An Alternative History

Iron and Wine - Around The Well (Sub Pop Compilation, 2009)

I've been quite vocal in my admiration for the songwriting of Sam Beam many times on this blog. It's testament to his talent and to my argument for him to be seen as a major artist, that this rarities collection makes for such absorbing listening. Whilst it's easy to accept 'Around The Well' as it has been presented - an 'odds and sods' compilation of B-sides, EP tracks, soundtrack contributions and covers - it actually offers a good deal more when digested as a whole. Running to two discs in length and sequenced chronologically, it provides us with an alternative history of Iron and Wine, from Beam's earliest scratchy home recordings to his creative apogee thus far in 'The Trapeze Swinger'.

The first CD is soft and delicate. Beam is the most unshowy of performers - his guitar playing light and airy, offering only the barest of accompaniment, his voice at its most whispered and understated. Listening to these songs in one sitting is a little more challenging than digesting his later, more realised material. Many of these songs feel like sketches for more ambitious writing to come. Yet the seeds of Beam's gentle command are already apparent. His melodies are often simple and repetitive (in that lingering, quietly reflective way), whilst his music is a Southern Gothic refashioning of the blues. His great success is creating a music that is steeped in the American folk tradition, whilst also developing his own unique voice.

Much of that individuality comes from his language. Whilst songwriters are frequently labeled as poets, few are compared with the great American novelists. Sam Beam has a good deal more in common with William Faulkner or Cormac McCarthy than he does with Bob Dylan. There's a combination of the sacred and the earthy that characterises the best writers ('I'll put my trust in the saviour/The fuming forces of nature') and a deep understanding that emotion can often be best expressed not through melodrama, but through direct storytelling.

His descriptions are vivid and allusive ('The money came and she died in her rocking chair/A letter locked in the pattern of her knuckles/Like a hymn to the house she was making'). As a result, his songs are imbued with a deep melancholy, sometimes even a resonant sadness, that is profoundly moving. His songs are also rich in mystery, filled with uncertain characters and insecure voices. Interpreting them is rarely a straightforward task and sometimes just basking in the flow of the words is enough ('how the rain sounds as loud as a lover's words'). On the plaintive 'Call Your Boys', which hints most clearly at the treasures to come, he seems to be dealing with the deeply personal subjects of family, ancestry and legacy, topics rarely addressed in modern songs.

His choice of covers is also assured. Even when delivering songs that do not rely on his flighty vocabulary, his style is consistent and engaging. Stereolab's 'Peng! 33' is rendered reflective rather than playful. His take on The Flaming Lips' 'Waitin' For A Superman' is so calm and unexpressive as to initially seem as if he has stripped the song of Wayne Coyne's sincerity. In fact, he has transformed it into a quiet, mournful hymn. Best of all though is his majestic version of 'Such Great Heights'. In the hands of the Postal Service, this was a chirpy, infectious piece of electronica. Beam has made it a touching folk ballad. Simply by slowing it down slightly and swinging the vocal phrasing, he radically alters the mood of the song.

The second CD begins with cleaner production values on the lovely 'Communion Cups and Someone's Coat'. By this stage, Beam's ambition to expand his reach is already apace. The dusty, charming 'Belated Promise Ring' introduces brushed drums, honky tonk piano and upright bass but this is Beam at his most traditional. 'God Made The Automobile' is deceptively lightweight (a nod to Springsteen perhaps in its cars and girls subject matter) but it's looped backing vocals seem like some sort of precursor to 'The Trapeze Swinger'. It also has one of Beam's most touching melodies.

The songs get progressively stranger and more intriguing from this point onwards. The catalyst for Beam's later hybrid sound appears to have been his massively fruitful collaboration with Calexico. It's a shame that there don't seem to have been any outtakes from 'In The Reins' held back for this set. By the time we reach 'Carried Home', his dark gothic blues is fully realised. 'Kingdom of the Animals' is more peculiar still, with the hints of dub and Afro-Caribbean rhythms that made 'The Shepherd's Dog' his most idiosyncratic and exciting album. There are some fantastic lines in this one two - its two lovers 'sweating wild and weird in our sunday clothes' - in their eyes 'an angel clear and coronal/Clothed in all that's prodigal and strange'.

He saves the very best for last here though. I've written a great deal about 'The Trapeze Swinger' in an earlier post, but it remains a song that demands close attention with every listen. The structure is simple - four chords and a very simple melody repeated over and over again for nine and a half minutes. Yet the song has a remarkable emotional force - its words so strange and involving, its sense of memory and loss so clear and compelling. The musical key to its success is the subtle variations in texture that go on beneath the vocals - how one instrument will become prominent and then settle into the background again. Yet when Beam performs it live entirely alone, it seems to work just as well. It's far too good a song to be left buried on the soundtrack of an inferior American movie - a masterpiece in fact - and it's great that it has a new and wonderful home here.

Beam's songs often need time to cast their spell. They are not easily digestible and there is a clear need to pay close attention to his words and the subtle shifts in his music. He hasn't quite made a classic album yet, but there is plenty of evidence here to suggest it is not too far away. For the time being, this collection provides plenty of insight, wisdom and imagination.

Jesus of Uncool

Nick Lowe and Ron Sexsmith - London Royal Albert Hall, 18th May 2009

Can there be a less fashionable musician currently at work than Nick Lowe? Clad in well pressed black trousers and a shirt white enough to match his hair, he hardly looks like he could be the same man who was once signed to Stiff records and who produced ‘New Rose’ for The Damned. In calling his most recent album ‘At My Age’, it’s clear that Lowe himself relishes the irony. Fashionable or not, this show offered an illuminating education in how to mature as a singer-songwriter.

Ron Sexsmith, who provided a brief but straightforwardly enjoyable opening set, might be younger, but his songs share a directness and clarity with those of Nick Lowe. The two performers complemented each other neatly and it was a shame that Sexsmith wasn’t allowed a little longer than his cursory 20 minutes. He managed to squeeze in a handful of songs from across his career, including two songs perhaps better associated with Leslie Feist (‘Brandy Alexander’ and ‘Secret Heart’). Sexsmith is not the most elaborate or diverse of writers, favouring conventional chord sequences, lyrical platitudes and hummable melodies. His songs have a calm, reflective charm though and his soft, understated voice is appealing.

It’s easy to see why Lowe’s current career retrospective is called ‘Quiet Please’. I had forgotten to bring my earplugs to the concert but I was hardly troubled by the band’s delicate dynamic. If anything, they soothed rather than exacerbated my persistent tinnitus. Such restraint enabled the band to master the Royal Albert Hall’s infamously difficult acoustic – all the parts were clearly audible, with Lowe’s voice achieving clarity in spite of his unfussy, near-spoken delivery, with its emphasis more on phrasing than power.

