Mark Hollis - Mark Hollis (Polydor, 1998)
For all the critical rehabilitation of Talk Talk’s extraordinary ‘Spirit of Eden’ and ‘Laughing Stock’ albums over the last ten years, it’s still surprisingly difficult to find incisive writing on Mark Hollis’ debut, and so far only, solo work. It took several years for Hollis to muster the inspiration to record again after ‘Laughing Stock’, by which time Talk Talk had effectively disintegrated. It’s clear that the recording processes for both ‘Spirit..’ and ‘Laughing Stock’ were protracted and both physically and emotionally draining, leaving the group with little coherence or resolve. The results of course speak for themselves – both records are unique musical statements, completely unlike anything else in the British rock canon, with an originality, force and power few artists can muster.
Those major Talk Talk albums existed largely as seamless pieces of music, and made more sense as complete works than as a sequence of songs. They also displayed a steadfast lack of respect for genre boundaries, melding elements of contemporary composition with rock and improvised jazz. Recorded with large groups of musicians in unconventional groupings, they were meticulously arranged, with as much attention paid to silences as the sudden bursts of savage noise. In light of this, it’s tempting to portray Hollis’ solo work as simply an extension of this approach to writing and recording.
Yet there’s a crucial and fundamental difference that sets ‘Mark Hollis’ apart from all of Talk Talk’s output. If anything, this is a more schematic and theorised work, recorded entirely on acoustic instruments. As a result, there are no electric guitars, only upright bass, drums mostly delicately brushed rather than hit, and the overall sound is consistently dignified and restrained. Hollis had already explored a range of avenues in jazz and rock forms, but had now also discovered Eastern European folk music. Explaining his approach to this album on its release in 1998, he stated that he was searching for the common elements between chamber music, jazz and folk. It was also Hollis’ first work without the input of Tim Friese-Greene, instead collaborating with arrangers Phil Ramacon and Dominic Miller.
The result of this questing is a stark minimalism that defies musical convention or easy classification. Sometimes there is genuinely nothing here (opening track ‘The Colour Of Spring’ begins with 19 seconds of considered silence), and Hollis’ voice, increasingly elusive, drifts in and out of focus. The music is hushed, but extraordinary, and it remains staggering how much feeling and texture Hollis and his musicians could wrench from as few notes as possible. Hollis’ famous quotation from this period sums it all up brilliantly: "Before you play two notes learn how to play one note - and don't play one note unless you've got a reason to play it." There’s a palpable sense across the whole album that every beat and every sound have been placed in order to be meaningful. This is most notable from the deployment of reed and wind instruments – Flute, Cor anglais, Bassoon and Clarinet, which all serve to layer texture and enhance mood, in unshowy arrangements that reject the temptations of virtuosity.
Hollis is credited with production duties himself, but engineer Phill Brown must surely be the unsung hero of this project. The naturalistic, elemental sound at least gives the impression of a chamber ensemble interacting (although I have no idea whether or not the music was recorded ‘as live’), and there’s no attempt to manipulate or disguise the natural timbre of the instruments. Very few albums recorded in the '90s sounded this pure or convincing. There’s a beauty and clarity to the piano and vocal opener ‘The Colour Of Spring’ that is only deceptively simple, and the lengthy ‘A Life (1895-1915)’ is characterised by subtle and controlled shifts in texture and dynamics.
Hollis’ lyrics are frequently still derided as oblique or frustrating, and whilst it’s true that a literal meaning is not always immediately clear, there’s an elegant flow to the language that complements the music and also contributes to the languid, profoundly reflective atmosphere. The words frequently sound beautiful. The title of ‘The Colour Of Spring’ harks back to the earlier Talk Talk album of the same name, but the Talk Talk of the mid-80s would never have written or recorded anything this quietly intense: ‘And yet I’ll gaze/The colour of spring/Immerse in that one moment/Left in love with everything/Soar the bridges/That I burnt before/One song among us all’. Elsewhere, the lyrics sometimes seem like strands of disconnected words or phrases, but one of Hollis’ great gifts as a writer is to make plangent melancholy by undercutting expectations, such as on ‘A New Jerusalem’, where he sings, so softly its almost inaudible, ‘Summer unwinds/But no longer kind’. The fragmented nature of the language reflects the unusual ebb and flow of the music – with no obvious verses or choruses, these are free flowing songs that follow their own uniquely questing path. By varying the volume and lucidity of his singing, Hollis effectively subsumes his voice completely within the music – rather than something added as a hook or an afterthought, the vocals are an intrinsic part of these arrangements.
In the nine years since this album’s release, little has been heard from Hollis and it is unclear whether or not he plans to record again, although his former Talk Talk colleague Paul Webb was instrumental in the success of Beth Gibbons’ excellent ‘Out Of Season’ album. Hollis is a singular talent with a clear and uncompromising vision, but there’s the increasing sense that this melancholy, haunting work is the last we may hear from him.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Monday, March 19, 2007
Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun
Live: Tilly and The Wall, Broken Family Band, Piney Gir/Peter and The Wolf, Jay and The Pistolets, Noah and The Whale
On Disc: LCD Soundsystem, Grinderman, Herman Dune
Apologies for the lack of a new post here in the last couple of weeks – I’ve been somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer burden of activity in my life at the moment, particularly a brief concentration of gigs of my own. As a result, there’s a massive backlog of albums to comment on, and I’m not sure I’ve got the willpower to write about them all. Inevitably, this post is going to be a little lengthy, but I’ve summarised the contents above for clarity.
First of all, a few gigs need a brief mention. Tilly and The Wall were outstanding at the Scala, bristling with energy and sheer joie de vivre. The venue itself, small by London standards but significant on its own scale, was packed out, largely it would appear by balding middle-aged blokes singing along to every word – it’s quite extraordinary how some bands reach entirely unexpected audiences (or perhaps it’s just that the band features a trio of attractive young women). Tilly are defiantly whimsical but undoubtedly endearing, and whilst the tap-dancing is certainly a gimmick, it’s a pretty effective one. Their best songs (‘Rainbows In The Dark’, ‘Sing Songs Along’, ‘Bad Education’) are perhaps delivered a little too early, but the whole set is perfectly weighted (neither too long nor too short) and they wisely save the touching melancholy of ‘Lost Girls’ until the encore. It’s a spirited show, with the band visibly enjoying themselves. Whilst it’s occasionally slightly ragged around the edges, this probably only adds to the appeal, and it’s a joy to watch.
Have I written enough about the Broken Family Band? Surely not! It’s certainly worth noting that, much like Tilly (albeit it at a more sedate pace), this band have been carried largely by word-of-mouth into London’s grander venues. It’s immensely gratifying to see a band I remember well from tiny Cambridge pub venues suddenly entertaining the masses at Koko.
