurate reference points would be early Steely Dan (when they combined a love of country and soul with their jazz chops) or Little Feat. ‘A Ghost is Born’ actually set a number of precedents for the mix of lush impressionism and guitar interplay that lies at the heart of ‘Sky Blue Sky’ – think of ‘At Least That’s What You Said’, ‘Hell is Chrome’, ‘Muzzle Of Bees’ and ‘The Late Greats’ and you’re not actually that far away from the sound the band conjure here. There are no tracks ending in fifteen minutes of feedback, but the majority of Wilco fans may well be relieved at this.

The fist half of ‘Sky Blue Sky’ is dynamic, expressive and enticing. To simply dismiss it as a retro-rock album misses the intricate detail and intriguing mystery of ‘Impossible Germany’, or the dramatic, restless soulfulness at the heart of ‘Side With The Seeds’. There’s also the unpredictable, stop-start jerkiness of ‘Shake it Off’ and the light, dusty country shuffles of the title track and ‘Either Way’. Jeff Tweedy appears to be singing with much greater confidence, and there’s a fresh emphasis on melody and mood. The guitar playing is fluid and inventive, particularly when Tweedy and Cline extemporise simultaneously. Whilst ‘Sky Blue Sky’ isn’t Wilco at their most innovative – it may be Wilco at their most musical, something most critics appear to have missed completely.

The real problem is an uncharacteristic lack of consistency. Where Tweedy once made an entire double album engaging (‘Being There’), he now seems to be struggling to fill a 50 minute single disc. It's made more noticeable by the fact that the album's weaker moments congregate in its second half. ‘Hate it Here’ attempts to repeat the soulful trick of the superior ‘Side with the Seeds’, whilst ‘Leave Me (Where You Found Me)’ is so delicate that it risks becoming bland. 'Walken' is probably the album's most derivative moment.

Similarly, the lyrics veer from the surreal imagery and inventive manipulation of language that characterised the previous albums to rather more banal platitudes that seem limpid and uninspired. Tweedy displays his gifts on ‘Side with the Seeds’ (‘Tires type black/Where the blacktop cracks/Weeds spark through/Dark green enough to be blue/When the mysteries we believe in/Aren’t dreamed enough to be true/Some side with the leaves/Some side with the seeds…’) but he’s really struggling for anything meaningful on ‘Walken’ (I’m walking all by myself/I was talking to myself about you/What am I going to do?’) or the rather benign-sounding ‘On and On and On’ (‘Don’t deny what’s inside’). It’s troubling to say it, but contentment doesn’t seem to come naturally to Tweedy – the songs characterised more by ambiguity and confusion are considerably more successful.

For the most part though, ‘Sky Blue Sky’ is a controlled but nuanced display of group dynamics, interplay and musicality. I also suspect the thrilling essence of many of these songs will come across more clearly in live performance, but we’ll have to wait until next week’s London shows for evidence of this. By synthesising the conventional ingredients of the songwriting art with intuitive and dexterous musicianship, Tweedy has at least avoided repeating himself, again demonstrating that Wilco are a constantly shifting, satisfyingly questing group.

Uneasy Listening: Cat Power at the Forum

I’ve been wondering what to write about this show, given that my entire experience of the night was soured by a particularly thoughtless couple. Having reserved our tickets somewhat late in the day, John Kell (http://www.kingofquiet.co.uk/) and I settled for unreserved seating upstairs. Neither of us had quite accounted for the number of early arrivals (in fact, I expected most of the seated crowd to spend the support slots in the bar), so getting a seat proved more of a mission than expected. Having secured a severely uncomfortable pew (not kind on the lower spine), I felt unduly sympathetic to a couple audacious enough to ask us to save seats for them. Having done this, I did not expect in a million years that they would proceed to talk and giggle (not even quietly, but quite obtrusively) CONSTANTLY THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE PERFORMANCE. They barely even stopped to breathe. Now I can accept that there are different schools of thought on talking at gigs, but my own position on this is clear: no reasonable person would contemplate talking like that through a classical concert, an intimate jazz gig, a movie or a play. What exactly is the difference about a rock concert? Why pay £20 plus to hold a conversation when you could just as easily hold it for the price of a couple of drinks in a bar, café or pub? Having paid from my own hard earned cash, I was not best pleased about their conduct. In the unlikely event that you’re reading this – next time pay more courtesy to people kind enough to secure you a seat (it was so busy they would have been standing at the very top of the balcony otherwise).

Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name of the rockabilly duo support act, who were highly entertaining – basically Revered Horton Heat meeting the White Stripes in a dark alley. No bad thing.

Cat Power has something of a reputation as a difficult performer, an image intimately connected with her battles with alcoholism and depression. Her solo shows have seen her so crippled with fear that she’s been unable to perform, or has simply forgotten her own songs. She’s now performing with a stable band (still in support of her outstanding album ‘The Greatest’, released early last year), Dirty Delta Blues, and has seemingly defeated most of her demons. So why then was this show still so difficult?