The set traverses Lowe’s changeable career, but favours his most recent albums, on which he has re-established himself as a wistful, occasionally whimsical writer of new country-soul standards – a hybrid of George Jones, Tony Joe White and Dan Penn. There’s not much trace of his earlier incarnations as a writer of pub-rock or affectionate parodies (the Bowie-inspired angular funk of ‘I Love The Sound of Breaking Glass’ would have sounded very odd in the middle of this set). Lowe has never been a true original or a radical, but he seems to have reached his full potential late into his career, discovering a mould into which he fits with remarkable ease.

He simply writes great songs and whether delivering them solo or accompanied by the stately and unfussy playing of his band, everything sounds effortless and unhurried. Lowe imbues his songs with subtlety and dignity. Even the casual misogyny in ‘I Trained Her To Love Me’ sounds deceptively soft (he promises that the show will be ‘entertainment for all the family’ from that point on). His songs show a rare insight and awareness into everyday home life so often absent in contemporary pop. ‘Lately I’ve Let Things Slide’ will be, for many, an all-too recognisable account of how depression sets in almost unnoticed. ‘Let’s Stay In and Make Love’ is a rather delightful tribute to the virtues of isolated intimacy over the social whirl.

The audience evidently appreciates the airing of ‘Cruel To Be Kind’, although even this is played with a lightness of touch rather than a vigorous stomp. ‘What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace, Love and Understanding’ closes the main set as a soulful ballad – a far cry from Costello’s more urgent version. Yet even with their delicacy and taste, the group can still invite toe-tapping, particularly in their rockabilly shuffles, or in the insistent backbeat of ‘When I Write the Book’.

I could have done with a bit less of special guest saxophonist Curtis Stigers, whose smooth interjections almost took some of the material into soft porn soundtrack territory. Perhaps keyboardist Geraint Watkins could have been allowed a little more space too – his occasional solos were expressive, confident flourishes. The encore begins with Lowe singing a solo take on ‘The Beast In Me’ but develops into a showpiece for the talents of his ensemble. It was a pleasant surprise to hear Watkins sound like Van Morrison when Lowe allowed him to sing one of his own songs and Ron Sexsmith joined in for a rambling take on an old Louvin Brothers song.

Lowe is an amiable on-stage presence, a storyteller and wry humourist as much as a singer. His explanation for the length of time between full UK tours (about 20 years apparently) raised a few smiles – he had been forbidden from playing in the provinces ‘due to lack of interest’. It’s a shame too that the promoters seemed to have over-stretched themselves a bit by going for the Albert Hall as London venue – the entire top circle was empty and there were many spare seats in the stalls too. Given how charming and engaging a performer Lowe clearly is, let’s hope his upcoming return to the London stage with Ry Cooder (a mouth-watering collaborative prospect) is better attended.

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.

Radiance

Emmylou Harris, London Hammersmith Apollo, 14th September 2008

It’s taken me a while to get round to writing up my thoughts on my first Emmylou Harris concert experience, so I hope my recollections are not too hazy and distant. With this and last month’s disappointing Stevie Wonder concert, I’m left with very few living legends to see in concert, which hopefully means I’ll be able to restrict myself to reasonably priced gigs from now on.

There has been a lot of debate among Emmylou obsessives about the merits of this latest touring ensemble, The Red Dirt Boys, and her superb previous band Spyboy. It’s certainly true that this band doesn’t attempt to mimic Spyboy’s mysterious swampy grooves, neither do they benefit from a singular talent quite as striking as Buddy Miller. My girlfriend commented perceptively on the limitations of the drum arrangements – the influence of rhythms from around the world, presumably imposed on Emmylou’s music by Daniel Lanois and Malcolm Burn, is now largely absent. It’s arguably appropriate though, given the more tasteful, rootsy nature of Emmylou’s latest album (‘All I Intended To Be’), that The Red Dirt Boys are a group well grounded in the American folk tradition. The strongest link in the band is Rickie Simpkins, who plays a bewildering variety of instruments including mandolin, fiddle and banjo. He’s also a more than competent vocalist, providing strongly supportive harmonies and a memorable duet on ‘Old Five and Dimers Like Me’. The whole group are tasteful, sensitive players who complement Emmylou’s haunting voice, an instrument not just undiminished in its powers, but still developing.

Perhaps most interestingly of all, they play subtly redefined versions of the songs post-‘Wrecking Ball’. These versions go some way toward emphasising the continuity throughout her career rather than presenting that album schematically as a radical seismic shift. Yes, the new emphasis on production values found a new context for her voice – but these songs, including her own, have strong ties with the country tradition. As a result, the show coheres superbly, with Appalachian balladry, bluegrass stomp and, as Emmylou herself admits, a healthy dose of the blues.

It is surely the latter ingredient that is the most significant in her potent mix. Whether she’s drawing something from her own experience or interpreting the work of her most admired writers, there is always an aching sadness and poignancy at the core of her delivery. She admits that she had to exaggerate for ‘Red Dirt Girl’ as her childhood was never quite so painful but claims that the selected Merle Haggard’s beautiful ‘Kern River’ because it’s ‘just so unbearably sad’. After performing a distinctive reading of Townes Van Zandt’s ‘Pancho and Lefty’ (sharper and starker than the original), she quotes Townes’ view that ‘there are only two types of music – zip-a-dee-doo-da and the blues’. Unsurprisingly, she promises more of the latter.

It’s become a cliché to say this about the great interpreters – but Emmylou does indeed make every song her own. Even the Gram Parsons songs, which must come with weighty, personal memories for her, are imbued with fresh vigour. She does ‘Return of the Grievous Angel’ and ‘Wheels’ tonight, two of his most memorable songs, inverting them so that her harmony lines become the lead voice. This initially makes them sound unfamiliar and strange, but by the final verse of each, she has such total command that the original melody begins to sound weaker.

The most striking revelation of the night turns out to be Emmylou’s skill as a guitarist. Anyone expecting her to strum politely throughout would no doubt have left impressed by her graceful finger picking, particularly on a moving version of ‘Bang The Drum Slowly’. I found myself wondering whether this rendition of the song might have been even more effective had it been completely solo. The interjection of swirling synth pads during the choruses did seem a little obvious – a touch of emotional manipulation where evidently none was required.