BFB always pull out the stops for their big shows (Steven Adams, with characteristic dry wit, dubs this one the ‘punching above our weight show’) and for this, they find a new way of organising what is essentially the same set they’ve been playing for the past year or so. Beginning with an increasingly rare outing for ‘The Perfect Gentlemen’, they cover their career so far in chronological order.
There are few real surprises, but rollicking versions of ‘At the Back of the Chapel’ and ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’, along with tender, musically involving renditions of ‘Poor Little Thing’ and ‘John Belushi’ maintain consistently high quality. Sadly, the subtleties of ‘John Belushi’ are destroyed by some inebriated morons talking loudly next to us, and the first few songs are rendered muddy by poor sound, with Gavin Johnson’s bass not just loud but utterly overwhelming. It’s always a bonus when the band utilise the multi-instrumental skills of Timothy Victor – a shame, then, that his keyboards and banjo couldn’t be heard for at least the first fifteen minutes of the show.
Bravely, the chronological structure means the brand new material is left until last. Regular BFB gig-goers will already be thoroughly familiar with the anthemic, noisy blast of ‘Love Your Man Love Your Woman’, and the ambitious, slightly surreal folk ballad meets sludge-rock song with lyrics about a captain was familiar from their show at the Scala last year. More encouraging still was that the two songs I didn’t recognise were outstanding, with ‘Leaps’ (a candid song about sex) proving both infectious and affecting. There’s plenty of evidence that Steven Adams is still maturing as a songwriter.
They encore with a delightfully restrained ‘Devil In The Details’ and an explosive ‘You’re Like A Woman’, during which Jay Williams takes the opportunity to introduce the band in hilarious style (‘You! You cannot play the bass like Gavin Johnson! You cannot play the drums like Mickey Roman! You cannot be Steven Adams!’). Adams defines the band tonight as ‘just a bunch of blokes playing music’. Well, that’s a bit self-deprecating isn’t it? Yes, ordinary blokes playing music – but with increasing musical ambition to match their playful humour, and a batch of songs so consistently excellent that there aren’t really any other UK guitar bands right now who can entertain at this level. It’s still broken, and there’s no need to fix it.
The Howdy Do club night at The Borderline, featuring Piney Gir, Peter and The Wolf, Jay and The Pistolets and Noah and The Whale, was one of the best multi-artist small venue shows I’ve seen in ages. At last, some sensitive and thoughtful programming created a complementary line-up of consistent quality that engaged me from start to finish!
Although I don’t really know any of them well, I can be connected to Noah and The Whale through three different people. They double as Emmy the Great’s backing band (and she joins them on vocals and what I think must have been a harmonium tonight) – Emmy of course regularly performs with my friend Jeremy Warmsley, for whom I briefly bashed the drums in an ill-feted group project. Outstanding young fiddle player Tom Hobden (only 19 years old and apparently already making a reasonable living through music, the lucky git) is friends with my good friend Tom Millar, the two of them having both performed in drunken, filthy, piss-taking ramshackle country ensemble Captain Kick and The Cowboy Ramblers. Drummer Doug Fink currently goes out with the sister of a good friend from school days. The cliché that it’s a small world sometimes holds true, particularly in musical circles! The band did not disappoint tonight, with an intriguing and novel set-up (fiddle, acoustic guitar or ukulele, harmonium, skeletal drum kit with no cymbals, no bassist) and a brief selection of involving and unusual songs. The lyrics straddle the line between quirky and pretentious, occasionally hitting on something rather special (‘last time I saw Mary she lied and said it was her birthday’), but occasionally sounding a little forced and verbose. Still, the songs are melodic and musically focussed, with an authentic feel for folk traditions. There’s something of the wide-eyed escapism of Patrick Wolf here too. It’s an inventive and appealing combination and this band should go far.
Jay and The Pistolets in fact proved to be a lone singer-songwriter. I initially found his voice a little earnest and mannered, but had warmed to him by the end of his brief set. There was one particular song of unrequited love you’d have to be extremely churlish not to find touching. Peter and The Wolf, I believe signed to a new record label set up by Guy Garvey from Elbow, were outstanding, characterised by warm vocal harmonies, rudimentary percussion and the always welcome presence of an upright bassist. These were good songs, perhaps with conventional indie rhythms and melodies, but delivered in a more traditional, acoustic arrangement. This proved quietly inventive and a real discovery.
Piney Gir is always a slightly shambolic performer, albeit in the best possible way, tonight suffering a little from a bad throat. Her outstanding Country Roadshow musicians remain more than supportive, creating a driving and vigorous accompaniment for her appealing songs. At just half an hour, it’s over far too quickly, but is tremendous fun nonetheless.
2007 is turning into a remarkable year for live music in London – I have tickets booked for Bob Dylan, Feist, Band of Horses, The Besnard Lakes, Wilco, Magnolia Electric Co., Al Green, Sonic Youth and Steely Dan!
As for new albums, there are a small clutch of releases currently bringing beams of pure joy into my world. ‘Sound Of Silver’, the second album from LCD Soundsystem, pretty much sounds exactly as expected, essentially further refining the formula James Murphy captured so well on his debut a couple of years ago. It might not break any radical new ground, but ‘Sound Of Silver’ is an excellent record, juxtaposing not just influences, but knowing references with palpable glee and excitement. It’s this real enthusiasm for the history of pop music that makes LCD Soundsystem such a thrilling and captivating project. The ‘songs’, such as they are, are minimal to the point of being threadbare, often depending entirely on just one pulsating, multi-layered chord. On the single ‘North American Scum’, Murphy stretches himself to three, but ‘Sound Of Silver’ will not be remembered for its ambitious harmony.
Instead, it’s all about a slavish devotion to a four-to-the-floor groove which, with added percussion and muted, scratchy guitar, is frequently irresistible. ‘Time To Get Away’ and ‘Us v Them’ will engage the dancing feet as much as the brain, whilst ‘Someone Great’ and ‘All My Friends’, offering a more electro-influenced and reflective sound, add some surprisingly touching lyrical ruminations.
Murphy’s chief concern remains the thorny problem of how to retain the credibility of a musical hipster whilst age advances, and for any musical obsessive from their mid-20s up will easily relate to this. His lyrics are mercilessly concise, and occasionally basic, but he also frequently finds a glimmer of truth (‘we set the controls for the heart of the sun, it’s one of the ways we show our age’ or ‘New York’s the greatest if you get someone to pay your rent/It’s just about the furthest you can live from the government’). He’s a little limited as a vocalist though, mostly sounding in need of a good decongestant, and even resorting to imitating Bowie on the otherwise excellent opener ‘Get Innocuous!’.
This matters little though when the music is so insistent and enjoyable, and the production so crisp and well-defined. There may be instantly recognisable influences all over this record, from Bowie to Arthur Russell, but Murphy has successfully subsumed these within a trademark sound that is very much his own, and his open acknowledgement of his musical heroes is refreshing and playful. It’s essentially club music for people who can no longer be bothered with the mostly horrendous experience of clubbing, and dance music with both head and heart.
