Richard Thompson Interview

A few days ago, I was lucky to have a brief telephone conversation with the incredible Richard Thompson. The results of that chat can be found here.

Richard had plenty of informed and inspiring things to say about social commentary, the folk music tradition and the idea of music being a process of constant exploration. He is clearly deeply immersed in music and deeply committed to every aspect of his work. I respect him even more as an artist now.

Summer tinged with sadness

Laura Veirs - July Flame (Bella Union)

Laura Veirs is the sort of singer-songwriter it's all too easy to take for granted, releasing new albums of dependable quality at regular intervals without really making radical shifts in direction. Amidst all the noise currently being made around female talents (the elaborate fantasias of Joanna Newsom or the supposed prodigious maturity of Laura Marling), it would be easy for 'July Flame' to fall by the wayside. This would be a real shame, for there's definitely an argument to be made that 'July Flame' is Veirs' most accomplished work.

As its title suggests, 'July Flame' works as a warmer, brighter flipside to the icy charm of her previous career watermark 'Carbon Glacier'. The albums Veirs has released in between the two have all been good, but maybe burdened by the weight of one or two standout songs apiece. 'July Flame' is a good deal more consistent - brimming with largely simple, unaffected but strikingly beautiful songwriting. The arrangements are mostly minimal but characterised by delightful textural nuances.

Veirs continues to work with producer Tucker Martine and 'July Flame' contains the finest results yet from this fruitful collaboration. I became tremendously excited when I heard the news that REM were recording new demos with Martine, for he is exactly the sort of producer to reinject some mystery into that band - but it seems they have returned to the ugly, hyper-compressed commercialism of Jacknife Lee for their forthcoming album. What a shame because judging by what Veirs and Martine have achieved here - an unassuming, home recorded work still full of richness and beauty - a Martine-helmed REM might have been something both surprising and special.

'July Flame' delicately unfolds into a mission of quiet discovery. There's the gentle reverb (applied carefully and thoughtfully) that renders 'I Can See Your Tracks' a mesmerising introduction. There's the otherwordly, slightly woozy waltz of 'Little Deschutes' and the southern gothic tapestry of 'Where Are You Driving?'. Veirs seems to have ironed out some of the harshness from her voice and, whilst these songs are not without her trademark wistful melacholy, they do seem to have a warmer, more enchanted gaze. Perhaps best of all is the sensual, rapturous but avowedly linear title track.

Veirs comes across as a disarmingly modest writer and performer (and her humility comes across in her sincere tribute to legendary session bassist Carol Kaye), but also a meticulously honest one - and this is perhaps why she appears to have so many admirers. Colin Meloy from the Decemberists campaigned for 'July Flame' to get a proper release when Nonesuch records declined to put it out (did they learn nothing from the 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot' farce?) and Jim James from My Morning Jacket provides some suitably spectral vocal harmonies. It's good to hear James' voice in a more sympathetic context after the uncomfortable fusions of 'Evil Urges'. I suspect 'July Flame' will be one of the albums I listen to most this year, such is its winning combination of adventure and accessibility.

New Folk Pathways

Volcano Choir - Unmap (Jagjaguwar, 2009)

Following a critically acclaimed debut is never an easy task but Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon has made it look easy by refusing to play the waiting game. It seemed plausible that ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’ could have been one of those great one-off successes but the ‘Blood Bank’ EP suggested new possibilities, from Reichian minimalism to the unexpected vocodered splendour of ‘The Woods’. Now Vernon has made another intriguing sidestep by teaming up with instrumental group Collections of Colonies of Bees for a collaborative project. Those approaching Volcano Choir in search of more of the cabin intimacy that made ‘For Emma’ so beguiling may well be bemused by this music. This is perhaps a more calculated and less nakedly emotional beast, but its challenges are coupled with rewards.

The focus here is not on words, but on sound, texture and mood. Where lyrics are present, they are difficult to discern and are clearly not intended as the main source of meaning. Carried over from ‘For Emma’ is the use of Vernon’s voice as a presiding, haunting presence, but there is less of a sense of thematic unity. Instead, Volcano Choir feels like an artistic experiment, with a collective ensemble feeling for ideas, sometimes tentatively but more often with confidence and combined expertise.

The opening trio of tracks is particularly effective, with the subtle expressive strokes on ‘Husks and Shells’ giving way to enticing rhythmic games on ‘Seeplymouth’ and the brilliant ‘Island, IS’. This emphasis on rhythm immediately distances ‘Unmap’ from Vernon’s work as Bon Iver. ‘Island, IS’ might even be said to be founded on an angular groove, its seemingly mechanised instrumentation anchored and humanised by some delicate but physical drumming. A similar airiness pervades much of ‘Seeplymouth’ and allows space for the track’s compelling crescendos. Particularly fascinating on these tracks is the way the individual parts interlock in a way that seems almost scientific.

‘Dote’ begins with warm tones that hint at the peculiar mood pieces of Stars of the Lid, before a more unnerving fuzz drifts in, along with Vernon’s manipulated voice. It ends with something close to aggression, before suddenly drifting into the near-joyful handclaps and vocal punctuations of ‘And Gather’. It’s an unpredictable and thrilling transition.

Occasionally, things don’t quite work. ‘Cool Knowledge’ represents a potentially quirky and charming diversion into doo-wop influenced vocal layering, but it gets ruthlessly truncated before it really gets going. ‘Mbira in the Morass’ feels noticeably less comfortable than most of the material here – a rather sheepish toe being dipped into the waters of what sounds like free improvisation. It has some common features with David Sylvian’s ‘Manofon’, but lacks that record’s steely self belief and sense of space. ‘Still’ takes those wonderful vocoder-altered vocals from Bon Iver’s ‘The Woods’ and adds instrumentation, but the effect of the new drones and sounds is sadly to cause unnecessary clutter and undermine the devastating impact of the original track.

‘Unmap’ is rounded off beautifully and contemplatively with ‘Youlogy’. The crass wordplay of the title doesn’t quite do justice its carefully crafted serenity. More so than the rest of the album, it hints at the common ground between Bon Iver and this project – and also demonstrates that the more systematic, collaborative approach can still yield emotionally rich results – without recourse to something as limiting as language.

In Praise of Progress

Sian Alice Group – Troubled, Shaken Etc (Social Registry, 2009)
HEALTH – Get Color (City Slang, 2009)
Tara Jane O’ Neil – A Ways Away (K, 2009)

Such is the heavy pressure to produce easily promoted, mind-blowing debuts these days, that it’s easy to let those acts that manage to develop slip under the radar. I admired ‘59’59”’, the debut album from Sian Alice Group, for its comfortable assimilation of various genres, for its attention to detail and for its hypnotic, repetitive moods. ‘Troubled, Shaken Etc’ really is a massive leap on from that record though. Here, the band return to some of the concerns they only fleetingly addressed on their debut, and explore them in greater depth, with far greater confidence.

It’s immediate from the opening ‘Love That Moves The Sun’ that Sian is allowing herself to stretch out a bit, her voice given a great deal more prominence. A lot of the lyrics remain indecipherable, but there’s a combination of assertion and melancholy that establishes her as a reedier, sleeker PJ Harvey. The song has some elements of a traditional song – arpeggiated guitar chords and a reverb-laden sound – but the unpredictable shape of the melody, playful textural variation and the informed looseness of the ensemble take it somewhere far less familiar. Something similar can be said for ‘Grow, Again, Repeat’, which starts out as a straightforwardly haunting ballad, before moving towards something more unsettling.

The album’s highlight is the shimmering, pulsating ‘Close To The Ground’, which unfolds lengthily over seven minutes, its motorik pulse underpinning a labyrinth of menace and sinister intent. The vibraphone introduction owes a considerable debt to Steve Reich, but the main body of the track has its own steely ebb and flow. It’s an enticing combination of grace and danger, austerity and charm.