Two further reservations – in not playing ‘Michelangelo’ or ‘Boulder to Birmingham’ she arguably omits her two finest self-penned songs. The show opening ‘Here I Am’ acts as the sole selection from ‘Stumble Into Grace’, which seems a shame given the rich seam of material that album might provide. This is of course a mere quibble given the show’s near two-hour running time. A more significant obstacle is the amount of reverb added to her voice – it’s a strong enough instrument not to need it, and the effect is to obscure her enunciation so some of the words become lost. With her great emphasis on story songs and personal narratives, the words are often as important as the melodies.

Still, for a woman who claims not to be religious, she sounds fervent and almost evangelical tonight. There’s a strong gospel power to the show’s final stretch, with a striking unaccompanied vocal harmony version of ‘Bright Morning Stars’ and a joyous and rousing ‘Get Up John!’. This starts to make the spiritual strain of her more recent material (especially ‘The Pearl’) begin to make more sense.

It’s also impossible to review an Emmylou performance without mentioning just how wonderful she looks, her angelic facial beauty well preserved and her stunning white hair seeming to flow seamlessly into a radiant white dress. It’s good to see she can still wear cowboy boots too.

Club Uncool

Kurt Wagner, Cate Le Bon, James Blackshaw - The Borderline, London 10th September 2008

Every so often London blesses us with a club night that has been intelligently programmed, with three interesting acts that make sense lined up next to each other. Last night’s Club Uncut was one of those rare and highly enjoyable evenings – and one which came with the added bonus of a very joyous and positive atmosphere.

Proceedings were opened by the prodigious guitarist James Blackshaw, a descendent of the Takoma school of playing strongly influenced by the likes of Robbie Basho and John Fahey. Blackshaw’s compositions are dense and long, drawing every ounce of potential from each and every theme or motif. His playing is technically accomplished and impressively dexterous, but his use of open tunings means his music is characterised most by warmth and intimacy. It’s hard to describe exactly what is so satisfying about his performance – he sits legs crossed and performs without much in the way of personality or charisma. The impact comes exclusively from the hypnotic power of his music. What a shame he couldn’t have been given a little more time.

I know very little about Cate Le Bon other that she is a Welsh associate of Gruff Rhys and is currently performing as part of the Neon Neon project. Her first song tonight seemed a little clunky to me – the chords strummed a fraction too heavily and her voice seeming somewhat mannered. She eased into her performance though, and within a couple of songs communicated a personality and musical vocabulary that seemed distinctive and refreshing. Many of the songs seemed to be about murdered animals, but the assured quality of her delivery transported her songs beyond the realms of whimsy.

Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner began his quite wonderful solo set by bellowing what he described as a ‘hogcall’ from within the audience, eventually completing the job from the stage. He then sat down with his guitar and performed a superb rendition of Bob Dylan’s ‘You’re A Big Girl Now’. It’s rare to hear a Dylan song covered and forget there was ever a Bob Dylan version – but Wagner inhabited and controlled this song so completely that he made it his own.

The rest of his set consisted entirely of material from the new Lambchop album ‘OH(Ohio)’, the result being a revelatory glimpse at how brilliant that album could have been. With the focus now on his soulful, idiosyncratic guitar playing and unusual vocal phrasing, and with the words once again clearly audible, the songs revealed themselves as humane narratives, full of wit and insight. I found myself once again moved and stirred by the imaginative poetry of this compelling everyman.

Wagner himself was a genial figure on stage – revelling in the comic potential of the solo performance, and again demonstrating himself to be one of the most amiable, gentle and modest of songwriters. ‘I’m not here trying to be like Neil Young breaking away from Crosby, Stills and Nash’ he declared, ‘I’m just trying to become a better person – oh, and the rest of the group are busy with the Silver Jews thing too.’

He may however have been working to a strict contract, employing one bemused audience member to watch an egg timer throughout the whole set to ensure he didn’t extend his allotted time. As a result, the performance was frustratingly brief. Some parts of the audience may well have appreciated a smattering from the back catalogue, although that was clearly not the purpose of this show, and Wagner’s refusal to play ‘a song called Up With People’ was understandable.

He ends with a hoary old country standard ‘I Believe in You’ which may be now be responsible for one of the most straightforwardly romantic moments in my life so far. By his own admission, it’s ‘sappy’ and defiantly ‘uncool’, but it’s also sweet-natured and positive and it’s refreshing that Wagner is unafraid to express the value of good old fashioned human compassion.

My feeling now is that by drifting into ever more tasteful and restrained arrangements, Lambchop as a group has probably exhausted its potential. The band will probably not make a clearer, more articulate statement of dignified minimalism than ‘Is A Woman’ and will definitely not make a record as lush and invigorating as ‘Nixon’. On this evidence, the greater mystery and drama now resides in Wagner as a solo singer-songwriter, although he seems far too humble to pursue this path any time soon.

A Presidential Election

Calexico - Carried to Dust (City Slang, 2008)
Lambchop - OH(Ohio) (City Slang, 2008)

If I see the words ‘return to form’ used in reference to either of these two albums one more time I think I’m going to throw a hissyfit. John Mulvey at least admits the term is a ‘dread phrase’ in his blog about ‘OH(Ohio)’ on the Uncut website but it’s still a contestable claim that either band ever really lost form. Lambchop albums have perhaps become more slippery and elusive since ‘Is A Woman’, but ‘Damaged’ had a rather creeping, insidious effect on me that I came to admire. As for Calexico, their tentative venture into rockier territory on ‘Garden Ruin’, rightly acclaimed in reviews at the time, has now been condemned as a mis-step in retrospect. Regardless of what one thought of that attempt to diversify, the mini album with Iron and Wine ‘In The Reins’ remains to my mind one of the great unsung masterpieces of the decade so far. Critics are fickle beasts!

‘Carried to Dust’ certainly ought to please those Calexico admirers who would prefer them not to change too much. The mariachi horns return, there are plenty of lush strings and border-evoking brushed drums. Yet to suggest the group have completely abandoned the map they began charting with ‘Garden Ruin’ is a little misleading. There are some dramatic guitar atmospherics on the restless ‘Writer’s Minor Holiday’ particularly and a number of other tracks are not easy to pigeon-hole as border music. The slow building tension of ‘Man Made Lake’, for example, crafted with sustained piano chords and some unrestrained guitar howling, would not have been a feature of the Calexico sound before ‘Garden Ruin’. If Arcade Fire borrowed some of Calexico’s stylings for their majestic ‘Ocean of Noise’ (by some distance the best track on ‘Neon Bible’ for me), Calexico now return the compliment by using a distinctly Arcade Fire-esque backbeat and slow building tension on ‘Two Silver Trees’.