Nick Cave has taken a rather different approach to the problem of ageing, raging spectacularly against the dying of the light with the Grinderman project, essentially a streamlined, noisier, more democratic version of The Bad Seeds. Much of the Grinderman album comes across like a musical version of a late-period Philip Roth novel, brimming as it is with bravado, elaborate language, real humour and aggressive sexuality.
Cave has always been that most masculine of performers, and some may balk at lines like ‘all we wanted was a little bit of consensual rape in the afternoon and maybe a bit more in the evening’. Still, most of this album retains the self-mocking and brilliantly constructed humour of his ‘Abbatoir Blues/Lyre Of Orpheus’ double set, and the already notorious ‘No Pussy Blues’ is a brilliant anthem of sexual frustration (‘I read her Keats, I read her Yeats/Even fixed the hinges on her gate/But still she just didn’t want to/She just never wants to….Damn!’). I wonder what Cave’s wife makes of it all…
Musically, Grinderman has been unhelpfully caricatured as a return to the savage brutality and confrontational poise of Cave’s days in The Birthday Party. It’s certainly noisy in places, and Cave’s own untutored guitar playing is appropriately abrasive. Yet, it’s not entirely avant-garde squall, and this is arguably the closest Cave has yet come to appropriating that most traditional and adaptable form of popular music – the blues. Brilliantly, ‘Depth Charge Ethel’ combines the gospel-meets-garage rock of Spiritualized with the lyrical approach of AC/DC. There’s also the call-and-response vocal of ‘Get It On’, the dirty brush drum groove of ‘Electric Alice’ and the slight gospel feel of ‘(I Don’t Need You) To Set Me Free’ as evidence for this. Indeed, for all its machismo and bravado, Grinderman has the kind of primal, feral intensity only recently achieved by female fronted bands – particularly some of the gritty, percussive energy of Sleater Kinney and the sleazy grind of Royal Trux.
Whilst Grinderman certainly eschews the spirituality and musical restraint Cave discovered with ‘The Boatman’s Call’ and extended less effectively to ‘No More Shall We Part’ and parts of ‘Nocturama’, there’s certainly some of the mordant, Leonard Cohen-inspired emotional cynicism we’ve come to expect from him, particularly on the fate-of-the-human-race ballad ‘Go Tell The Women’. I wonder whether Cave has heard Chairmen Of The Board’s awesome 70s funk track ‘Men Are Getting Scarce’?
It’s a matter of subjective judgment as to whether Grinderman really works – some may find it unconvincing from a Christian family man, others may simply see it as a grotesque indulgence. All that rather ignores the visceral energy and the humour of it all though – I don’t think this is in any way po-faced or presumptuous of its audience’s good will. It certainly delivers on its intentions, however dirty and dubious they may be. A guilty pleasure, perhaps.
A very different, but no less enjoyable album is ‘Giant’ from Swiss-American duo Herman Dune. This really does have all the makings of a winsome indie-pop classic. I saw Herman Dune live in a Cambridge pub once, and they brimmed with quirky charm and witty invention. Comfortably, they could have continued rewriting the same song – but for ‘Giant’ they have incorporated some wonderful cooing female backing vocals and an exuberant horn section. Even better are Andre Herman Dune’s brilliantly incongruous but surprisingly mellifluous saxophone solos.
The overall sound frequently reminds me of Aberfeldy’s underrated ‘Young Forever’ album, although it transcends that by virtue of some zesty and extravagant wordplay. ‘Giant’ may be more considered and elaborately arranged than its predecessors, but it doesn’t shy away from HD’s trademark oddball humour. These songs can bring a wide grin even to the face of a relentless depressive with lyrics like ‘And your name’s not Susan but I would call you Sue/To show you how bad I want to be with you’. It helps that the basic patterns underpinning the songs are unashamedly cheesy, with opener and lead single ‘I Wish That I Could See You Soon’ essentially remoulding the harmony from Van Morrison’s ‘Brown Eyed Girl’.
There’s still a neat contrast between David and Andre’s songwriting styles, with the former more straightforwardly melodic and infectious, and the latter occasionally veering into more surreal, rambling, Stephen Malkmus-esque territory on the likes of ‘Nickel Chrome’ and ‘Bristol’. At 55 minutes, this is quite a lengthy collection by indie standards, but the quality control is remarkably consistent, and the overall mood is effectively and sensibly punctuated by two Morricone-inspired instrumentals. It’s also not all entirely goofy – ‘Take Him Back To New York City’, despite its peculiar spoken introduction, is delicate and touching, whilst ‘This Summer’ has some of the soulful sensitivity of Nick Lowe circa ‘The Convincer’.
This really is pure pop music that entertains, amuses and refuses to apologise for tugging the heart-strings. Of course, it’s highly unlikely that any of these wonderful songs will be topping the UK Top 40 any time soon, but it’s just possible that this record may elevate Herman Dune from unsung heroes to minor stars.
There's much more to come....
On Disc: LCD Soundsystem, Grinderman, Herman Dune
Apologies for the lack of a new post here in the last couple of weeks – I’ve been somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer burden of activity in my life at the moment, particularly a brief concentration of gigs of my own. As a result, there’s a massive backlog of albums to comment on, and I’m not sure I’ve got the willpower to write about them all. Inevitably, this post is going to be a little lengthy, but I’ve summarised the contents above for clarity.
First of all, a few gigs need a brief mention. Tilly and The Wall were outstanding at the Scala, bristling with energy and sheer joie de vivre. The venue itself, small by London standards but significant on its own scale, was packed out, largely it would appear by balding middle-aged blokes singing along to every word – it’s quite extraordinary how some bands reach entirely unexpected audiences (or perhaps it’s just that the band features a trio of attractive young women). Tilly are defiantly whimsical but undoubtedly endearing, and whilst the tap-dancing is certainly a gimmick, it’s a pretty effective one. Their best songs (‘Rainbows In The Dark’, ‘Sing Songs Along’, ‘Bad Education’) are perhaps delivered a little too early, but the whole set is perfectly weighted (neither too long nor too short) and they wisely save the touching melancholy of ‘Lost Girls’ until the encore. It’s a spirited show, with the band visibly enjoying themselves. Whilst it’s occasionally slightly ragged around the edges, this probably only adds to the appeal, and it’s a joy to watch.
Have I written enough about the Broken Family Band? Surely not! It’s certainly worth noting that, much like Tilly (albeit it at a more sedate pace), this band have been carried largely by word-of-mouth into London’s grander venues. It’s immensely gratifying to see a band I remember well from tiny Cambridge pub venues suddenly entertaining the masses at Koko.