Bizarrely, a review on Pitchfork accused Sian Alice Group of ‘avoiding rhythm’ on this album. Some of the tracks certainly have a gentle lilt, or a sense of freedom (the gorgeous closing ballad ‘Salt Water’ or some of the interludes), but then there’s the percussive drive of ‘Close To The Ground’ or the marvellous ‘Vanishing’, which is built on what is effectively a breakbeat. The all-too-brief ‘Longstrakt’ sound like the basis for a Kompakt-esque piece of minimal techno. Rhythm is certainly not absent from these tracks, and the result is that they provide a pleasing contrast with the group’s more aquatic moments. In fact, the use of sophisticated percussion arrangements strikes me as one of this album’s key characteristics.

‘Troubled, Shaken Etc’ is every bit as minimal, economical, cautious and restrained as its predecessor. Yet there’s a more concentrated focus on texture and effect here that adds a sense of tentative adventure. Skeletal templates are developed into haunting, elaborate mood pieces. The effect, particularly on the near-empty title track, is both disorientating and enchanting. This strikes me as a high achieving album, both challenging and enjoyable, and near-perfectly sequenced, which will no doubt go completely unnoticed by the increasingly conservative UK music press.

I can’t say the rather scattershot first album from HEALTH made much of an impression on me, but a firm recommendation of their second ‘Get Color’ (sic) from Three Trapped Tigers’ Tom Rogerson has to carry some weight. So, indeed, it transpires, on listening to this colossal combination of abrasive noise and soft, detached vocals. For all its sonic assaulting, this is also extremely artful music. Although it often explodes into brutality and savagery, it also seems carefully regimented and constructed. Rather than a series of random lurches, these tracks seem like plotted maps for difficult terrain. After a few listens, it becomes clear that we should expect the unexpected.

Importantly, on ‘Get Color’, the band has developed a distinctive and coherent sound, working independently without the use of a producer. Some of their wilful obscurities have been restrained and the template seems to work whether at its most furious and insistent (the double punch of ‘Severin’ and ‘Eat Flesh’) or on something approaching relative tenderness (‘In Violet’). Loud drums are a constant characteristic, and they serve both to anchor the music (with a regular quarter note kick drum pulse) and to stretch it (with elaborate rapid fills and phrasing).

Set against this are barrages of distorted synths and guitars, in carefully orchestrated bursts of noise, both visceral and energising. More important than all of this though are the weirdly androgynous vocals, heavily disguised and distant, but somehow still providing an element of warmth and feeling. It’s a strange, heady mix, but the results are subtly melodic on ‘Before Tigers’ or even arguably anthemic on the insistent, almost industrial clang of ‘Die Slow’. The album is just long enough to state its case and short enough to leave us wanting more.

Tara Jane O’Neil might best be categorised as a folk singer, but such commonplace terminology doesn’t really do justice to the strange and unnerving space her music occupies. This is actually her fifth album as a solo artist, but it’s the first time I’ve ventured into her weird and wonderful world, thanks largely to a positive and intriguing review over at Mapsadaisical.

The songs here are simple, often built on drones and unhurried chord changes, but the devil is most definitely in the details. O’Neil’s production is exquisite, from the layered harmonies on ‘In Tall Grass’ that add to the sense of awe and beauty, or the shaking bells on ‘Dig In’ providing an underlying sense of creepy unease (a consistent factor throughout the record). Perhaps most impressive of all is ‘Howl’, where a sense of personal vulnerability is allowed to seep in, its circular theme getting progressively more intense with each reiteration.

‘A Ways Away’ sounds like a coherent set of music rather than a gathering of isolated songs. It subverts our traditional expectations of singer-songwriters by capturing both a sense of worldly beauty and a sense of fear. This distinctive world is not something that could ever be described as twee. O’Neil realises it through her delicate balance between acoustic vulnerability and an odd kind of distance through fuzzy electric intervention.

By all accounts, this seems to be quite a development from earlier albums and it’s the sort of music that could easily reach a much wider audience in light of the success of Bon Iver. Sadly, the lack of mythical backstory probably means that few will pay attention. Also, there’s something significant in what O’Neil holds back. Whilst this is a frequently intimate and poignant album, it’s not a heart-on-sleeves backwoods confessional in the Bon Iver mould. It’s a good deal more mysterious and ghostly.

Comforting Sounds

James Blackshaw - The Glass Bead Game (Young God, 2009)

In spite of (or perhaps because of?) once naming a song ‘The Sound and The Fury’, I’m rather suspicious of musical works named after great literature. It always seems rather lazy to state your broader inspirations in such a transparent and unadventurous way. This, however, is a James Blackshaw record, and this exceptionally gifted young guitarist and composer has yet to disappoint. True to form, ‘The Glass Bead Game’ marks a further development of his ambition and may well be his most fully realised work to date (although at least one reviewer at The Wire magazine is obstinately dissenting from the critical consensus for Blackshaw). Now signed to Michael Gira’s Young God label, Blackshaw looks sure to secure yet more devotion from the faithful for this extraordinary record.

Even given his unexpected piano playing on ‘Litany of Echoes’, it might still have been tempting to dismiss Blackshaw as a derivative exponent of the Takoma school of folk music. ‘The Glass Bead Game’ answers this charge with a richer, more arranged tapestry of sound. The opening ‘Cross’ is simply beautiful. Whilst Blackshaw’s basic guitar foundation sustains his core preoccupations and could have appeared on any of his albums thus far, the addition of strings (contributed by members of Current 93) and wordless vocals takes it to entirely new territory. The vocals hint at predictable Reichian influences but actually remind me more of Meredith Monk’s ‘Mercy’. There’s already something mysteriously powerful about Blackshaw’s hypnotic playing – whilst it remains harmonically anchored, it’s still emotionally resonant and deeply satisfying.

The epic, 18-minute ‘Arc’ (with Blackshaw on piano again) is the yang to the yin of ‘Cross’ and it therefore makes perfect logical sense that it should close the album. Whilst it adheres to a minimalist framework, there’s something powerful, maybe even devotional about it, achieved largely through the deliberate over-use of the sustain pedal, allowing its clusters to blur, overlap and blissfully merge. The heavy sustain comes perilously close to burying the contributions from strings and wind instruments, but in effect allows notes to rise and fall from a resplendent overall sheet of sound. The effect is deeply moving.

In between, there’s the sublime ‘Bled’ which seems to begin with broad brush strokes before expanding into a more detailed and colourful response to the initial theme. There might even be a rare nod to the blues in its closing minutes. ‘Key’ is more in keeping with what we’ve come to expect from Blackshaw, but no less impressive for its notional familiarity. Melodically, it is strikingly pretty.

More controversial for me is the other piano piece ‘Fix’. I have been pondering whether this might be the first time Blackshaw has resorted to more calculated emotional manipulation. Whilst it sounds haunting and sad, the plodding, insistent crotchet rhythm invokes the overrated Sigur Ros, or could even be something Chris Martin from Coldplay might come up with. Whilst the presence of the violin certainly enhances the track’s warmth, I can’t help feeling that this is a bit too straightforward and transparent for Blackshaw, although some see it as the album’s standout track.

Still, this is only a minor quibble with an otherwise outstanding album that sees Blackshaw continue to expand his reach. The ideas are well executed, and developed with care and grace by Blackshaw and his accompanying musicians. These tracks hint that a more ensemble-based approach could be just as fruitful as Blackshaw’s virtuosic solo performances, perhaps even more so.

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.

Free Folk

Alasdair Roberts - Spoils (Drag City, 2009)

Whilst I’ve liked everything Alasdair Roberts has recorded, both as a solo artist and as Appendix Out, I had a nagging sense that his last album (‘The Amber Gatherers’) was pleasant enough, but added little to his lexicon. Pleasingly, ‘Spoils’ is a rather different beast, filled with tumultuous and inventive language, compelling narratives and free spirited musicianship. It is at once his most intricately arranged and most liberated recording and it’s more than enough to remind me that he is one of the true originals of UK folk music, twisting and turning his traditional inspirations into something radical and involving. His songs demand time and complete attention from the listener – but they certainly repay the effort invested.

With Roberts, we have a troubadour in the original sense – a singer travelling and delivering stories. Roberts avoids all the trappings of the contemporary songwriter. There are no in-depth confessionals or anthems of narcissism. Instead, he inhabits his own world of ‘simulacra’, ‘downtrodden spirits’ and much more besides. On ‘So Bored Was I (Dark Triad)’ he describes himself as ‘bilious and saturnine’. How often are those words used in modern pop? Keeping track of his vocabulary is a challenging task in itself.