Elsewhere, the sound is more comforting and familiar, the Spanish language collaboration with Amparo Sanchez on ‘Inspiracion’ taking many of Calexico’s preoccupations to their logical conclusion. There’s that deliciously dusty quality to many of the songs, with the lightly rolling rhythms, evoking, it must be admitted, images of horses and wagons, they deploy so effortlessly. One can hardly blame the group for returning to these well worn tropes when they are so adept at executing them. Best of all is when they apply a new and unexpected nuance to these characteristic features. The superb ‘Fractured Air (Tornado Watch)’ benefits from some echo effects on the horns more common to dub reggae than American or Mexican folk music. Together with some syncopated rhythm guitar, it makes for something lithe and funky.

I’ve seen some reviews that suggest the songwriting on this album fails to match the impact of the group’s instrumentals. I have to disagree quite strongly with this, as ‘Carried to Dust’ is certainly Calexico’s most immediate collection so far (if not necessarily their best). Some of their songs are admittedly more about mood than melody (‘Bend to the Road’) but ‘Carried to Dust’ has more than its fair share of stirring creations. ‘Slowness’, featuring the delightful vocals of Canadian Pieta Brown, is particularly glorious, subtle and restrained but also with some kind of gently hymnal quality to the performance. ‘Victor Jara’s Hands’ and ‘News From William’ are the kind of compelling narratives we’ve come to expect from the group. Perhaps least predictable is the hazy, eerie, partially electronic ‘Contention City’, a journey into dreamlike fantasia the band handle remarkably well.

As is often the case with Calexico, there’s quite a lot to absorb within this album’s fifteen tracks (sixteen if you get the iTunes bonus track) but it’s too easy to take this group for granted. They remain musicians who luxuriate in every slight detail – the effect created by a single hit on a cymbal bell, or exploring the interplay between guitars and pianos, a frequent feature of this collection. I suspect this is something a little more than just another good Calexico album.

The extent to which ‘OH (Ohio)’ represents a diversion from Lambchop’s most recent work has arguably been overstated. It’s more skeletal, with the florid string flourishes of ‘Aw, C’Mon/No You C’Mon’ now firmly jettisoned, but 2006’s excellent ‘Damaged’ had already initiated that process. It shares with its predecessor a tendency to divest Kurt Wagner’s idiosyncratic voice of personality, his croaky mumble too often obscuring his strange and original lyrics. His words can as a result fall into the background, carefully enmeshed in what is undoubtedly a very lovely, mostly sedate sound.

For me, Lambchop tracks were always more powerful when they made a triumphant virtue of Wagner’s vocals and lyrics. ‘Nixon’ worked as much because of the extraordinary, piercing attack and surprise of that falsetto, as much as through its lavish arrangements. The best songs on ‘How I Quit Smoking’ (‘Theone’, ‘The Man Who Loved Beer’) saw Wagner embracing melody as well as acute-angled phrasing. Whilst some found the smoky ambience of ‘Is A Woman’ detached and unemotional, I found both lyrical and musical poetry within it, given investment of the necessary time and effort. Whilst there are plenty of moments on ‘OH(Ohio)’ that are tender and pleasant, there is nothing here that really moves me quite as palpably as those highlights from their back catalogue.

Where the band would previously delve into a nimble and funky soul groove, the emphasis on ‘Ohio’ is more on gently plucked guitars, Tony Crow’s piano now providing subtle shading rather than dominating proceedings as it did on ‘Is a Woman’. Typical are the title track, ‘Of Raymond’ and ‘Slipped, Dissolved and Loosed’. The latter is easily the most memorable thing here, its cooing backing vocals almost sounding comic but also providing a smooth counterpoint to Wagner’s staccato bursts. The opening title track is irresistibly cute (with its central refrain of ‘green doesn’t matter when you’re blue’) but, with its Jobim-tinged arrangement, it’s perilously perched on the precipice between tasteful delight and background or lounge music.

Perhaps there are two points of significant departure here – the use of two producers (regular contributor Mark Nevers and Roger Moutenot, who has worked wonders in the past for Yo La Tengo and Sleater Kinney amongst others) and the occasional deployment of uncharacteristically brisk, driving rock backbeats. These tracks, both superbly titled (‘National Talk Like A Pirate Day’ and ‘Sharing a Gibson with Martin Luther King Jr.’), arguably sound incongruous in context, but they at least provide a very welcome distraction from the familiar dignified restraint on offer elsewhere. ‘National Talk Like A Pirate Day’ is superbly arranged, with Byrdsian jangly guitars and a potent counter melody from the bass.

A number of the tracks here seem to be more subtle and stately takes on familiar Lambchop modes. The lovely ‘A Hold Of You’ veers close to the country soul template they perfected on ‘Nixon’ but seems, perhaps rather self-consciously, to make sure the lid stays firmly on. Some of the songs seem to drift or meander rather lazily, sometimes outstaying their welcome a little. Perhaps the clearest example of this here is the lengthy ‘Popeye’, where Wagner’s words are at their most buried, the harmony seems to repeat a familiar Lambchop sequence, and everything just seems to run on without much purpose (at least until it suddenly veers into a loose-limbed funky coda). It all makes for a very appealing late night or early morning listen – mostly relaxed and elegant but never quite completely awake. Perhaps this is the same criticism that many used against ‘Is A Woman’, but I felt the consistent languid mood of that album serviced its unusual and idiosyncratic songs well. Also, Wagner’s vocals, although abandoning the falsetto, remained striking and incisive on that record.

As ever with Lambchop, the track titles are a veritable treasure trove of imagination in themselves and Wagner’s ruminations on the nature and limitations of masculinity remain transfixing and illuminating. Yet there’s an increasing sense that Lambchop albums now require a quite substantial investment of time and effort from their audience. I’m sure the dignified, tasteful songs on this album will continue to grow on me but I can’t quite escape the sense that this is basically just another good Lambchop album and nothing more, nothing less.

The Complete Picture

Emmylou Harris - All I Intended To Be (Nonesuch, 2008)

When musicians reach a certain age it becomes tempting to speculate on what might be their creative last will and testament. Much speculation is made that the newest works by Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen might possibly be their last, in spite of the fact that such artists are still in relative youth when compared with the likes of BB King or Pops Staples, who continued to make music right up to their deaths. That this new album from Emmylou Harris seems to bring her remarkable artistry full circle might generate similar conjectures.

‘All I Intended To Be’ demonstrates that Harris has, in her maturity, finally achieved her goals. She is, in her own words ‘a singer of songs, a writer of songs, a strummer of a few chords, as Harlan Howard once said, in search of the truth’. Whereas Harris’ previous two albums masterfully refocused attention on her writing talents, this one presents her as something of an all-rounded. It’s a timely reminder of her abilities as an interpreter, but also restates her continually developing talents as a writer.