She may no longer be such a loose canon, but Chan Marshall still seems a profoundly uncomfortable performer, relentlessly pacing up and down the stage and preferring not to face the audience directly. Her voice, a vulnerable and sensitive instrument on record, is rather more uncompromising live, and she frequently renders her own material incomprehensible tonight, intentionally slurring the words. Whilst she projects confidently, she ignores most of the nuances in the recorded versions. It’s frequently fascinating, but rarely pretty. On record, she sounds positively seductive – live, she appears awkward and unpredictable.

The band, although much acclaimed, are not equals to the legendary Hi label session band that played on ‘The Greatest’. They all seem impressive musicians, but in a relatively straightforward and unadventurous way. They don’t give the songs enough room to breathe, and are frequently just too loud for the rapturous textures Marshall originally concocted.

True to her reputation, Marshall handles a number of covers, most of them major works in the soul and pop canon – James Brown’s ‘Lost Someone’, ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, Smokey Robinson’s ‘The Tracks of My Tears’, Willie Nelson’s ‘Crazy’ and Dan Penn’s ‘Dark End Of The Street’ among them. Identifying the material proves a challenge, given Marshall’s reluctance to enunciate and the unnecessary reverb added to her voice. She veers so far from the established melodies, not in itself a crime, but she seems somehow uncertain in her extemporising, and her interpretations have little shape or direction. ‘The Tracks of My Tears’ arguably works best, simply because she transforms it radically from elaborately arranged ballad into full-force Northern Soul stomp.

The show gets more comfortable and meaningful as it progresses (if anything it seems to be about pushing the songs to their utmost extremes), but there’s a lingering sense of missed opportunity at the end in spite of this. I think Marshall has plenty of talent and originality – but, in spite of the successful 'Dusty in Memphis' vibe of ‘The Greatest’, she may not entirely be at home with ‘the greatest soul singer in the world’ tag that her band bestows on her.

I'm Behind Schedule...

So here's a list of things I need to blog about, lest I should forget myself:

Cat Power live at the Forum last week
Dava (about whom only a select few know)
Bishi (should get the album later this week)
David Torn - Prezens
John Surman - The Spaces in Between
Elliott Smith - New Moon
Cinematic Orchestra - Ma Fleur
Laura Veirs - Saltbreakers
Soulsavers - It's Not How You Fall, It's The Way You Land
Medeski, Scofield, Martin and Wood - Out Louder
John Abercrombie - The Third Quartet
Led Bib - Sizewell Tea
Eberhard Weber - Stages of a Long Journey
Wilco - Sky Blue Sky
Rufus Wainwright - Release The Stars
Tord Gustavsen Trio - Being There
Von Sudenfed - Tromatic Reflexxions
Sebadoh - The Freed Man (Domino reissue)
The Field - From Here We Go Sublime
Abram Wilson - Ride! The Ferris Wheel To The Modern Day Delta
Curios (Tom Cawley Trio) - Hidden
Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford - s/t
Robyn - s/t
The Bird and the Bee - s/t
Tinariwen - Aman Iman: Water is Life
Paul Motian w/ Joe Lovano and Bill Frisell - Time and Time Again
Marnie Stern - In Advance of the Broken Arm
Maximo Park - Our Earthly Pleasures
Sarah Nixey - Sing, Memory
Field Music - Tones of Town

The Earth From The Air: Bjork's Volta

I’m aware that this is going to sound incredibly snobbish, but there’s this lingering sense that the rock and pop press consistently underestimate Bjork. Predictably, Volta has received universal plaudits so far, but very much of the four-out-of-five-stars, take-her-for-granted kind. ‘Volta’ is a sixth remarkable album in a sequence that has seen Bjork expand her reach fearlessly with every new recording. It is therefore manifestly absurd that a dependably brilliant new Bjork album should be accorded the same ratings as, say, the latest dull offering from Kasabian. Let’s be absolutely clear about this – Bjork is quite peerless in contemporary pop music. There is no other artist prepared to push themselves quite as far, to manipulate their voice to such intense effect, to be as upfront about their influences whilst striving to expand the language of modern music. Her passionate combination of the mechanical innovations of electronic music with an emotional honesty and warmth often lacking in the work of other comparably experimental performers marks her out as a unique and massively significant artist.

She has rarely ever followed trends or expectations, and it’s therefore no surprise that the pre-release talk of ‘Volta’ representing a return to ‘commerciality’ after the ‘introspective’ approach of ‘Vespertine’ and ‘Medulla’ has turned out to be complete piffle. If anything, ‘Volta’ draws as much from her recent soundtrack for husband Matthew Barney’s ‘Drawing Restraint 9’ as any of her previous albums proper. There’s perhaps more of an abandonment of conventional song structure and melody here than on any of her previous works, and the unconventional instrumentation imbues the accompaniment with unusual and compelling textures.