It would be easy to criticise Roberts on the basis that little of this can have any real bearing on his contemporary real-life experience. Yet this would miss the point. By delving deep into the Scottish folk tradition and re-imagining it, he has brought his own heritage to dazzling, dizzying life. ‘Spoils’ may well be his best integration of tradition and composition to date and as such it feels like a living, breathing creation rather than a folkloric artefact.

It’s a record that states its intent boldly from the outset. ‘The Flyting of Grief and Joy (Eternal Return)’ is lengthy at over seven minutes but it barely feels long enough to contain all of Roberts’ ideas. Its delicate introduction puts Roberts’ faltering, vulnerable vocal firmly in the foreground, and it remains a beguiling instrument. Any sense of familiarity here is probably a result of the continued presence of Roberts’ Appendix Out colleagues Tom Crossley and Gareth Eggie. Yet the song gradually sprawls into something more unusual, with guitar lines providing counter-melodies and gently rattling percussion from the ingenious Alex Nielsen, before eventually coming full circle with a reiteration of the opening theme.

There’s more of an emphasis on rhythm here than on previous Roberts albums, perhaps as a direct result of Nielsen’s presence. The loose rattle and roll of ‘You Muses Assist’ feels particularly invigorating. The languid opening to ‘Ned Ludd’s Rant’ proves deceptive, the mournful feel giving way to a gentle gallop. Even when the pace is slower and controlled, Nielsen gets a fascinating range of sound from his instruments, contributing as much to the timbre and texture of the songs as to the rhythm.
The result is a sound with recognisable echoes – the guitar language of Richard Thompson particularly – but which also sounds refreshingly peculiar and hypnotic. ‘Hazel Forks’ might be the most conventional thing here, but even this song hardly confines to the structural restrictions of modern pop songcraft. It has the misfortune to share a key lyric with Billy Joel’s ‘Goodnight Saigon’ (we’ll all go down together’) but it’s far from overblown. Its unexpected sidesteps and detours make it more intriguing than confounding.

The album concludes with ‘Under No Enchantment (But My Own)’, one of the prettiest songs Roberts has written, its many melodies combining to produce something thoroughly delightful. It’s a charming end to a restlessly strange, brilliantly performed set of songs. Whilst Roberts has clearly immersed himself in the history of the folk ballad to a degree that the youthful West London folk scene could hardly imagine, he’s also blessed with a unique and enchanting voice and sound that is entirely his own.

The Hazards Of Prog

The Decemberists – The Hazards of Love (Rough Trade, 2009)

I know I’m not exactly hot off the press on this one, but I’ve been pondering exactly what to say about this perhaps intentionally ridiculous record. I’ve been a longstanding evangelist for The Decemberists’ anglophile folk-rock and I enjoy Colin Meloy’s literate, narrative take on songwriting. Their last record, ‘The Crane Wife’ was majestic – an ambitious juxtaposition of interconnected song suite and more digestible pop nuggets. Perhaps inevitably, ‘The Hazards of Love’ takes the concept suite format and runs with it, producing something that we might fairly term a ‘rock opera’. One of my major reservations about this record is that the seamless longform folktale seems like too obvious a step for the group, a potential pitfall that they might have more fruitfully avoided. The other niggle, this one perhaps fairer and more significant, is that the group have already done this a good deal better on their excellent musical setting of ‘The Tain’.

Over a longer distance, ‘The Hazards of Love’ doesn’t just tiptoe into excess, it takes a running jump at it. There are thematic connections explored in both lyrics and music – so melodies and sequences already familiar reappear at later junctures. There are guest vocalists (from Lavender Diamond and My Brightest Diamond – does Meloy have a thing for diamonds?) to enable all the characters to be voiced. There are unexpected interjections of violent prog-metal. A small chunk of this record sounds suspiciously like Queen circa ‘A Night At The Opera’, not by any means the most fashionable of influences. Most worryingly of all, there’s a sodding childrens’ choir. Some of it actually works terrifically and many of the individual tracks are really rather good. The complete whole, without so much as a pause for breath, is difficult to digest though and some sections of it are deeply irritating.

In the first instance, it requires a generous spoonful of tolerance to enjoy this rather whimsical nightmare fairytale about Margaret, a woman impregnated by a shape-shifting fawn. Naturally, a rake and a Queen also get involved. Luckily, Meloy’s typically verbose and colourful lyrics help the whole project to be, on balance, more entertaining than alienating. Still, it takes a lot of work on behalf of the listener to digest the music at the same time as following the rather waifer-thin plot. The presence of the guest vocalists is actually a real blessing, as it helps to create contrast amidst the mounting tension and otherwise relentless extravagance.

In some ways, ‘The Hazards of Love’ seems to have something of a split personality. With the influence of Queen, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin never far away, much of it (‘Won’t Want For Love’, ‘Repaid’, the occasional interruptions in ‘The Abduction of Margaret’, ‘The Queen’s Rebuke’) is sludgy, old-fashioned hair rock. By way of contrast, some of the more immediate moments are very much of the moment and somewhat conventional. ‘The Wanting Comes In The Waves’ has a section that rather too closely resembles Arcade Fire. The punishing chug of ‘The Rake’s Song’ could come from any contemporary indie band, although it’s rendered interesting by the palpable savagery in Meloy’s snarly vocal, in character as ‘The Rake’. This is all before we even mention the occasionally tendency towards baroque chamber pop. The oom-pah waltz recasting of the title theme delivered by child’s choir is far too much for me and has so far made me lurch for the skip button every time.

Whilst there’s something rather refreshing in both the retro-rock and harpsichord excursions, they risk the trappings of irony and detachment and, as a result, don’t really move me. It’s very theatrical but not always all that dramatic. The group really prove their mettle on two outstanding songs here which also happen to be the most direct. ‘Annan Water’ alternates between a rolling and tumbling folk strum and a disarmingly beautiful chorus stripped back to just vocals and Hammond organ. The closing final piece in the ‘Hazards of Love’ jigsaw could almost be described as a soft rock ballad – but it’s performed tastefully and is sweetened by one of Colin Meloy’s most delicate and appealing melodies.

With all its transparent indulgences, ‘The Hazards of Love’ sometimes seems to be trying hard to induce a reaction in its listeners. The Decemberists are too good a band for that though and, try as I might, I can’t quite dislike this preposterous record. Meloy’s love for the English folk rock tradition is clear and not even the liberal peppering of harder edged heavy rock can disguise this. After all, it’s not as if we would ever come to a Decemberists album expecting something contemporary and fashionable.

A Contrarian Unmasked

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Going Down In Musical History

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Death and All His Friends

Noah and The Whale - Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down (Mercury, 2008)

‘Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down’ is not exactly the kind of enthusiastic, life-affirming title you might expect from a debut album by a group barely into their twenties. Noah and the Whale’s songwriter Charlie Fink is clearly a little more precocious than Tim Wheeler or Gaz Coomes were in the mid-90s. The chirpy optimism of songs along the lines of ‘Alright’ or ‘Girl From Mars’ clearly don’t chime with him.

The twee bubblegum folk of their top ten single ‘5 Years’ Time’ is therefore more than a little misleading of what can be found here. Fink’s biggest themes would appear to be death and a rather self-conscious flight from whatever real love might be. Sometimes his words are eloquent, sometimes they feel forced – as if he’s grasping too hard at profundity. He might be leaving himself very exposed to accusations of cynicism with lyrics like ‘if there’s any love in me don’t let it show’ – but he can be forgiven the occasional lapse into adolescent pretence (especially, as he later asks, in all sincerity ‘when will your hand find itself in mine?’).

Whilst it might risk becoming an albatross around their necks, one can hardly resent the band from leaping to pop status on the back of ‘5 Years Time’. Odd, though, that they have very suddenly eclipsed all their associates in what is increasingly being dubbed as a London arm of the ‘anti-folk’ scene (the group began as backing band for Emmy The Great). The genre classification may in fact be less than helpful. I’m not quite sure what the indie-tronica of Jeremy Warmsley has to do with the ramshackle irreverence of Jeffrey Lewis, for example. Indeed, the reliance on basic strumming patterns as much as plucked ukuleles suggests the folk tag is a little too slippery for NaTW too. Although fiddle player Tom Hobden has clearly absorbed a great deal of the tradition, there are times when the band seems more Belle and Sebastian than Richard Thompson.