Howard’s memorable description of country music as ‘three chords and the truth’ seemed to apply perfectly to Harris’ previous two albums, despite many critics remarking that the sound crafted by engineer Malcolm Burn and her band Spyboy sounded a far cry from traditional conceptions of the country idiom. That enchanting, mysterious sound has been abandoned for this project, which reunites Harris with her former husband Brian Ahern, producer of her first eight solo albums. This news initially pleased me as I’d felt that another album in the same atmospheric style might seem like overkill, but there’s no doubt that the percussive, multi-faceted sound of her work between ‘Wrecking Ball’ and ‘Stumble Into Grace’ is missed here.

This certainly doesn’t mean that ‘All That I Intended To Be’ is a bad album – it’s just that it can occasionally sound conventional and straightforward when compared with its immediate predecessors. It even occasionally sounds clunky – that nasty thudding 80s drum sound and Knopfler-esque guitar frills on the opening ‘Shores of White Sound’ initially suggest the new arrangement might have been a mis-step, but luckily greater subtlety abounds elsewhere. Delicately picked acoustic guitar, slide guitar and brushed drums – those dusty old conventions of Nashville – are given greater prominence here.

This is also largely an understated and sombre collection. Indeed, the muted tone has directed some writers to criticise the album for its preoccupation with loss and mortality. This seems unreasonable to me – are these not suitable subjects for a female writer, in her 60s and burdened by the weight of experience, to address? Is it simply that they are subjects that most younger writers would prefer not to hear about? Given Harris’ insight, clarity and eloquence, she seems ideally placed to transform her own life experience into something universal.

Perhaps a more valid criticism is that her writing is starting to become a little repetitive. ‘How She Could Sing The Wildwood Flower’, a collaboration with Kate and Anna McGarrigle, is another song for June Carter Cash, although a little more traditional than the haunting ‘Strong Hand’ that appeared on ‘Stumble Into Grace’. It’s tempting to view the achingly sad ‘Not Enough’, which confronts lost unrequited love, as another song about her relationship with Gram Parsons, but it has broader appeal than this of course. She’s certainly inviting yet more intrusive interview questions on the subject though.

More adventurous writing comes with ‘Broken Man’s Lament’, in which Harris sings comfortably from a male perspective. This was of course once commonplace in the folk tradition but among contemporary writers, only the largely unheralded Sylvie Lewis is making it a major feature of her artistic character. ‘Sailing Around The Room’, a second collaboration with the McGarrigles, is elegant in the carefully delineated shape of its melody and ‘Take That Ride’ touching in its resignation to fate.

Most of the cover songs are shrewdly selected. The unique timbre of Harris’ voice makes it a perfect vehicle for Merle Haggard’s ‘Kern River’ and her rendition proves that she continues to improve as a singer, her voice acquiring fresh nuances with every release. ‘Moon Song’ is certainly one of Patty Griffin’s better efforts and gives weight to Harris’ persistent respect for her work. Harris brings quiet reflection and fresh poignancy to Tracy Chapman’s ‘All That You Have Is Your Soul’.

In her sleeve notes, Harris thanks Ahern for providing her with the ‘comfort zone’ in which to work. I wonder whether that comment might be unwittingly insightful. Most of the musicianship and production on ‘All I Intended to Be’ is more than competent, but it’s hardly imaginative or bold. The arrangements work best when additional instrumentation is introduced – the spectral accordion on ‘Moon Song’ for example, or the steel guitar on ‘Beyond The Great Divide’. Yet none of these contexts really push Harris into any new adventures, as the concoctions of Lanois, Burn and Spyboy certainly succeeded in doing. Some of the supporting players, Dolly Parton, The McGarrigles and Buddy Miller aside, are inadequate foils for Harris’ emotional clarity. John Starling’s duet vocal on ‘Old Five and Dimers Like Me’ is somewhat nondescript and unchallenging.

There’s a great deal to admire here – and Harris’ poignant reflection is once again enchanting - but it doesn’t quite feel like a towering highlight of her catalogue. As its title suggests, it’s a remarkably neat summation of all of her talents (and it’s also a very pleasant listen), but I suspect I’ll find myself returning to ‘Wrecking Ball’, ‘Red Dirt Girl’ and ‘Stumble Into Grace’ more frequently.

The Resurrected

Steve Earle - Washington Square Serenade
Bettye LaVette - Scene Of The Crime

It's not really necessary to add to the voluminous amount of writing about Steve Earle's career trajectory, including time spent as a convicted criminal and drug addict, other than to say that his more recent output has been some of the boldest and most exciting of his career. 'The Mountain', a bluegrass album made in collaboration with the Del McCoury band is one of the best contemporary examples of the genre, whilst 'Jerusalem' and 'The Revolution Starts Now', both politically confrontational albums unrepentant in their stark polemic, both bristle with raw tension and excitement.

'Washington Square Serenade' represents yet another sidestep, consisting of rhythmically driven acoustic guitars and some rather intrusive beats from Dust Brother John King. The basic musical template isn't really anything new for Earle, so the addition of drum machine backings seems like rather a forced way of reinventing the same wheel. Ultimately, when you're as literate and compelling a songwriter as Steve Earle, there isn't a great obligation to embrace modernity, especially when the result risks removing the timeless quality from the music.

The presence of a song like 'Satellite Radio' (Earle himself now presents a radio show Stateside) is intriguing given that much of 'Washington Square Serenade' sounds tailor-made for daytime radio airtime. 'Down Here Below' is the kind of talky narrative song that Earle does brilliantly, but it disintegrates into a rather bland singalong chorus that detracts from its overall force. Similarly, the first introduction of those 'beats' on 'Tennessee Blues' immediate push the song away from the margins and into the middle of the road. The album concludes with a rather ill-advised neutering of Tom Waits' excoriating 'Way Down In The Hole'.

Yet, in its more organic moments, 'Washington Square Serenade' is a pure delight. There are a clutch of simple, affecting love songs with less cluttered arrangements which give Earle's wisened voice greater room to communicate. 'City of Immigrants' is as broad and encompassing as its subject matter necessitates, with a provocative rhythm track that sounds more natural than its more overtly 'produced' counterparts.

Perhaps the production would work better if it was all more carefully integrated, instead of the beats so often sounding more like a casual afterthought. Earle's songwriting voice is still a confident and compelling one, but too often 'Washington Square Serenade' sounds dangerously bland. There are some lovely songs here, but an unadorned acoustic performance of them (like those Rick Rubin-produced Johnny Cash albums) might well have been more daring and more artistically successful.