BFB always pull out the stops for their big shows (Steven Adams, with characteristic dry wit, dubs this one the ‘punching above our weight show’) and for this, they find a new way of organising what is essentially the same set they’ve been playing for the past year or so. Beginning with an increasingly rare outing for ‘The Perfect Gentlemen’, they cover their career so far in chronological order.
There are few real surprises, but rollicking versions of ‘At the Back of the Chapel’ and ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’, along with tender, musically involving renditions of ‘Poor Little Thing’ and ‘John Belushi’ maintain consistently high quality. Sadly, the subtleties of ‘John Belushi’ are destroyed by some inebriated morons talking loudly next to us, and the first few songs are rendered muddy by poor sound, with Gavin Johnson’s bass not just loud but utterly overwhelming. It’s always a bonus when the band utilise the multi-instrumental skills of Timothy Victor – a shame, then, that his keyboards and banjo couldn’t be heard for at least the first fifteen minutes of the show.
Bravely, the chronological structure means the brand new material is left until last. Regular BFB gig-goers will already be thoroughly familiar with the anthemic, noisy blast of ‘Love Your Man Love Your Woman’, and the ambitious, slightly surreal folk ballad meets sludge-rock song with lyrics about a captain was familiar from their show at the Scala last year. More encouraging still was that the two songs I didn’t recognise were outstanding, with ‘Leaps’ (a candid song about sex) proving both infectious and affecting. There’s plenty of evidence that Steven Adams is still maturing as a songwriter.
They encore with a delightfully restrained ‘Devil In The Details’ and an explosive ‘You’re Like A Woman’, during which Jay Williams takes the opportunity to introduce the band in hilarious style (‘You! You cannot play the bass like Gavin Johnson! You cannot play the drums like Mickey Roman! You cannot be Steven Adams!’). Adams defines the band tonight as ‘just a bunch of blokes playing music’. Well, that’s a bit self-deprecating isn’t it? Yes, ordinary blokes playing music – but with increasing musical ambition to match their playful humour, and a batch of songs so consistently excellent that there aren’t really any other UK guitar bands right now who can entertain at this level. It’s still broken, and there’s no need to fix it.
The Howdy Do club night at The Borderline, featuring Piney Gir, Peter and The Wolf, Jay and The Pistolets and Noah and The Whale, was one of the best multi-artist small venue shows I’ve seen in ages. At last, some sensitive and thoughtful programming created a complementary line-up of consistent quality that engaged me from start to finish!
Although I don’t really know any of them well, I can be connected to Noah and The Whale through three different people. They double as Emmy the Great’s backing band (and she joins them on vocals and what I think must have been a harmonium tonight) – Emmy of course regularly performs with my friend Jeremy Warmsley, for whom I briefly bashed the drums in an ill-feted group project. Outstanding young fiddle player Tom Hobden (only 19 years old and apparently already making a reasonable living through music, the lucky git) is friends with my good friend Tom Millar, the two of them having both performed in drunken, filthy, piss-taking ramshackle country ensemble Captain Kick and The Cowboy Ramblers. Drummer Doug Fink currently goes out with the sister of a good friend from school days. The cliché that it’s a small world sometimes holds true, particularly in musical circles! The band did not disappoint tonight, with an intriguing and novel set-up (fiddle, acoustic guitar or ukulele, harmonium, skeletal drum kit with no cymbals, no bassist) and a brief selection of involving and unusual songs. The lyrics straddle the line between quirky and pretentious, occasionally hitting on something rather special (‘last time I saw Mary she lied and said it was her birthday’), but occasionally sounding a little forced and verbose. Still, the songs are melodic and musically focussed, with an authentic feel for folk traditions. There’s something of the wide-eyed escapism of Patrick Wolf here too. It’s an inventive and appealing combination and this band should go far.
Jay and The Pistolets in fact proved to be a lone singer-songwriter. I initially found his voice a little earnest and mannered, but had warmed to him by the end of his brief set. There was one particular song of unrequited love you’d have to be extremely churlish not to find touching. Peter and The Wolf, I believe signed to a new record label set up by Guy Garvey from Elbow, were outstanding, characterised by warm vocal harmonies, rudimentary percussion and the always welcome presence of an upright bassist. These were good songs, perhaps with conventional indie rhythms and melodies, but delivered in a more traditional, acoustic arrangement. This proved quietly inventive and a real discovery.
Piney Gir is always a slightly shambolic performer, albeit in the best possible way, tonight suffering a little from a bad throat. Her outstanding Country Roadshow musicians remain more than supportive, creating a driving and vigorous accompaniment for her appealing songs. At just half an hour, it’s over far too quickly, but is tremendous fun nonetheless.
2007 is turning into a remarkable year for live music in London – I have tickets booked for Bob Dylan, Feist, Band of Horses, The Besnard Lakes, Wilco, Magnolia Electric Co., Al Green, Sonic Youth and Steely Dan!
As for new albums, there are a small clutch of releases currently bringing beams of pure joy into my world. ‘Sound Of Silver’, the second album from LCD Soundsystem, pretty much sounds exactly as expected, essentially further refining the formula James Murphy captured so well on his debut a couple of years ago. It might not break any radical new ground, but ‘Sound Of Silver’ is an excellent record, juxtaposing not just influences, but knowing references with palpable glee and excitement. It’s this real enthusiasm for the history of pop music that makes LCD Soundsystem such a thrilling and captivating project. The ‘songs’, such as they are, are minimal to the point of being threadbare, often depending entirely on just one pulsating, multi-layered chord. On the single ‘North American Scum’, Murphy stretches himself to three, but ‘Sound Of Silver’ will not be remembered for its ambitious harmony.
Instead, it’s all about a slavish devotion to a four-to-the-floor groove which, with added percussion and muted, scratchy guitar, is frequently irresistible. ‘Time To Get Away’ and ‘Us v Them’ will engage the dancing feet as much as the brain, whilst ‘Someone Great’ and ‘All My Friends’, offering a more electro-influenced and reflective sound, add some surprisingly touching lyrical ruminations.
Murphy’s chief concern remains the thorny problem of how to retain the credibility of a musical hipster whilst age advances, and for any musical obsessive from their mid-20s up will easily relate to this. His lyrics are mercilessly concise, and occasionally basic, but he also frequently finds a glimmer of truth (‘we set the controls for the heart of the sun, it’s one of the ways we show our age’ or ‘New York’s the greatest if you get someone to pay your rent/It’s just about the furthest you can live from the government’). He’s a little limited as a vocalist though, mostly sounding in need of a good decongestant, and even resorting to imitating Bowie on the otherwise excellent opener ‘Get Innocuous!’.
This matters little though when the music is so insistent and enjoyable, and the production so crisp and well-defined. There may be instantly recognisable influences all over this record, from Bowie to Arthur Russell, but Murphy has successfully subsumed these within a trademark sound that is very much his own, and his open acknowledgement of his musical heroes is refreshing and playful. It’s essentially club music for people who can no longer be bothered with the mostly horrendous experience of clubbing, and dance music with both head and heart.