The first two-thirds of this album are, in spite of Fink’s preoccupations, mostly concise and breezy pop songs. They are at their best when they make features of Hobden’s incisive fiddle, or of Doug Fink’s unorthodox but sympathetic drumming (at its most brittle and sensitive, his playing assumes as crucial a role as any other instrument here). Even better, the songs are occasionally elevated by further brass embellishments, which emphasise the inherent joy beneath Fink’s self-absorbtion. ‘Shape of My Heart’ and ‘Give a Little Love’ are especially charming.

However, the true extent of what this band might eventually achieve only really emerges during the album’s finishing straight. The title track places Charlie’s slightly mannered voice in its most sympathetic context, and at last his desire to escape the circus of relationships and conveyor belts seems genuine, in spite of some rather unsightly rhymes (‘abrasions/ ‘quotations’ etc). When the song eventually bursts open with Hobden’s delightful violin theme, it achieves something simple but stirring.

On ‘Mary’, Fink allows himself to be a little more elusive and ambiguous and the results are affecting even if it’s not easy to pin down precisely why. The lyric ‘When I last saw Mary she lied and said it was her birthday’ has stuck with me since I first saw the group live, and I’m glad it’s made it on to the album. This song and the title track also seem to have a greater emphasis on development and progression – themes and ideas are expanded and the structures are a good deal less formulaic.

Those expecting an entire album of cute fluffiness may well have switched off by this point, but they’d be missing the burgeoning of a real songwriting talent. The funereal resignation of ‘Hold My Hand as I’m Lowered’ perhaps gives the more accurate sense of Fink’s laudable ambitions, its sombre brass band coda somehow both world-weary and elevating.

There’s a sense that the Noah and the Whale of this album are not yet the finished article (and let’s not forget that this is exactly how a debut album should present a band – with somewhere left to go!). If Charlie Fink can shed some of his po-faced exterior (I remember feeling he spent too long staring at his shoes in live performance), he is clearly capable of writing clear, haunting and mature songs. If this supposed London-centred ‘scene’ is let down by one unifying factor, it would appear to be a tendency towards narcissism. Luckily, Fink already has the able support of a band unique (at least among British chart acts) in their willingness to provide unusual, unexpected arrangements that linger satisfyingly in the mind.

All The Fun of the Fair

I’ve been trying to avoid these kind of hastily cobbled together summary posts, juxtaposing releases across a wide range of genres. However, as I’m going to be away with little blogging time from this Thursday, there seems little choice if I’m ever going to get through my mountainous backlog. So here are some musings on some randomly selected new releases…

Flying Lotus – Los Angeles (Warp, 2008)

Here’s one of the most interesting records I’ve heard so far this year and certainly the best album to emerge from the Warp staple in quite some time. It’s from an artist commonly referred to as a hip hop producer but who actually turns out to be something less tangible and more slippery than that (as befits someone who can count the late Alice Coltrane as his great-aunt).

‘Los Angeles’ is an unbroken suite of short, piecemeal ideas that converge into something rather magical and mesmerising. In this sense, it’s probably most closely reminiscent of Scott Herren’s work in his Prefuse 73 guise, although it’s a good deal less scattershot than his albums. The rhythms are simultaneously wonky and crisp, whilst the hazy ambience and overall emphasis on disorientation make the album sound drunk, albeit in an entirely satisfying way.

Fly Lo crafts a simmering, dense and absorbing conflagration of effects and the overall sound is both tempting and sinister. ‘Hot’ is particularly effective in channelling the inspiration of classic hip hop, but refracted through a heavily distorting prism. The mesh of competing rhythms is a mile away from the pounding formula of generic hip hop. FlyLo has produced a music that is more esoteric and prickly.

‘Los Angeles’ might be a soundtrack to the seedier, darker underbelly of life in that most infamous of cities. Much of it sounds ominous, perhaps even slightly bleak, although the album as a whole seems to journey towards something slinkier and lighter. Initially, though, the predominant sense seems to be of something surreal and cinematic – perhaps even Lynchian, were that weird and wonderful director ever to embrace Electronica. The interjecting sampled voices operate in similar terrain to the wonderful sound world created over here by the likes of Burial.

Perhaps this music’s strange terrain is most neatly encapsulated on the uncomfortable but irresistibly compelling ‘Testament’, where Gonjasufi’s pinched vocals deftly bolster the music’s sense of menace and dread. Digested as a whole, this is eerie music, haunted by vaguely recognisable spectres from the past, but pointing to an even stranger future.

Thank You – Terrible Two (Thrill Jockey, 2008)

Thanks must go to Alax of Tapedeck and Meal Deal fame for pointing me in the direction of this one. Thrill Jockey have marked themselves out as one of the most trustworthy of American labels, unafraid to dip more than a big toe into adventurous musical waters.

Unsurprisingly, then, this Baltimore trio ratchet up a pretty relentless and intense noise, at least in part reminiscent of the full-throttle unresolved tension mastered by This Heat in the late ‘70s. Their press release describes them as an ‘athletic rhythm/action unit’ which, for once, would appear to be a reasonably accurate and considered description.

Whilst much of ‘Terrible Two’ appears to be based on unrestrained jamming, the whole package coheres through returning to repeated and easily identifiable touchstones. All of these lengthy tracks are predicated on increasingly untamed combinations of frantic drumming, furious bursts of high pitched guitar strafing and, perhaps most imaginatively of all, interjections of organ dissonance, the combinations of selected notes totally disrespecting conventional harmony.

It’s difficult to know whether there is any kind of compositional logic behind this frazzled, seemingly unstoppable assault, or whether it is simply the result of spontaneous collective inspiration. Either way, this is a memorable experiment, both quirky and confrontational. The best and most ambitious tracks (‘Empty Legs’ and ‘Embryo Imbroglio’) come with real fire and aggression, whilst the closing title track provides a more enigmatic and brooding counterpoint.

James Blackshaw – Litany of Echoes (Tompkins Square, 2008)

The virtuosic, densely layered modern ragas that guitar prodigy James Blackshaw creates are powerfully mesmerising. Part-composed, part-improvised pieces (but by Blacshaw’s own admission with an emphasis on the former), they have a unique ability to reel the listener into a world that sounds unfamiliar and unconventional. Far more than just another guitarist in the Takoma tradition, Blackshaw has already, at the tender age of just 26, made great strides to expand and develop this music. There is little that is archival or retrogressive about his approach.

It’s even more refreshing then that the first sound we hear on his latest work is a different kind of instrument altogether. Blackshaw begins ‘Gate of Ivory’ with an ostinato motif on the piano, and the instrument reappears again elsewhere on ‘Litany of Echoes’, sometimes subtly enmeshed with his guitar work and again as the focal point on the concluding ‘Gate of Horn’.

The tracks in between are lengthy explorations that gradually reveal their depth and resonance. In some ways, the work of Fran Bury on violin and viola is almost as significant as Blackshaw’s by now familiar artistry here, and she makes a major contribution to the tone, mood and harmonic logic of these pieces. Blackshaw and Bury gradually and doggedly develop their themes to their logical conclusions and the results demonstrate a singular discipline and focus.

If this music only amounted to a combination of mental stamina and virtuosic technique, it wouldn’t necessarily be all that interesting or immersing. It’s the overall effect to which Blackshaw services his talents that makes this music so potent. The density of these ‘sheets of sound’ makes these pieces sound vibrant and full, even though there are only two musicians working on them, and Blackshaw only uses minimal overdubbing.

It’s also intriguing that there is no producer credit on this album’s inlay. If Blackshaw did all the recording and engineering work himself, then he has an intuitive ear for capturing sound as well as for composing and performing. There is little in the way of additional effects deployed here – just a reverberation that sounds natural and unforced, which matches the unhurried pacing of the material.