Until a couple of years ago, when the wonderful 'I've Got My Own Hell To Raise' appeared on the Anti label, soul singer Bettye Lavette had rather disappeared from the radar. Seemingly a victim to the music industry's more fickle and unpredictable machinations, Lavette was making money as a jobbing singer, but firmly without the reputation and critical acumen she so clearly deserved. That album, produced by Joe Henry and comprising a collection of songs from empathetic female songwriters (Dolly Parton, Lucinda Williams etc), changed all that, and also served as a timely reminder of her gritty and gutsy performances on classic soul sides like 'Let Me Down Easy' and the swampy 'He Made A Woman Out Of Me'.

Her next step was to return to the legendary Muscle Shoals studios where she cut her now infamous 'lost' album 'Child of the Seventies', one of the great albums by a female soul vocalist and almost left for good on the cutting room floor. Appearing on the record is David Hood, the bass player on the original sessions. Hood is father of Patterson Hood, from outstanding southern rockers Drive By Truckers who, taking time out from his main project, organised all the musicians and songs for this recording.

The emphasis here is very much on Lavette as soul survivor. Over time, this could easily get a little tiresome but one can hardly begrudge her the chance to vent her spleen here. It's all the more exciting because she mostly does this through the vehicle of other people's songs. By contrast with its predecessor, all the songs here, with the exception of the sole original, are the work of men. It's a timely reminder of how the great art of interpretative singing is rather rapidly dying out. Lavette is one of the few singers left who could proudly proclaim 'I don't write songs, I sing them.'

And boy does she sing! There's a whole world of life experience in that husky but commanding voice and right from the album's opening lines ('I've been this way too long to change now/You're gonna have to take me as I am!') there's a sense that her conviction and commitment have not been diminished by the passing of time. There's a righteousness and self belief on 'Choices', and her take on Frankie Miller's 'Jealousy' is appropriately smouldering and sensual.

'The Scene of the Crime' again emphasises the close connections between soul and country music, not just through the presence of Memphis legend Spooner Oldham on Wurlitzer (how resonant that old electric keyboard sounds here), but also through interpretations of songs from gifted songwriters firmly entrenched in the American tradition - Willie Nelson, John Hiatt and, perhaps less illustriously, Don Henley. The album's finest moment, as highlighted by Patterson Hood in his sincere and eloquent sleevenotes, is a version of 'Talking Old Soldiers', an obscure Elton John song. Lavette completely transforms it, turning it into a grand old statement of defiance and survival.

Unlike the Steve Earle record, there's little conscious attempt to push Lavette into the modern world. Instead, we get a brilliantly solid old soul sound, expertly crafted by the Drive By Truckers, providing the firm foundations for Lavette's merciless extemporising. The upbeat tracks feature some of the clearest, firmest backbeat grooves of this year or any other, whilst the ballads are deftly and sensitively handled, particularly the amount of space left in the rendition of Willie Nelson's 'Somebody Pick Up My Pieces'.

You know you've achieved legendary status when you can get away with referring to yourself in the third person. On that basis, the one original song here, 'Before The Money Came (The Battle of Bettye Lavette)', should ensure Lavette's place in the pantheon of soul legends is at last secure. The brazenly autobiographical lyrics were apparently captured by Patterson Hood from snippets of recalled studio conversation, and they neatly sum up the themes of this project and the unrelenting spirit of this determined woman.

Unexpected Pleasures

Robert Plant/Alison Krauss - Raising Sand

It’s difficult to admit it now, but one of my earliest infatuations as a teenager was with Led Zeppelin. Not so much the quasi-mystical nonsense of ‘Stairway To Heaven’, but rather the primal rush of ‘Communication Breakdown’ or the effortless and thoroughly peculiar melding of Eastern strings and pounding drums on ‘Kashmir’. Since those days, I’ve rather fallen out of love with their considerable legacy and can’t bring myself to care much about the imminent reunion gig, even if Dave Grohl does attempt to fill John Bonham’s enormous drum shoes. Foolishly, I opted to watch Page and Plant’s indulgent tedium over the Super Furry Animals at 1998’s Reading Festival, and much of Robert Plant’s solo work has left me rather cold. ‘Raising Sand’ therefore comes as a curious and entirely gratifying surprise.

It’s not a Plant solo album as such, but rather a collaboration with the extraordinarily popular bluegrass singer Alison Krauss, about whom I am usually very much agnostic. Her own music has tended to sound overly polite and sanitised, the songs often sounding forced rather than hard-lived. Yet her soft, somewhat vulnerable tones here provide a sterling foil for Plant, who is uncharacteristically restrained throughout. Indeed, it’s only on ‘Fortune Teller’ that he even comes close to resembling the sexualised urgency of his Zeppelin vocal performances. There’s only one Plant original here (‘Please Read The Letter’), and even that is cribbed from the Page/Plant album ‘Walking Into Clarksdale’. This is mainly a somewhat studied, but thoroughly easygoing foray into American roots music, neatly melding country, blues and soul into a delicately enchanting and hypnotic hybrid.

Sometimes the sound is comfortingly familiar, with swathes of pedal steel guitar and lightly brushed drums, but in places they veer into unusually eerie, gothic territory. ‘Polly Come Home’ doesn’t sound a million miles away from the harmony-directed minimalism of Low, although the slightly Irish lilt to the melody lends it an additional timeless quality. The superb opener ‘Rich Woman’ crackles and bristles with an oddly reserved energy, whilst Krauss handles the melodic line of ‘Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us’ with masterful subtlety.

The percussion throughout sounds particularly otherworldly and transcendent, perhaps slightly reminiscent of Malcolm Burn’s production work for Emmylou Harris on ‘Red Dirt Girl’ and ‘Stumble Into Grace’, particularly on the haunting take on Tom Waits’ ‘Trampled Rose’. The loose-limbed clatter that glues these songs together also prevents this from being too academic or reverential an exercise.

There’s a relaxed, consummate alchemy between Plant and Krauss that is thoroughly unexpected. Whilst it’s not quite as pure and original a partnership as that of Gram Parsons and Emmylou, it’s both respectful of that particular heritage and keen to develop it in unpredictable directions. The effortless grace of their harmony singing on ‘Stick With Me Baby’ is sublime.

What a shame therefore that Plant is undermining the promotion of this satisfying record by submitting to corporate pressures for a one-off Led Zeppelin reunion show. At least it looks unlikely to become a behemoth tour in the manner of this year’s other reunions (Genesis, The Police). I would rather focus on the quiet and intoxicating majesty of this beautiful record.