Perhaps it’s precisely this individualism and isolation that has led most commentators, with justifiable surprise, to focus on the presence of R’n’B mastermind Timbaland here. This comes in spite of the fact that his contributions are arguably more gimmicky and less significant than those of the many other collaborators here (including Bjork regular Mark Bell, Congolese mavericks Konono No.1, avant drummers Chris Corsano and Brian Chippendale and the master Kora player Toumani Diabate).

If ‘Medulla’ focussed on the sound of the human voice, then ‘Volta’ focuses on the combination of primal rhythms and exquisite, cinematic horn arrangements that sound both vivid and alien. It opens with the delightfully groovy ‘Earth Intruders’, something of a close relation to ‘Human Behaviour’ with its rolling tom drums from Corsano. The lyrics are characteristically bonkers, with Bjork ranting about ‘necessary voodoo’ and ‘metallic carnage’ (although the Dr. Who fan in me genuinely mistook the latter for ‘The Dalek College’). The vocal phrasing is in itself intensely percussive, and it’s fascinating to hear how voice and drums intertwine effortlessly. The distorted thumb pianos of Konono No. 1 emphasise the juxtaposition between the traditional and the shock of the new.

The horns make their first entrance on the quite astounding ‘Wanderlust’, in which Bjork falls into some kind of existential rapture (‘I have lost my origin and I don’t want to find it again’). There’s a genuine sense of awe and mystery here that justifies her use of this suddenly in vogue song title (the REM song of the same name sadly had nothing of the sort). Her voice is also at its most forceful and intimidating, and for all those complaining of a lack of melody, there’s definitely a tune here, unconventional as it may be. The prominence of the polyphonic horn arrangements continues with ‘Dull Flame of Desire’, a lengthy duet with Antony Hegarty that slowly unravels into something weirdly compelling. It seems very much a love song, and as such probably the least oblique song in the set. ‘Vertebrae by Vertebrae’ somehow makes the horns bigger, bolstering them with military percussion. The song is full of curious imagery and Bjork’s vocal twists and turns in entirely unexpected directions. Later, on ‘Pneumonia’, we get Bjork’s voice set along against the horns, which creates a particularly eerie and discomforting effect.

‘Innocence’ stands out as the moment where Timbaland is given some kind of freedom, the beat being particularly syncopated and off-kilter. It also features some odd samples that could easily have come from an old Sega beat-em-up console game. Luckily, the song itself is exquisite, with Bjork singing candidly about self discovery and the onset of sexual awareness (‘to my surprise, I grew to like boys!’) whilst maintaining that the original innocence is still there, simply ‘in different places’. I’m not sure that anybody writes about sex and sexuality quite as convincingly and honestly as Bjork (return to the quite wonderful ‘Cocoon’ from ‘Vespertine’, a song characterised by real musical and lyrical intimacy to match its subject matter). As a result, it was precisely the ‘introspection’ of ‘Vespertine’ and ‘Medulla’ that made them so masterful. I’m therefore grateful that she allows some of that approach to remain on Volta, most notably on the gorgeous ‘I See Who You Are’, in which she sings boldly ‘let’s celebrate now, this flesh on our bones!’. Toumani Diabate’s kora adds exotic flavour.

Bjork has declared that she aimed to return to some kind of rhythmically charged, toe-tapping dance music with ‘Volta’, and this is most clear with the relentlessly punishing ‘Declare Independence’, which sounds remarkably close to something you might hear on a compilation from outrageous London nightclub KashPoint. It has a thumping four-to-the-floor kick drum relentlessly propelling it, and is as confrontational a statement of individuality and liberation as Bjork has yet penned.

The two trickiest songs here are ‘Hope’ and the closing ‘My Juvenile’, for which Antony returns as Bjork’s ‘conscience’. On the former, she sings ‘what’s the lesser of two evils, if a suicide bomber made to look pregnant manages to kill her target or not’. She’s mangling the English language here, but I suppose her real question is whether the success of failure of an act of terrorism makes any difference to how we should judge it. Musically, it is a sublime combination of subtle electronic glitches with Diabate’s lush, delicate kora. ‘My Juvenile’ is bizarrely ambiguous – it could be about falling in love with someone too young, it could be about protecting her child – who knows? Bjork sings ‘My juvenile, I truly say you are my biggest love…one last embrace to tie a sacred ribbon’. Antony justifies it all with ‘the intentions were pure’. It’s a very strange, intensely personal song that concludes the album on an intimate and mysterious note.

Of all Bjork’s albums, ‘Volta’ may be the most stylistically diverse and uncompromising. It doesn’t have the consistent intimate warmth of ‘Vespertine’ for example. Yet there’s a sense of Bjork achieving some kind of transcendence here, observing life on earth from somewhere higher, and translating her observations into a mysterious and ambiguous language. There’s also a dynamic and strident theatricality to Bjork’s vocal performances. Given a few listens, I suspect it will reveal itself as another masterpiece.