With the developments in arrangement and instrumentation matching the greater ambition of the composition and playing, this stands as an even stronger whole even than last year’s remarkable ‘Cloud of Unknowing’. With that record, he perfected the art of solitary creation – an entirely solipsistic, individualist method of working based on what attracted him to the work of John Fahey and away from predictable indie bands. With ‘Litany of Echoes’, however, he has brought interplay and chemistry back to his music, albeit in a very formal and appropriate way, bolstering rather than diluting the sheer mastery of his craft.

Alexander Tucker – Portal (ATP, 2008)

I was almost dissuaded from investigating this album after enduring part of Tucker’s moody collaboration with Stephen O’Malley at the Maximum Black gig at The Forum some months ago. Maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood, but it struck me as having all the hallmarks of the really bad category of freely improvised music – wholly based on repetition and droning and coming across as rather flat, uninvolving and lacking real feeling. Compared with the musicality of The Necks or the looser passages of Outhouse’s compositions (or indeed the relentless explorations of Thank You – see above), it seemed rather reductive and tedious.

Tucker’s solo work is rather different though, tied closely to a British folk tradition and occupying what is actually a more adventurous space. Tucker takes the basic template of folk music – lyrics which tell elaborate stories, delicately plucked acoustic guitars, and moulds them into something more liberating and free through the use of layered guitar effects.

Best of all on ‘Portal’ is Tucker’s experimentation with string arrangements and treatments. These work well, adding to a sense of mystery and making the overall flavour of the music seem more surreal and less earthy. Tucker’s drive not merely to modernise folk music, but to develop new processes and means of crafting it, is something that should be lauded. His construction of dense sound collages from loops, sampled performances and treated vocals makes this music sound otherworldly and unusual.

Tucker is always striving to avoid the over-familiar and the safe – on ‘Portal’ he has developed a music that is nuanced and calm, but also sometimes chilling and harrowing (particularly on the punishing ‘Omni-Baron’). Whilst individual tracks don’t stand out particularly, the overall sound of ‘Portal’ subtly embeds itself in the listener’s consciousness.


Neon – Here to There (Basho, 2008)

Two interesting things seem to be happening in the UK jazz music scene at the moment. One is for artists to make more of the intersections between their classical and jazz backgrounds, and to reject the false dichotomy that is too frequently imposed between the two traditions. The second is for established musicians to enter into fresh collaborative arrangements with much younger players. The classical percussionist-turned-jazz-master Paul Clarvis has done this very fruitfully with Blink and now one of British jazz’s most revered figures, saxophonist Stan Sulzmann, has had a rare meeting of minds with prodigious Pianist Gwilym Simcock and the excellent Percussionist Jim Hart, a player mature beyond his years.

Whilst bassless trios are becoming increasingly commonplace (Blink, Tim Garland’s Lighthouse Trio etc), Neon is an even more unconventional set-up, also lacking a drummer. As a drummer listening to this record, I’m struck by the percussive interplay between Simcock and Hart, which is both playful and precise. Simcock displays the remarkable lightness of touch and technical skill for which he is justly renowned whilst Hart’s accompaniments, which vary between the light and spacious and rapid flourishes, are suitably instinctive. Sulzmann remains a muscular and inspired soloist, with a more lyrical soprano sound, although his tenor tone sometimes seems slightly grating here – it’s unclear whether or not this is a quirk of the recording.

Sulzmann contributes most of the compositions here, and they are both nimble and lucid. The best of these might well be the languid, haunting title track which is sequenced perfectly at the heart of the album. Yet Simcock and Hart, as well as being supreme improvisers, are also excellent composers. Simcock’s delightful ‘Spring Step’, which he has also been performing with his own group, is one of the highlights here, whilst the unpredictable lurches of Hart’s ‘Deviation’ demonstrate his considerable imaginative flair. All the pieces demonstrate both the group’s meticulous orchestration and fluid interaction. ‘Here to There’ is a document of the considerable talents of the group’ individual members, but is also a collective enterprise of laudable generosity and mutual benefit.

Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes (Bella Union, 2008)

I’ve already written a fair amount about Fleet Foxes and their ‘baroque harmonic pop’ songs, having lauded their Sun Giant EP and written enthusiastically about their endearing performance at Meltdown a couple of weeks ago. It’s arguable, therefore, that not much needs to be added about this excellent album, which represents an extension of their My Morning Jacket-meets-CSNY formula. It is, after all, far too early in their burgeoning career for a radical change of direction.

I had initially felt that those hailing it as a modern classic might have been jumping the gun a bit, and I’m instinctively wary of that kind of grandstanding hyperbole. In this case, this is mainly because the quasi-spiritual, nature-obsessed lyrics rather strip it of any cultural relevance. Still, much like The Decemberists, if one yields oneself to Fleet Foxes’ peculiarly arcane world, they quickly repay the investment of effort.

Two characteristic elements of this set strike me that I perhaps didn’t emphasise enough in earlier commentaries on the band. Most of the songs carry the listener on a vivid journey, in strikingly linear progressions that mostly avoid verse-chorus-verse conventions. This is not to say that the songs are without hooks or melodies – far from it – it’s just that they are generally unhindered by structural conventions. Secondly, whilst it would be easy to pigeonhole the group as some sort of cosmic American folk band (particularly on the evidence of ‘Tiger Mountain Peasant Song’), there’s a strong streak of soul that occasionally permeates the music here. Listen to the way ‘Ragged Wood’ suddenly and unexpectedly bursts into life in its final two minutes, or the mellotron shadings of the exquisite ‘Your Protector’, one of the most stirring tracks here.

Perhaps this is why Crosby, Stills and Nash still seem the obvious reference point for this music. There’s not much of Neil Young’s electric sturm-und-drang here – the music is mostly more intricate and meticulous and less furious. There is, however, plenty of the kind of harmonic texturing, hints of blues and soulful undertows that characterised the writing of David Crosby and Stephen Stills. Perhaps this is not the most adventurous of reference points – but then there aren’t many other bands drawing so positively on that late 60s folk rock spirit at this point.

No doubt much will continue to be made of the vocal resemblance between Foxes frontman Robin Peckold and Jim James of My Morning Jacket, but neither can really help the vocal resemblance. This excellent debut doesn’t follow quite as closely in MMJ’s footsteps as the first Band of Horses record did though, channelling the folk dimension a little bit more than the southern rock that informs James. If they develop their flair for arranging, they may yet carve out a distinctive niche of their own. This very promising album certainly shows they have the quality and the appeal to do so. There’s rich imagination in the group’s arrangements and their transcendent vocal harmonies.

Ry Cooder – I, Flathead: The Songs of Kash Buk and The Clowns (Nonesuch, 2008)

This is billed as the final part of what has now become Ry Cooder’s ‘California Trilogy’. The project seems to have reinvigorated him as an artist and, perhaps more significantly, as a songwriter. He had been in danger of becoming more renowned as a patron for the Buena Vista Social Club performers than as a master musician in his own right. Whilst his guitar playing is never likely to fall out of favour, his songwriting had perhaps been neglected until these unique and carefully constructed albums emerged.

The remarkable ‘Chavez Ravine’, as much an anthropological study and dissection of social and political history as a songbook, changed all that. The more whimsical ‘My Name Is Buddy’ narrowly missed out on my albums of the year list for last year due to being a little overlong and one-dimensional, although its social conscience was admirable. I’m just not sure that we needed the anthropomorphic animals-as-humans dimension.

The previous albums examined weighty themes from a now vanished California – some reprehensible local politics in ‘Chavez Ravine’, folk radicalisation on ‘…Buddy’. By way of contrast, ‘I, Flathead’ seems to be considerably more lightweight, focussing on a new character, a dragster racer and bar band musician named Kash Buk, who missed out on a chance at bigger things. The main focus of the set, by Cooder’s own admission, is on ‘honky tonks and dirty blondes’. Cooder himself embodies the character, singing in a peculiar growling drawl that imbues the words with personality and gravitas, and helps make Buk’s story convincing.

This might be the best sounding of the California trilogy, in that Cooder draws a great deal from what are ultimately very skeletal arrangements. Although there are hints of the Mexican flavours that characterised ‘Chavez Ravine’, the main emphasis is on the traditional guitar, bass and drums set-up, playing a heady and enjoyable mix of country and good old fashioned rock and roll. There’s a great classic vintage-valve sound here that helps Cooder seem even further removed from modernity. The playing is consistently excellent, with Cooder and his band attacking the material with as much bite and passion as scholarly vigour.