Pain and Frustration

Lucinda Williams is that most frustrating of singer-songwriters. At her best, she is capable of a sublime artistry of breathtaking directness. At her worst, she is clunky and forced, and risks trivialising some of her intense personal experiences. Her recent albums all seem to have been inspired to some degree by crises, and 'West' is certainly no different, having been composed following the death of her mother and the breakdown of a rather fraught relationship. These personal difficulties clearly inspired Williams to write a wealth of material, and 'West' is as a result somewhat overlong. I could have done without the nine minutes of ghastly cod-rapping on 'Wrap My Head Around That', although arty producer Hal Wilner probably deserves an equal share of the blame for that. The album also opens fairly inconspicuously with 'Are You Alright?', an undeniably pretty song, but with lyrics as cliched as its much-repeated title ('all of a sudden you went away...I hope you come back around someday' etc).

There are other ways, however, in which a case can be built for 'West' as Williams' best work to date. Over the course of her recent albums, particularly 'Essence' and 'World Without Tears', Williams has been gradually abandoning the dusty country rock on which she built her reputation in favour of restrained, floaty and ethereal mood pieces. This sound reaches its apotheosis here, mostly aided by Wilner's production (at least when it's sensitive), and heavily supported by the intuitive and emotive playing of versatile guitar legend Bill Frisell. Another session legend in the form of drummer Jim Keltner offers dependable musical sensibility. There's still variety on display here, but the predominant mood is melancholic and haunting.

There are some wonderful songs here, from the great outpouring of feeling on 'Mama You Sweet' and the deftly poetic 'Words' ('I would rather suffer in sweet silent solitude/Deathly defiant from drowning out/Filthy sounds stumbling ugly and crude/Between the lips of your beautiful mouth' - is this really the same lyricist behind 'Are You Alright?') to the sweetly observed 'Fancy Funeral'. Williams has now mastered her songwriting formula, essentially depending on a careful and considered marriage of words, phrasing and melody for which her gritty, untutored voice is ideally suited. She does not have great range or technique, but there's a wealth of emotion in those cracked intonations, mostly displayed with admirable candour.

As a result, she can do the sultry and lusty as convincingly as the mordant and ruminative. 'Unsuffer Me' and the Neil Young-esque trudge of 'Come On' (all playful self-righteousness and innuendo - 'you didn't even make me.....come on!') are both close relations of the outstading 'Atonement' from 'World Without Tears'. So, whilst many of these songs are intensely sad, there's also a dogged determination for self-preservation too, most evident on the slight beam of hope provided by the closing title track and the endearing, touching 'Learning How To Live'.

Whatever one feels about Williams' inconsistency, there's no denying that, much like the graceful Emmylou Harris, she has really matured as an artist relatively late in life. 'West' is a moving, elegiac story of grief and love lost with which many people will easily connect. Forget the crass, manipulative emoting of Snow Patrol, Keane and their horrific ilk, and discover something truthful and hard won. It may sometimes be a lonely and desolate landscape, but sometimes heading out West isn't just illuminating - it's necessary.

It's been a while, so I've been saving a great outpouring of rage for this post. First of all, let's get the obvious subject out of the way first - the U.S. Presidential election. It may just be that I'm naturally pessimistic, but the result came as no surprise to me. It had been clear for some time that John Kerry had placed far too much emphasis on his personal war record, and far too little on developing a coherent vision, both in terms of foreign policy and domestic issues. Not only that, but the Bush team mobilised the evangelical vote with considerable relish and vigour, and Bush has now been re-elected on the deeply hypocritical platform of promising greater 'freedom and democracy' abroad, whilst offering the most intolerant and restrictive set of policies at home. I don't want to spend too much time here analysing what this might mean for the next four years - but it's enough to say that I don't expect Bush will modify his stance on the environment, the economy, or healthcare provision. I also don't expect too great a change in the U.S. approach to what Bush has liked to call 'rogue states'. This is, after all, a President whose perspective on the world lacks any kind of nuance or finesse, and he is only capable of viewing the world in contrasting extremes. It's doubly depressing that the death of John Peel and the re-election of a moron to the greatest seat of world power had to come within the same week.

Whilst the election result is not surprising, it remains dismaying, and I only hope that the most vital political voices in America continue to protest and speak out. Bruce Springsteen's first reaction to the result has been to place a newly recorded version of The Star Spangled Banner on his website - a statement characteristically designed to appeal to American pride as much as post-election despair. Springsteen at last took a risk with his commitment to the Vote for Change tour - although his politics can easily be gleaned from many of his songs, he has always been careful not to ally himself with either political party. R.E.M. have already spoken in interviews of their dismay and fear. Perhaps the most vital political voice in American music right now, Steve Earle, appeared in the UK this week. The concerts were sure to be energised and brimming with conviction - the songs remain as relevant as ever with Bush still in power.

I was particularly depressed by several comments on the REM and Springsteen messageboards bemoaning the 'arrogance of the liberals' and, using far more expletives than I'd like to use here, instructing their favourite musicians to keep out of political debate. Leaving aside the question of how these people can identify with Springsteen songs and yet still support Bush's tax cuts (a policy designed to benefit only the very rich, with little or no broader economic justification), it's depressing that so many seem to think that musicians have no right to a democratic voice. Nobody has to follow the advice of Springsteen and REM et al - the American population have proved more than capable of ignoring them altogether. Yet I value these performers precisely because they are prepared to go beyond simply entertaining a crowd, and are prepared to use their celebrity to status towards what they feel are good ends. I'm no fan of U2 - but at least Bono is prepared to rise above banality and put his celebrity to some positive use, even if he could substantially reduce third world debt quite easily by donating some of his vast personal fortune!

Frankly, we need voices as harsh and plain as Steve Earle more than ever now. The election campaign finally directed me towards his album 'The Revolution Starts Now', which I had been meaning to pick up for some time. I can't really place it in context, because the only other Steve Earle album I'm really familiar with is his excellent bluegrass set 'The Mountain', recorded with The Del McCoury Band. Unsurprisingly, 'The Revolution...' packs a much weightier punch. Written and recorded within a matter of weeks, it actually benefits from its slightly hurried process. The need to get the record out before the election has given it an energy and urgency that might otherwise have been compromised. I very much doubt that this is Earle's most subtle collection - but the thumping and insistent drum sound, and crisp, crunchy guitars seem appropriate for the cause. The album is bookended by two broadly similar versions of the title track, which makes for a rousing rallying cry, set to an infectious melody and driving straight-ahead rock n'roll groove.

Earle is particularly adept at using localised, personal stories to illustrate a broader political picture, most notably on the anti-war songs 'Home to Houston' and 'Rich Man's War'. The former is a rollcking country shuffle, while the latter is quite brilliant - a plaintive and quite moving exposition of both how the Iraq war has wasted American lives and merely perpetuate a cycle of violence and fear. Earle's voice is snarling and forceful against the acousticm guitar picking. These songs share Springsteen's ability to craft refined character studies, but are more politically charged and less compromising.