Nick Cave has taken a rather different approach to the problem of ageing, raging spectacularly against the dying of the light with the Grinderman project, essentially a streamlined, noisier, more democratic version of The Bad Seeds. Much of the Grinderman album comes across like a musical version of a late-period Philip Roth novel, brimming as it is with bravado, elaborate language, real humour and aggressive sexuality.
Cave has always been that most masculine of performers, and some may balk at lines like ‘all we wanted was a little bit of consensual rape in the afternoon and maybe a bit more in the evening’. Still, most of this album retains the self-mocking and brilliantly constructed humour of his ‘Abbatoir Blues/Lyre Of Orpheus’ double set, and the already notorious ‘No Pussy Blues’ is a brilliant anthem of sexual frustration (‘I read her Keats, I read her Yeats/Even fixed the hinges on her gate/But still she just didn’t want to/She just never wants to….Damn!’). I wonder what Cave’s wife makes of it all…
Musically, Grinderman has been unhelpfully caricatured as a return to the savage brutality and confrontational poise of Cave’s days in The Birthday Party. It’s certainly noisy in places, and Cave’s own untutored guitar playing is appropriately abrasive. Yet, it’s not entirely avant-garde squall, and this is arguably the closest Cave has yet come to appropriating that most traditional and adaptable form of popular music – the blues. Brilliantly, ‘Depth Charge Ethel’ combines the gospel-meets-garage rock of Spiritualized with the lyrical approach of AC/DC. There’s also the call-and-response vocal of ‘Get It On’, the dirty brush drum groove of ‘Electric Alice’ and the slight gospel feel of ‘(I Don’t Need You) To Set Me Free’ as evidence for this. Indeed, for all its machismo and bravado, Grinderman has the kind of primal, feral intensity only recently achieved by female fronted bands – particularly some of the gritty, percussive energy of Sleater Kinney and the sleazy grind of Royal Trux.
Whilst Grinderman certainly eschews the spirituality and musical restraint Cave discovered with ‘The Boatman’s Call’ and extended less effectively to ‘No More Shall We Part’ and parts of ‘Nocturama’, there’s certainly some of the mordant, Leonard Cohen-inspired emotional cynicism we’ve come to expect from him, particularly on the fate-of-the-human-race ballad ‘Go Tell The Women’. I wonder whether Cave has heard Chairmen Of The Board’s awesome 70s funk track ‘Men Are Getting Scarce’?
It’s a matter of subjective judgment as to whether Grinderman really works – some may find it unconvincing from a Christian family man, others may simply see it as a grotesque indulgence. All that rather ignores the visceral energy and the humour of it all though – I don’t think this is in any way po-faced or presumptuous of its audience’s good will. It certainly delivers on its intentions, however dirty and dubious they may be. A guilty pleasure, perhaps.
A very different, but no less enjoyable album is ‘Giant’ from Swiss-American duo Herman Dune. This really does have all the makings of a winsome indie-pop classic. I saw Herman Dune live in a Cambridge pub once, and they brimmed with quirky charm and witty invention. Comfortably, they could have continued rewriting the same song – but for ‘Giant’ they have incorporated some wonderful cooing female backing vocals and an exuberant horn section. Even better are Andre Herman Dune’s brilliantly incongruous but surprisingly mellifluous saxophone solos.
The overall sound frequently reminds me of Aberfeldy’s underrated ‘Young Forever’ album, although it transcends that by virtue of some zesty and extravagant wordplay. ‘Giant’ may be more considered and elaborately arranged than its predecessors, but it doesn’t shy away from HD’s trademark oddball humour. These songs can bring a wide grin even to the face of a relentless depressive with lyrics like ‘And your name’s not Susan but I would call you Sue/To show you how bad I want to be with you’. It helps that the basic patterns underpinning the songs are unashamedly cheesy, with opener and lead single ‘I Wish That I Could See You Soon’ essentially remoulding the harmony from Van Morrison’s ‘Brown Eyed Girl’.
There’s still a neat contrast between David and Andre’s songwriting styles, with the former more straightforwardly melodic and infectious, and the latter occasionally veering into more surreal, rambling, Stephen Malkmus-esque territory on the likes of ‘Nickel Chrome’ and ‘Bristol’. At 55 minutes, this is quite a lengthy collection by indie standards, but the quality control is remarkably consistent, and the overall mood is effectively and sensibly punctuated by two Morricone-inspired instrumentals. It’s also not all entirely goofy – ‘Take Him Back To New York City’, despite its peculiar spoken introduction, is delicate and touching, whilst ‘This Summer’ has some of the soulful sensitivity of Nick Lowe circa ‘The Convincer’.
This really is pure pop music that entertains, amuses and refuses to apologise for tugging the heart-strings. Of course, it’s highly unlikely that any of these wonderful songs will be topping the UK Top 40 any time soon, but it’s just possible that this record may elevate Herman Dune from unsung heroes to minor stars.
There's much more to come....
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Pain and Frustration
Lucinda Williams is that most frustrating of singer-songwriters. At her best, she is capable of a sublime artistry of breathtaking directness. At her worst, she is clunky and forced, and risks trivialising some of her intense personal experiences. Her recent albums all seem to have been inspired to some degree by crises, and 'West' is certainly no different, having been composed following the death of her mother and the breakdown of a rather fraught relationship. These personal difficulties clearly inspired Williams to write a wealth of material, and 'West' is as a result somewhat overlong. I could have done without the nine minutes of ghastly cod-rapping on 'Wrap My Head Around That', although arty producer Hal Wilner probably deserves an equal share of the blame for that. The album also opens fairly inconspicuously with 'Are You Alright?', an undeniably pretty song, but with lyrics as cliched as its much-repeated title ('all of a sudden you went away...I hope you come back around someday' etc).
There are other ways, however, in which a case can be built for 'West' as Williams' best work to date. Over the course of her recent albums, particularly 'Essence' and 'World Without Tears', Williams has been gradually abandoning the dusty country rock on which she built her reputation in favour of restrained, floaty and ethereal mood pieces. This sound reaches its apotheosis here, mostly aided by Wilner's production (at least when it's sensitive), and heavily supported by the intuitive and emotive playing of versatile guitar legend Bill Frisell. Another session legend in the form of drummer Jim Keltner offers dependable musical sensibility. There's still variety on display here, but the predominant mood is melancholic and haunting.