Even with all the focus on all the fun of the fair, Cooder still can’t resist some political sidesteps. The outstanding ‘Pink-O-Boogie’ not only grooves righteously but also ‘has the thing you Republicans just ain’t got’, whilst ‘Steel Guitar Heaven’ makes reference to union cards and the problems in getting paid.

Perhaps best of all though are the songs towards the end of the album where Kash reflects on his life, on missed opportunities and battles against the melancholy of ageing. The deeply intoned, Waitsian ‘Flathead One More Time’ muses on lost friends and the days of dragster racing and rages against the dying of the light (‘time is all you’ve got…’). ‘5,000 Country Music Songs’ focuses more on the music – and how the opportunity to play with Ray Price proved to be a missed one – ‘those shoes were just too big to fill that year’.

Whilst some might prefer the weightier, more politicised themes of the previous two albums, ‘I, Flathead’ not only concludes the trilogy, but provides it with some much needed balance and emotional clarity. Prefab Sprout’s Paddy McAloon once famously dismissed Bruce Springsteen for writing songs about ‘cars and girls’, but those two subjects get plenty of mileage here, and they seem more than worthy of the exposition. Cooder has created a milieux rarely explored in modern music – as much archivist and academic as he is songwriter, he understands this world and he elucidates it brilliantly.

Short Form!

Fleet Foxes – Sun Giant EP (Sub Pop/Bella Union)
Brethren of the Free Spirit – All Things Are From Him, Through Him and In Him (Audiomer)
Animal Collective – Water Curses (Domino)
Four Tet – Ringer (Domino)

The EP format seems to be enjoying a serious resurgence at the moment. While a debate rages about the merits of downloading individual tracks as opposed to purchasing entire albums, the mood seems ripe for something that offers a convenient balance between the two.

Seattle’s Fleet Foxes are one of those bands to have benefited mightily from exposure at the SXSW Festival earlier this year – their performance set in motion a blitz of blogging and unrestrained hyperbole that will no doubt make some suspicious of their merits. It’s inevitable that, much like kindred spirits Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes will be compared with My Morning Jacket. Not only are they a scarily hairy bunch but their lead vocalist is yet another identikit Jim James (incidentally, James is doing a pretty good job of disguising his more familiar tones on My Morning Jacket’s ‘Evil Urges’ album, perhaps an attempt to escape all his imitators). This comparison is a bit unfair on the band though – they lack the more aggressive, Southern rock angle of MMJ, instead focussing on a ritualistic form of American folk music, resplendent with joyous vocal harmonies and rustic acoustic guitars.

The melodies and arrangements on ‘Sun Giant’ are rich and rewarding. They are audacious enough to the EP with an acapella harmony track that has an enticing and haunting impact. Whilst there’s a transparent connection with a classic rock lineage here (the harmonies remind me most of Crosby, Stills and Nash), the music also has a delicacy and elegance that removes it from cliché or hokiness. There’s the way the fluidity of the guitar lines on ‘English House’ contrasts with the insistent pounding of its chorus, although, with intuitive care, the band don’t allow the song to slip into bombast. Perhaps best of all is the stealthy and ambitious ‘Mykonokos’, which veers from a charming and melodic opening section into something more mysterious and potent. The closing ‘Innocent Son’ is a tender and melancholy lament imbued with a powerful sense of vulnerability.

The one slightly irritating element is the group’s lyrics. Much like Yeasayer, they are a little too preoccupied with finding the sacred within nature and, as a result, there’s a little too much babble about the sun rising, rivers and nature worshipping. If you’re prepared to yield yourself to this quasi-pagan celebration though, it’s a deeply fulfilling listen, and at least these themes are accompanied by a genuine sense of awe present as much within the music as within the lyrics. It certainly all bodes well for their debut album, due later in the year.

Continuing on a ritualistic folk music trajectory, Brethren of the Free Spirit is the latest project from the outrageously gifted guitarist James Blackshaw. Blackshaw’s last solo album, ‘The Cloud of Unknowing’, was one of my favourite albums of last year, and having just discovered his previous record ‘O True Believers’, it seems he’s capable of even better, always harnessing his virtuosic playing to an abundant theme or mood.

Here, he joins forces with Jozsef Van Wissem, a similarly dexterous exponent of the Dutch lute to produce a short cycle of minimal and precise duets. It’s remarkably beautiful music, impressive at least as much for its stately sound as for the technical qualities of the musicians involved. It’s both repetitious and elaborate, gradually drawing feeling from its seemingly restricting system and method.

The first two pieces are long and extrapolated, whilst the shorter concluding pieces, whilst less intense, are more easily digested. It’s less bright, less florid and more challenging than Blackshaw’s solo work, which has a magisterial beauty, but the interplay between the two musicians is instinctive and magical. It’s also difficult to resist a project named after a medieval heresy which argued that the route to God was through having lots and lots of sex.

Perhaps it was simply the extravagant praise gifted to Panda Bear’s ‘Person Pitch’ album but there seems to have been something of a backlash against Animal Collective in recent months. Perhaps their ‘Strawberry Jam’ album proved too saccharine for those who preferred the band in more esoteric, confrontational mode – but I actually think the band have improved considerably as they’ve matured and become less abrasive. This peculiar, warped brand of pop music that they are currently purveying is certainly whimsical but it’s also generous and satisfying.

The band have already proved themselves masters of the EP format, particularly on their outstanding ‘Prospect Hummer’, an illuminating collaboration with formerly lost folk singer Vashti Bunyan that successfully joined the dots between a traditional musical canon and the group’s adventurous experimentalism. ‘Water Curses’ may well be their best release to date, capturing their heady, synaesthetic juxtaposition of sweetness and menace with a newfound fluency and ease.

The lead track is the most familiar – a close relation of ‘Peacebone’ or ‘Who Could Win A Rabbit?’ as one of those Animal Collective tunes bristling with unstoppable urgency. It’s buoyed on by an almost chaotic temperament, with strings of peculiar imagery bundled together and a bed of clattering, primitive drums. It’s marvellous of course, but not particularly unexpected.

The remaining three tracks on the EP take the group to yet more unconventional places. They are airy and spacious, with very minimal rhythm and plenty of near-silences. In the manner of the group’s best work, they combine a deftly melodic framework with disorientating and sinister sound effects and background noise. The vocals are frequently arranged in staggered bursts, invoking call and response mantras or chanting. This music is anything but earthy – it has a genuine psychedelic tinge to it, evoking as it does bright colours and heightened awareness. ‘Street Flash’ sounds comforting on the surface but almost concealed beneath the smooth texture are profoundly disconcerting elements – voices, screams – all largely incomprehensible and subtly terrifying.

Kieren Hebden has been trying very hard to distance himself from the ‘folktronica’ tag he unwittingly acquired, first through his peculiar collaboration with free jazz drummer Steve Reid, and now through this new set of relentless, energising techno. It’s his first release under the Four Tet moniker in three years and anyone expecting more of the same will certainly be surprised. The title track reminds me of Underworld at their very best, but mercifully stripped of the sometimes grating excesses of Karl Hyde’s vocals. It’s the most minimal of Hebden’s work to date, missing his preoccupations with confrontational rhythm or striking sound. Yet the sudden burst of drums at the end ties it back to Hebden’s familiar rhythmic preoccupations, and its sheer stubbornness is fascinating.

‘Ringer’ is perhaps the first Four Tet track made genuinely for dancing, rather than for more cerebral occasions, founded as it is on the more conventional layering and crescendos of club music. It seems perhaps closer to the form of dance music currently favoured by European producers – I can hear hints of Isolee or The Field in its entrancing textures. This all harks back to Kraftwerk of course, and Hebden seems to have taken from that group similar elements to those absorbed by the Swedish group The Knife on their excellent ‘Silent Shout’ album, particularly on the closing ‘Wing Body Wing’, where Hebden eventually, after plenty of teasing, finally allows us a glimpse of the polyrhythmic wizardy on which he made his name. Words like pastoral or rustic, familiar descriptions of Hebden’s music in the past, simply won’t suffice here. This is much more architectural and constructed music – extremely rigorous but equally propulsive.