'The Revolution...' is importantly not without humour either. At the centre of the album are two hilarious and riotous tracks. 'Condi, Condi' is a, presumably ironic, love song to Condoleeza Rice, set to an angular, almost reggae-flavoured backbeat. 'Oh she loves me, oops she loves me not/People say you're cold but I think you're hot!' Earle sings with considerable relish. 'F The CC' requires little exposition, and certainly makes its defence of democratic freedoms abundantly clear. It's context is undoubtedly the criticism that has been dealt out to those who have spoken out against the Bush administration, along with the restrictions on civil liberties introduced with the Patriot Act. It makes for a highly entertaining rant.

Elsewhere, a duet with Emmylou Harris on 'Comin' Around' is plaintive and affecting, proving that Earle is just as capable of handling traditional country material as he is at producing ranting rock-outs. It's not all perfect - 'The Warrior' sees Earle attempt a more poetic lyric, with mixed results. Much of the imagery and the alliterative devices seem a little forced. The closing tracks are enchanting - but more personal, perhaps even sentimental. Whilst it is by no means the most subtle or nuanced album ever recorded, it does present an eloquent, forceful and determined opposition to the Bush administration, as well as some powerful songwriting. It's just a shame that protest statements such as this haven't managed to secure a result.

An arguably more surprising voice of protest is that of Eminem. It's deeply disappointing that his record company have not had the courage to release 'Mosh' as the first single from his new 'Encore' album, now brought forward to be released today following another internet leak (surely Interscope must realise it will still be on the net after its release?!?!). Instead, they've opted for the comfortingly familiar puerile cartoon rap of 'Just Lose It'. 'Mosh' really is a different beast altogether. So far, Eminem's capacity for righteous anger has only really been channeled on somewhat tiresome 'leave me alone I'm so famous it's terrible' rants. Here, for arguably the first time, he channels this anger towards something more productive and valuable.

Whatever you think of its sentiments, 'Mosh' is an incredible piece of work, a passionate and furious anti-Bush invective, underpinned by rhythmic insistence and considerable intelligence. It is a vitriolic outpouring of frustration and indignation, with a video that illustrates the lyric in even starker terms. Its images and statements are devastating alone 'no more blood for oil, we've got battles to fight out on home soil', strap an AK47 to the President and make him fight his own war, 'this weapon of mass destruction we call our President' - but their cumulative impact is strangely moving. It's partially Eminem attempting to mobilise his fanbase to vote, but it's also an impassioned broadside - with Eminem proclaiming his own leadership, guiding a whole audience to 'mosh' against the President. Intelligent and articulate are words that have often been used about Eminem by gushing critics. In this case, they may well apply.


The second issue to have angered me this week is considerably more trivial, but one that I still feel compelled to write about. I've read a great deal recently about 'changing listener habits' and 'changing attitudes towards music', and other such bland mediaspeak in the past few weeks. Apparently, only the over 40s are buying albums now (how then does that explain 300,000 sales and counting for McFly, and triple that for Busted?). The rest of us apparently prefer to listen to single tracks, most likely downloaded from the internet, than purchase expensive albums which consist of fifty per cent filler. I'm certainly not going to argue with the conjecture that albums are too expensive, especially when CDs now cost so little to mass produce. However, it does undoubtedly depend on what you buy and where you buy it. If you are a regular internet user, then Amazon, Play and other such sites sell CDs at increasingly reasonable prices. Some independent shops - such as Fopp, Selectadisc and Rough Trade are also mostly affordable, albeit only accessible if you live in London or another major city. I increasingly find that, if I shop around, I have little reason to spend more than £12 on a CD, unless it's jazz, which remains sadly marginalised and overpriced.

As for the quality issue - I can't help feeling that comment is more than slightly demeaning to the great wealth of excellent albums that have been released this year. In the first half of this year, I felt I might the year looked like being a little disappointing - I've now completely revised that opinion. Sure - if you waste your money on industry manufactured pap, you're best sticking with singles. The genres of hip hop and R&B are particularly guilty - there are numerous singles in these genres that are innovative and hugely exciting, but the albums are invariably overlong and tiresome - so it becomes harder to sort the wheat from the chaff. If you're open minded, and are prepared to look further to the margins, read more and listen to more, there is plenty out there that is worth the investment of hard cash. Believe me, I wouldn't be writing this blog if there wasn't.

Yet still there is a prevailing trend towards downsizing, compartmentalising and just plain old dumbing down. Nowhere has this been made starker than in the new NME yearbook (don't worry I haven't bought it - I just flicked through it at work). Here, the learned staff of the NME give us their 336 best tracks of the year. First of all, 336 is a strangely arbitrary number, and the exercise seems somewhat pointless to begin with (I find it hard enough to organise a top 50 into any kind of order). What makes it worse is that the tracks are grouped into sub-sets with vacuous and presumptious titles like 'ten for the pensioners' and 'ten floor-shakers'. The NME have at least retained John Mulvey, Dele Fadele and a handful of other writers I trust to make reasonably informed judgements on new music. Yet, these writers now seem entirely marginalised in their polls, instead making way for a youth wing keen to abandon all knowledge of musical history and start proclaiming even the most banal bands of the moment as life-changing revolutionaries. Judging by this list, they also seem to be entirely at the whim of prevailing fashions.

Just as vinyl remains sacred for DJs and collectors, so the recorded product will remain cherished by fans and obsessives for some time to come. Whilst I value the internet as a means of seeking out new sounds - I regularly read music sites and blogs and seek out streaming media from bands and artists who have caught my attention - I would never be entirely satisfied with owning music as a file on a hard drive. For one, it's even more likely to get damaged or go missing than if my CD collection is stolen (my worst nightmare aside from going deaf). I still value the time, art and craft put into a package - including lyrics, artwork and sleevenotes, and I get angry when record companies take my cash for poorly conceived products. I also, believe it or not, still value 'the album' and 'the single' as valuable entities. The only compilations I really trust are ones I've made myself, or mix tapes handed to me by friends. There are odd exceptions of course (Charlie Gillett's outstanding Sound of the City series, Dave Godin's deep soul collections, Rough Trade shops' peerless sets etc etc). Still, there's simply no better feeling than going to a record store, purchasing something that I've never heard just because I've had a tip about it, and finding that it's brilliant. Long may those days continue. That's why if you return to this site a little closer to Christmas, you'll find my selections of albums and singles of the year - I can't resist a good list making exercise.