There are some wonderful songs here, from the great outpouring of feeling on 'Mama You Sweet' and the deftly poetic 'Words' ('I would rather suffer in sweet silent solitude/Deathly defiant from drowning out/Filthy sounds stumbling ugly and crude/Between the lips of your beautiful mouth' - is this really the same lyricist behind 'Are You Alright?') to the sweetly observed 'Fancy Funeral'. Williams has now mastered her songwriting formula, essentially depending on a careful and considered marriage of words, phrasing and melody for which her gritty, untutored voice is ideally suited. She does not have great range or technique, but there's a wealth of emotion in those cracked intonations, mostly displayed with admirable candour.
As a result, she can do the sultry and lusty as convincingly as the mordant and ruminative. 'Unsuffer Me' and the Neil Young-esque trudge of 'Come On' (all playful self-righteousness and innuendo - 'you didn't even make me.....come on!') are both close relations of the outstading 'Atonement' from 'World Without Tears'. So, whilst many of these songs are intensely sad, there's also a dogged determination for self-preservation too, most evident on the slight beam of hope provided by the closing title track and the endearing, touching 'Learning How To Live'.
Whatever one feels about Williams' inconsistency, there's no denying that, much like the graceful Emmylou Harris, she has really matured as an artist relatively late in life. 'West' is a moving, elegiac story of grief and love lost with which many people will easily connect. Forget the crass, manipulative emoting of Snow Patrol, Keane and their horrific ilk, and discover something truthful and hard won. It may sometimes be a lonely and desolate landscape, but sometimes heading out West isn't just illuminating - it's necessary.
There are other ways, however, in which a case can be built for 'West' as Williams' best work to date. Over the course of her recent albums, particularly 'Essence' and 'World Without Tears', Williams has been gradually abandoning the dusty country rock on which she built her reputation in favour of restrained, floaty and ethereal mood pieces. This sound reaches its apotheosis here, mostly aided by Wilner's production (at least when it's sensitive), and heavily supported by the intuitive and emotive playing of versatile guitar legend Bill Frisell. Another session legend in the form of drummer Jim Keltner offers dependable musical sensibility. There's still variety on display here, but the predominant mood is melancholic and haunting.
There are some wonderful songs here, from the great outpouring of feeling on 'Mama You Sweet' and the deftly poetic 'Words' ('I would rather suffer in sweet silent solitude/Deathly defiant from drowning out/Filthy sounds stumbling ugly and crude/Between the lips of your beautiful mouth' - is this really the same lyricist behind 'Are You Alright?') to the sweetly observed 'Fancy Funeral'. Williams has now mastered her songwriting formula, essentially depending on a careful and considered marriage of words, phrasing and melody for which her gritty, untutored voice is ideally suited. She does not have great range or technique, but there's a wealth of emotion in those cracked intonations, mostly displayed with admirable candour.
As a result, she can do the sultry and lusty as convincingly as the mordant and ruminative. 'Unsuffer Me' and the Neil Young-esque trudge of 'Come On' (all playful self-righteousness and innuendo - 'you didn't even make me.....come on!') are both close relations of the outstading 'Atonement' from 'World Without Tears'. So, whilst many of these songs are intensely sad, there's also a dogged determination for self-preservation too, most evident on the slight beam of hope provided by the closing title track and the endearing, touching 'Learning How To Live'.
Whatever one feels about Williams' inconsistency, there's no denying that, much like the graceful Emmylou Harris, she has really matured as an artist relatively late in life. 'West' is a moving, elegiac story of grief and love lost with which many people will easily connect. Forget the crass, manipulative emoting of Snow Patrol, Keane and their horrific ilk, and discover something truthful and hard won. It may sometimes be a lonely and desolate landscape, but sometimes heading out West isn't just illuminating - it's necessary.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Intense Drama and Ambiguous Ruminations
I almost certainly need to listen to it a bit more, and I may well come to revise some of these opinions, but seeing as it's streaming in its entirety over at the NME website, I thought I'd jot down some first impressions on the new Arcade Fire album.
The great handicap in reviewing an album that immediately follows a career defining debut is how to deal with the thorny problem of the record's relationship with its predecessor. I suspect that, on the whole, 'The Neon Bible' will be well received (perhaps even rapturously), but there are elements which might invoke reservations or perhaps even consternation in some quarters. The rapidity with which Arcade Fire have escalated from a word-of-mouth cult into big venue superstars is nothing short of astonishing, and there will inevitably be a small group of fans who now struggle to claim this band as their own. It's an understandable emotion, particularly among obsessive followers of new music, but it doesn't exactly facilitate objective judgment. It's also easy to forget that this is as much a problem for band as audience - how do you develop as artists, whilst retaining what made you special in the first place, when suddenly catering to a mass audience. The Arcade Fire have had to confront this much more quickly than might have been expected. That much of 'The Neon Bible' sounds bigger, grander and more ostentatious than 'Funeral' might also imply an element of clinical calculation in its production, although it has its fair share of more considered, nuanced moments too.
The Bruce Springsteen influence I detected during the band's recent Porchester Hall show is definitely here. The pompously titled '(antichrist television blues)' is pure working man's American rock, a distant cousin of 'Workin' On The Highway' perhaps. Even 'Intervention', with its colossal church organ, wouldn't sound entirely out of place on 'Born In The USA', although it mercifully eschews the more bombastic elements of that record's production. There's a lot of rather basic guitar strumming underpinning the big arrangements, and this makes for some other unexpected reference points. 'Keep The Car Running', with its acoustic guitars and mandolins, resembles 'Fisherman's Blues'-era Waterboys, and the chugging gothic fervour of 'Black Mirror' sounds something akin to the Velvet Underground jamming with Echo and The Bunnymen. So many bands resort to these basic chug and strum patterns, but it's because Arcade Fire use them as backdrops rather than formulaic templates that it works so well. These devices, predictable and over-familiar in lesser hands, provide energy and drive here, over which the band's trademark unison vocal chants and unusual instrumentation weave their more elaborate magic.
Whilst the handsomely re-recorded 'No Cars Go' and 'The Well and the Lighthouse' offer familiar theatrical thrills, 'The Neon Bible' does not entirely abandon quirky charm in favour of bold statement. The title track is wispy and mercilessly concise. Given a few more listens, it may turn out to be the album's most audacious and intriguing moment. The medley of 'Black Wave/Bad Vibrations' is unpredictable and admirably risky. It also provides some welcome space for Regine Chassagne's peculiar vocals, which despite the occasionally shaky pitching, never sound less than enthralling. Best of all is the stunning 'Ocean Of Noise', which has something of the tragic melancholy of Roy Orbison in its mariachi-tinged arrangement. The closing 'My Body Is A Cage' is colossal, but, as I suggested in my recent live review, also has a deeply soulful core.