‘Ribbons’ is prettier, although the handclaps, offbeat hi hats and gentle electronic interventions betray the influence of Chicago house or primitive techno. The warm sounds and appealing harmony provide some connection with Hebden’s earlier work, particularly the encircling friendliness of ‘Rounds’. The intense and claustrophobic droning of ‘Swimmer’ might be too much for some listeners, but beneath the Boards of Canada-esque surface lies a wealth of intriguing, unusual and occasionally abrasive sounds. This is not Hebden’s warmest or most welcoming work, but it does have the guilt free collective energy and abandon captured by the best dance music and it’s good to hear him branching out in less characteristic directions.

Natural Wonder

Mariee Sioux - Faces in the Rocks (Grass Roots, 2007)

Now here’s a classic example of how the blogosphere can be a force for good (eat that Grauniad!). Search for Mariee Sioux on Google and all the top ranking articles are from blogs. If anybody can find me a UK press review of this rather fine album, I’d be grateful for the pointer. It’s baffling in light of the predilection of this country’s music writers towards mystical hippy nonsense in the Devendra Banhart mould that Sioux has not been more widely recognised. Her delightful merging of Joni Mitchell-tinged acoustic reveries with Native American folk traditions makes for an appealing and engaging listen.

The persistent recourses to the marvels of nature, along with plenty of references to wizards and magic suggested I had good reason to be a little sceptical about this album. Yet strong recommendations from a number of bloggers I respect persuaded me to download it, and that proved to be a good decision. I rather wish I’d heard it in time to include it in my albums of 2007 list. If 2008 appears to have got off to a somewhat sluggish start, there are still plenty of riches hanging over from last year to digest (I also still need to blog about Food’s ‘Molecular Gastronomy’ at some point).

Yet Mariee Sioux’s voice, soft, delicate and full of mystery, compensates for some of the lyrical flights of fancy. There’s also a sensitivity and intuitiveness here in addition to the wide eyed wonderment. The layering of her vocals is peculiarly effective, giving a sense of eeriness as well as a natural beauty. It’s almost as if she is whispering responses to her own melodies. There’s also an assured marriage of fluency and understatement in her delivery. Similarly, the combination of intricate acoustic guitar lines and Gentle Thunder’s Native American Flute make for a less familiar slant on the bucolic folk template.

The songs are often lengthy and frequently mesmerising – beguiling in their power to haunt and captivate. There always seems justification for the length of the songs in that they travel on a clear journey and are much more than merely linear narratives. There’s something slightly ominous beneath the surface prettiness, yet the abiding mood is one of hope and joy. It’s a carefully constructed mood that captures the complexities and ambiguities of life itself.

Floating Without The Old Constraints

Paris Motel - In The Salpetriere

At long last! Amy May’s band of fluctuating musical conspirators have long been one of my favourite live acts in London. Unit, one of my now defunct musical projects, had the privilege of having the group join us for the launch of our debut album back in 2006. Whilst Unit suffered that clichéd fate of disintegration due to ‘musical differences’, Paris Motel have kept true to their remarkably pure and consistent musical vision, although it’s taken rather a long time for this debut album to emerge.

This is essentially British folk music with small group orchestral arrangements. It’s what is what is often casually referred to as ‘chamber pop’, for want of a more accurate term – equal parts Fairport Convention and JS Bach. It’s no longer an especially novel concept, but Amy May’s arrangements are considerably more ornate and expressive than those of, say, Arcade Fire (not to take anything away from that band – their sound is still brutally effective in a live context, as their Alexandra Palace shows last week demonstrated). These songs all have a character and elegance that is very much May's own.

Since their promising ‘071’ EP, the group have largely succeeded in making their sound a little more muscular and a little less twee, without losing any of their charm or subtlety in the process. There are some clear standout tracks on this carefully sequenced album – notably the rolling rhythmic drive of ‘City Of Ladies’, with its affectionately cooing backing vocals, or the lush, romantic and thoroughly beguiling ‘Catherine By The Sea’. The latter effectively closes the album with a warm rush of melody and charm, with some thoroughly enchanting lyrics (‘I have a map of your skin, I know the valleys within…’). The elaborate arrangements are controlled enough to allow Amy May’s delicate, understated vocals to breathe – what her voice lacks in power it makes up for in empathy and humanity. There’s also the shuffling, evocative ‘Three Steps’ and the epic love song ‘After Wanda’, which veers adroitly from the melancholy to the celebratory.

In between, there’s plenty of charm, but much of it is a little less immediate. ‘Coignet’s Trial’ is considerably more restrained and stripped back and whilst it initially seems a little directionless, repeated listens reveal its subtle, hypnotic qualities. Similarly, ‘My Demeta’ is based more on elusive mystery and implication than anything clearly stated, but it eventually draws you in to its spellbinding world. A cursory glance at the song titles will quickly reveal that we’re in ‘suspend your disbelief’ lyrical territory here – with all manner of devices more familiar from fairytale and folklore than contemporary popular song. There’s nothing wrong with that in the right hands though – and May’s imaginings hit the right side of the fine line more often than not.

I strongly suspect there’s much more still to come from Amy May – ‘City Of Ladies’ and ‘Catherine By The Sea’, with their cautious hints at Phil Spector and Motown arrangements, suggest a more exotic and ambitious future. Some of the tracks here are a little overlong and don’t build or grow quite as much as they could. For now, though, this is a wonderfully crafted and enchanting record that reveals more and more with every listen.

Let's Raise a Toast To Helium

Beirut – The Flying Club Cup

The prodigiously talented songwriter Zach Condon has followed up his debut ‘Gulag Orkestar’ with unfashionable rapidity. This time, his songs come with the added bonus of arrangements from former Hidden Cameras member and Arcade Fire collaborator Owen Pallett (with whom I once spent an evening in a Cambridge gay pub, ligger extraordinaire that I was back then). Advance word on ‘The Flying Club Cup’ (a tricky tongue twister of a title, that one) suggested it might display a radical change of direction, veering sharply into the world of French Chanson. Well, that influence is certainly present, not just in the French language song titles, but also with the emphasis on keyboards and accordians over mandolins, ukuleles or guitars. What is most impressive about this record, apart from its admirable brevity at 38 minutes, is the way these new preoccupations have been cleverly subsumed into Condon’s Balkan gypsy sound. This album very much represents an evolution rather than a revolution, which seems entirely appropriate at this stage of Condon’s still burgeoning career.

The drunken wooziness that characterised ‘Gulag Orkestar’ is still a defining feature of Condon’s sound, particularly on the deliberately ragged choruses of ‘A Sunday Smile’ and ‘Cliquot’. Satisfyingly though, Condon’s voice is afforded a much more confident and clear presence here, pushed forward in the mix and with much less of the mannered slurring that obscured many of the affecting words on ‘Gulag Orkestar’. These songs are written in a peculiar, almost archaic language referencing the folk tradition which gives them a compelling balance of clarity and allusion. What on earth is ‘The Penalty’ all about for example? ‘Our parents rue the day, they find us kneeling/Let them think what they may for they’ve good reason/Left for the lights always in season.’ These words have a deliberate, compelling flow but the precise meaning is somewhat elusive. ‘Cliquot’ is particularly fascinating – either delivered from a female perspective or a song about love between men (‘what kind of melody will lead my lover from his bed/what kind of melody will have him in my arms again?’).

Pallett makes his presence felt on the wonderful ‘Forks and Knives’, with its mix of elaborate orchestral swells and pizzicato strings. Throughout, his arrangements are thoughtful and inventive rather than smothering – there’s a wonderful moment on ‘In the Mausoleum’ when additional percussion enters, heralding a long instrumental passage dominated by Pallett’s hypnotic string melody. There’s a preoccupation with waltz time here that makes a refreshing change from the four-square stomp of most rock music (and which provides particularly fertile ground for Pallett’s arrangements).