I suspect if there's a major problem with 'The Neon Bible', it's more lyrical than musical. Over on his Uncut magazine blog, John Mulvey has criticised the use of religious imagery to convey a secular message as an over-worked trope. I'm not sure this is so much the problem, as more that the detail of this album's themes are less well defined than those of 'Funeral'. The romantic vision and wonderful imagery that characterised songs such as 'Tunnels' and 'The Power Out' helped make that album uniquely engaging. Here, there's a lot of dour reflection on the state of the world, but the sense of fear and doom is mostly rather vague and undeveloped. It's not disastrous by any means, but songs like 'Black Mirror' are very portentous, it's just not always clear precisely what they might be portending.
For those wondering how 'Neon Bible' will stand in this band's canon, it's worth recognising that its highlights provide welcome signs that they remain imaginative, impassioned and full of fire. It also shows them perfectly capable of expanding their reach. It's not quite a stunning masterpiece, but it's by no means a crushing disappointment either. For most people, that surely ought to be enough.
The great handicap in reviewing an album that immediately follows a career defining debut is how to deal with the thorny problem of the record's relationship with its predecessor. I suspect that, on the whole, 'The Neon Bible' will be well received (perhaps even rapturously), but there are elements which might invoke reservations or perhaps even consternation in some quarters. The rapidity with which Arcade Fire have escalated from a word-of-mouth cult into big venue superstars is nothing short of astonishing, and there will inevitably be a small group of fans who now struggle to claim this band as their own. It's an understandable emotion, particularly among obsessive followers of new music, but it doesn't exactly facilitate objective judgment. It's also easy to forget that this is as much a problem for band as audience - how do you develop as artists, whilst retaining what made you special in the first place, when suddenly catering to a mass audience. The Arcade Fire have had to confront this much more quickly than might have been expected. That much of 'The Neon Bible' sounds bigger, grander and more ostentatious than 'Funeral' might also imply an element of clinical calculation in its production, although it has its fair share of more considered, nuanced moments too.
The Bruce Springsteen influence I detected during the band's recent Porchester Hall show is definitely here. The pompously titled '(antichrist television blues)' is pure working man's American rock, a distant cousin of 'Workin' On The Highway' perhaps. Even 'Intervention', with its colossal church organ, wouldn't sound entirely out of place on 'Born In The USA', although it mercifully eschews the more bombastic elements of that record's production. There's a lot of rather basic guitar strumming underpinning the big arrangements, and this makes for some other unexpected reference points. 'Keep The Car Running', with its acoustic guitars and mandolins, resembles 'Fisherman's Blues'-era Waterboys, and the chugging gothic fervour of 'Black Mirror' sounds something akin to the Velvet Underground jamming with Echo and The Bunnymen. So many bands resort to these basic chug and strum patterns, but it's because Arcade Fire use them as backdrops rather than formulaic templates that it works so well. These devices, predictable and over-familiar in lesser hands, provide energy and drive here, over which the band's trademark unison vocal chants and unusual instrumentation weave their more elaborate magic.
Whilst the handsomely re-recorded 'No Cars Go' and 'The Well and the Lighthouse' offer familiar theatrical thrills, 'The Neon Bible' does not entirely abandon quirky charm in favour of bold statement. The title track is wispy and mercilessly concise. Given a few more listens, it may turn out to be the album's most audacious and intriguing moment. The medley of 'Black Wave/Bad Vibrations' is unpredictable and admirably risky. It also provides some welcome space for Regine Chassagne's peculiar vocals, which despite the occasionally shaky pitching, never sound less than enthralling. Best of all is the stunning 'Ocean Of Noise', which has something of the tragic melancholy of Roy Orbison in its mariachi-tinged arrangement. The closing 'My Body Is A Cage' is colossal, but, as I suggested in my recent live review, also has a deeply soulful core.
I suspect if there's a major problem with 'The Neon Bible', it's more lyrical than musical. Over on his Uncut magazine blog, John Mulvey has criticised the use of religious imagery to convey a secular message as an over-worked trope. I'm not sure this is so much the problem, as more that the detail of this album's themes are less well defined than those of 'Funeral'. The romantic vision and wonderful imagery that characterised songs such as 'Tunnels' and 'The Power Out' helped make that album uniquely engaging. Here, there's a lot of dour reflection on the state of the world, but the sense of fear and doom is mostly rather vague and undeveloped. It's not disastrous by any means, but songs like 'Black Mirror' are very portentous, it's just not always clear precisely what they might be portending.
For those wondering how 'Neon Bible' will stand in this band's canon, it's worth recognising that its highlights provide welcome signs that they remain imaginative, impassioned and full of fire. It also shows them perfectly capable of expanding their reach. It's not quite a stunning masterpiece, but it's by no means a crushing disappointment either. For most people, that surely ought to be enough.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Blame Canada....
....for producing yet another band with real vision and quality. The oddly titled 'The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse' is the second album on the wonderful Jagjaguwar label from Montreal's The Besnard Lakes, although it represents my first contact with this beguiling and fascinating band. The overall impression is of a neat combination of the languid melancholy of Low combined with the slow burning classic rock of My Morning Jacket. Throw in some inventive arrangements, Beach Boys-esque vocal harmonies and unconventional instrumentation, and you have the makings of a modern classic.
This doesn't mean it's an easy listen though. The eight songs are all lengthy and extravagant, the pace rarely gets above a gentle trot, and the lyrics are peculiarly oblique. Wisely, at just 45 minutes, the album as a whole refuses to outstay its welcome, and, once yielded to, the atmosphere is enthralling and hypnotic. There are all sorts of possible reference points - Jace Lasek's use of falsetto obviously belies the influence of Neil Young, whilst Olga Goreas' more understated, half spoken intonations resemble the contributions of Jill Birt to The Triffids.
There's an essential formula to the songs here, involving the careful development of an expansive, overwhelming texture from minimal beginnings. The band achieve this with control and finesse, and rarely, if ever, does the music descend to posturing or mock grandiosity. There's real rhythmic and melodic invention on epic tracks like 'And You Lied To Me', allied with a complete understanding of American musical tradition, occasionally drawing influence from southern rock as much as North American styles. The band also confidently master unpredictable diversions and false endings that are as entertaining as they are confounding.
The mysterious 'For Agent 13' has an alchemical quality, and with unusually direct lyrics, might be the most powerful track here ('I never meant to feel that way/To be so haunted by a touch/I play it back every day'). Yet it's the opening 'Disaster' that really stands out - oddly melancholic, yet also muscular and driving. The incorporation of strings and horns adds a majestic sheen to a song with a real sense of progression and imagination. 'Devastation' sounds like Sparklehorse in Alabama (and how much more interesting it would have been for Mark Linkous to have attempted something like this instead of the resoundingly tedious 'Dreamt For Light Years...').
This is a big behemoth of an album, but it's creative rather than indulgent, and full of passion and power. Catch the dark horse before it rides away.