Named in honour of a hot air balloon race, ‘The Flying Club Cup’ has some of the heady, celebratory rush that one might associate with such an event, but there’s also an underlying melancholy and mournfulness that the title conceals. Much like it’s predecessor, it’s a lugubrious and charming record, completely removed from any prevailing trends. It’s far more in tune with a recognisable folk tradition than the parodic, irksome ‘freak folk’ of Devendra Banhart and, whilst the songs seem lacking in contemporary resonances, they are seeped in a rich emotion that feels genuine and sincere.

Tending To The Flock

Iron and Wine - The Shepherd's Dog

Perhaps I’ve waxed lyrical about Iron and Wine more than enough on these pages already but I can’t help feeling that ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’ deserves special attention as the first Iron and Wine album to explore the full possibilities of an ensemble sound. Most likely inspired by the outstanding collaboration with Calexico from a couple of years ago (indeed, Joey Burns and Paul Niehaus from that wonderful group both appear here), Sam Beam has now delivered rich and inventive arrangements to match his deeply compelling songs.

Lyrically, Beam continues to look like a true original and a master of language. His images are at once elusive and pure (‘love was a promise made of smoke in a frozen copse of trees’) and he has a peculiar knack for unusual juxtapositions (‘Cain got a milk eyed mule from the auction, Abel got a telephone’ or ‘springtime and the promise of an open fist’). Somehow, these words always seem to flow softly and elegantly (no doubt Beam’s beautifully understated delivery helps in this regard) and always evoke feelings rather than obscuring them.

Those who, like me, deeply admire Beam’s talent for composing ballads in the true sense of the term – long, storytelling songs with languid melodies – may be disappointed that his masterful song ‘The Trapeze Swinger’ is rarely used as a template here. There is the gorgeous ‘Resurrection Fern’, which closely resembles that song, albeit in far more concise form. Its chorus is almost unspeakably beautiful (‘we’ll undress beside the ashes of the fire/both our tender bellies wrapped around in bailing wire/all the more an underwater pearl than the oak tree and its resurrection fern’), bolstered by Paul Niehaus’ subtle but stirring pedal steel. The closing ‘Flightless Bird, American Mouth’ also has something of a soulful lilt to it, and is characteristically tender and affecting.

For most of ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’, though, Beam explores the more rhythmically driven, bluesy aspects of his work, to increasingly powerful effect. I think I credited Beam with pioneering something approaching an ‘American folk minimalism. This felt like a neat categorisation at the time but now seems hopelessly inadequate. ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’ is Beam’s most brazenly percussive work to date, both in terms of its deployment of a range of percussion instruments (but never a conventional drum kit) and in the style of guitar playing Beam deploys throughout. As a result, ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’ achieves much in retracing some of the lost connections between Appalachian blues and African desert music. ‘House By The Sea’ sounds closer to Ali Farka Toure than Bob Dylan (albeit with a hint of Roger McGuinn in the guitar solos), and there are echoes of the repetitive, hypnotic grooves of the Touareg masters Tinariwen, particularly on ‘Wolves (Song of the Shepherd’s Dog)’ or first single ‘Boy With A Coin’.

Somehow I hadn’t quite latched on to just how many of these songs Beam performed at his special show at the Spitz a couple of months ago. As a result many of the melodies and lyrical ideas already seem recognisable, but the overall sound of the record is somewhat unexpected and fascinating. This makes for an enchanting combination of distance and familiarity. There are all manner of sounds that seem alien to the trademark Iron and Wine sound – cello, soulful Wurlitzer, scratchy guitars, the delightful honky tonk piano on ‘The Devil Never Sleeps’, perhaps what might even be the odd intervention of electronics. The deep connection with the blues is still at the heart of this music, but the feel is now less rustic and more elastic.

Beam is an extraordinary songwriter capable of vivid, dreamlike songs that conjure their own weird combination of romanticism and danger. He would still be a significant artist even were he content to continue simply as an acoustic troubadour. That he has found new contexts for his elegiac words and melodies makes hiw work all the more expressive and powerful.

Languages of Love

Sylvie Lewis - Translations

Can I really be in love with a woman I’ve not even seen in person let alone met? Not really of course, but there’s certainly something rather enchanting about Sylvie Lewis. Born in Britain but now living in Rome, Lewis has led a remarkably itinerant lifestyle, including four years at the prestigious Berklee School of Music. This college is famous for having produced a number of quality jazz musicians, but its considerably rarer to find singer-songwriters among its alumni (and they tend towards the intellectual end of the spectrum – Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen for example).

Lewis’ lovely second album ‘Translations’ is loosely themed around complexities of language and communication and it has a delicate, old-time feel evidencing her formal training. Whilst there are elements of folk and classic pop, there are also strong hints of the jazz tradition, cabaret and show-tunes thrown into a thoroughly beguiling mix. In its deft handling of a variety of old-fashioned styles, it’s not a million miles from the recent explorations of Erin McKeown or Jolie Holland but there’s such a lightness of touch here that Lewis stands in a class of her own. Her consummate delivery is relaxed, effortless and commendably understated. There’s no attempt whatsoever to admonish the listener with crass dexterity or virtuosity, but rather a completely natural command of both phrasing and melody.

The delicate, playful quality of these songs will no doubt mean that appreciation depends on the individual listener’s tolerance for whimsy. Personally, I find these songs whimsical in the most delightful way – charming, graceful, insightful and spellbinding. It’s not just a collection of great songs, but also packed full of captivating moments too, such as the coda to ‘Cheap Ain’t Free’, where the music suddenly veers away from jaunty barroom jazz to pure Burt Bacharach-meets-Karen Carpenter schmaltz. Alternatively, there’s also ‘Starsong’, which begins with a lushly romantic voice and guitar introduction before moving into a light-hearted ragtime bounce. There are also lovely touches in the instrumentation too, with the focus shifting between softly strummed acoustic guitar to subtle piano. Richard Swift provides entrancing swathes of mellotron on a handful of tracks, and there are some very canny arrangements for strings, brass and woodwind.

‘Translations’ is an apt title for this record in so many ways, not only dealing as it does with communication and the language of love, but also capturing shared experience between a variety of different situations. This is an open-minded collection of songs where a variety of narratives intertwine, with a handful of the songs seemingly written in character from a male perspective. Lewis’ lyrics are mostly direct and unpretentious, sometimes exploring a casual manipulation of language. The opening lines to ‘Say in Touch’ are particularly charming: ‘He’s got a lover in New York/Likes to mention her in casual talk/Whenever they meet, they don’t speak much/When they meet they say in touch.’ Throughout, there’s a strong sense of wisdom gained through experience, although it’s consistently delivered in an entertaining, playful spirit.

These songs conjure a plausible world where conventional impressions of beauty can be both inspiring and oppressive, and Lewis subtly manages to challenge these conventions in the process on songs such as ‘Cheap Ain’t Free’ and ‘Death By Beauty’. On ‘Happy Like That’ she perceptively observes the flirtations of married men in late night bars (‘You want to be wanted, just a taste/But you push it to the edge because you know that you’re safe’) and, by way of contrast, there’s also the wonderfully breezy settle-for-singledom charm of ‘If It Don’t Come Easy’, with its insistent handclaps and chiming guitars. ‘Old Queens, Monet and Me’ doesn’t just dare to rhyme ‘Dubonnet’ with ‘Monet’ but also comes with a healthy dose of irony (‘as for music, all the good songs are covers anyway!’).

The album’s centrepiece is a splendid piano-laden love ballad in waltz time called ‘Of Course, Isobel’ which comes with just enough ambiguity to withstand a number of possible interpretations. It starts off sounding like a heartfelt plea from father to daughter (‘you don’t write you don’t call….Three women in my life I have loved well/My mother, my wife and, of course, Isobel’), but it could even be a love song to an estranged lover (‘when I tell my side, you made a plaything of my heart/You make love entertainment when for me love is art!’). Either way, it’s an exquisite and beautiful song, satisfying in its conventional resolutions.

Whilst this album has a very pure and comforting sound, the fact that it ends on its most elusive and mysterious song (‘Your Voice Carries’, more reliant on atmosphere than melody) suggests that there are other directions in which Lewis could travel, should she opt to follow these paths. For now, though, ‘Translations’ is an invigorating breath of fresh air.