This doesn't mean it's an easy listen though. The eight songs are all lengthy and extravagant, the pace rarely gets above a gentle trot, and the lyrics are peculiarly oblique. Wisely, at just 45 minutes, the album as a whole refuses to outstay its welcome, and, once yielded to, the atmosphere is enthralling and hypnotic. There are all sorts of possible reference points - Jace Lasek's use of falsetto obviously belies the influence of Neil Young, whilst Olga Goreas' more understated, half spoken intonations resemble the contributions of Jill Birt to The Triffids.
There's an essential formula to the songs here, involving the careful development of an expansive, overwhelming texture from minimal beginnings. The band achieve this with control and finesse, and rarely, if ever, does the music descend to posturing or mock grandiosity. There's real rhythmic and melodic invention on epic tracks like 'And You Lied To Me', allied with a complete understanding of American musical tradition, occasionally drawing influence from southern rock as much as North American styles. The band also confidently master unpredictable diversions and false endings that are as entertaining as they are confounding.
The mysterious 'For Agent 13' has an alchemical quality, and with unusually direct lyrics, might be the most powerful track here ('I never meant to feel that way/To be so haunted by a touch/I play it back every day'). Yet it's the opening 'Disaster' that really stands out - oddly melancholic, yet also muscular and driving. The incorporation of strings and horns adds a majestic sheen to a song with a real sense of progression and imagination. 'Devastation' sounds like Sparklehorse in Alabama (and how much more interesting it would have been for Mark Linkous to have attempted something like this instead of the resoundingly tedious 'Dreamt For Light Years...').
This is a big behemoth of an album, but it's creative rather than indulgent, and full of passion and power. Catch the dark horse before it rides away.
When You're Wrong, Admit It
I just want to take a moment to revise my review of the Bloc Party album a little. I think I said something about the lyrics being 'completely central to the record's achievement'. On closer inspection, this isn't really true at all. I certainly take issue with some of the harsher criticisms of Kele Okereke's lyrics, particularly as most of those objecting to the harsh treatment of London on 'A Weekend In The City' are of course fully paid up members of the London media set. Many of these people would find it difficult to imagine a London of real tension and brutality, let alone accept that it is the reality of life for many Londoners. Still though, there are problems with Okereke's approach, exacerbated by his tendency towards earnestness. 'Hunting For Witches', whilst admirably confronting the climate of fear, is a little clunky (although it sounds awesome), and the overlong 'Uniform' is genuinely uncomfortable and unpleasant. Okereke's portrait of disaffected adolescents does little to address the real reasons for their boredom, nor does it offer any solutions to this increasingly dangerous problem. The gimmicky production values on this track (hey, they've discovered vocoders!) only add to the discomfort. Essentially, it's one long angry rant with little substance. I haven't managed to hear 'This Is England' yet, but I suspect its omission from the tracklisting was probably a mistake.
Okereke uses the device of repeating simple lyrical ideas, sometimes to powerful impact, but just as frequently he merely emphasises some of his clunkier motifs. The more personal elements of this album may actually be far more substantial than the attempts at politial and social analysis, however laudable Okereke's intentions. 'Kreuzberg' is dense, compelling and moving, all whilst sustaining a daring lyrical simplicity. Apart from the reference to a 'teacher's training day' (those three words will never be made to sound poetic), 'I Still Remember' is equally affecting, albeit somewhat nostalgic. Whilst Okereke is perhaps confronting his sexuality in these songs, they are full of universal experience too.
Musically, the album has real drama and force, although it does sag slightly in the middle, at the same point at which Okereke's preoccupation with adolescent disaffection and cocaine abuse threaten to spoil the whole thing. Essentially, it's a mixed bag - but it at least provokes discussion, which is more than a lot of the derivitive British music currently plodding around.
Okereke uses the device of repeating simple lyrical ideas, sometimes to powerful impact, but just as frequently he merely emphasises some of his clunkier motifs. The more personal elements of this album may actually be far more substantial than the attempts at politial and social analysis, however laudable Okereke's intentions. 'Kreuzberg' is dense, compelling and moving, all whilst sustaining a daring lyrical simplicity. Apart from the reference to a 'teacher's training day' (those three words will never be made to sound poetic), 'I Still Remember' is equally affecting, albeit somewhat nostalgic. Whilst Okereke is perhaps confronting his sexuality in these songs, they are full of universal experience too.
Musically, the album has real drama and force, although it does sag slightly in the middle, at the same point at which Okereke's preoccupation with adolescent disaffection and cocaine abuse threaten to spoil the whole thing. Essentially, it's a mixed bag - but it at least provokes discussion, which is more than a lot of the derivitive British music currently plodding around.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Jokes, Reverence and Indifference
I've been out and about a fair bit over the last few weeks, so there are a few gigs to report back on.
I alleviated Valentine's Day blues to some degree by heading over to the Metro Club on Oxford Street to see the kind of bill you definitely don't get every week - The Crimea, Piney Gir and Paris Motel all at the same gig! Unfortunately, despite the fact that ticket agencies were billing this as a Piney Gir gig, John Kell (http://www.kingofquiet.co.uk) and I arrived at the venue to find her just finishing her set, having opened proceedings. The subsequent set from Alexander 'Festival' Hall (see what he did there?), hitherto unknown to this writer, only added to the sense of irritation, being as it was a bit self-consciously quirky and, ultimately, quite dull. So far, so disappointing.
Longstanding friends Paris Motel never disappoint though, and Amy May's malleable musical troupe have now expanded both in number and in sound. They find some room for some old favourites from the '071' EP, including the title track and 'Mr. Splintfoot', which with the beefed up sound now resembles Nick Cave's 'Red Right Hand' even more, but I guess even Nick Cave can't claim to own the blues. The new material is expansive and more muscular, and there's a sense of grandeur to rival The Arcade Fire. The sound engineering isn't so hot in the Metro though, so Amy's delicate but appealing vocals sometimes get drowned out. Nevertheless, it all suggests that the debut album proper from this band should be one of 2007's highlights, and there's a sense that this good humoured, romantic and charming group are becoming really rather special. They end with a lush, swooning take on Yeah Yeah Yeahs' 'Maps', providing further evidence that it really is one of the best songs to come from an American rock band in the last decade - it sounds just as magical in this very different setting.
The Crimea play with a vigour and intensity that never lets up, but their set is stifled by yet another indifferent London crowd. It's not the couples that cause the trouble though - it's the frustrated singles toasting their freedom. For God's sake, if you want to do that, go to a pub, not a gig! The familiar, highly infectious material from 'Tragedy Rocks' is dispensed with a bit early, and maybe with that crushing sense of obligation that often frustrates bands working on new material. The new stuff is a bit more forced and serious-minded - I couldn't decide whether or not much of it worked or not. I suspect the new album will require close attention. There's certainly evidence of development, but the strength of 'Tragedy Rocks' lay more in its melodies than its sonic invention, so I'm not sure they're pushing the right buttons here.
A rather different show last Friday at London's Barbican, featuring justly revered American saxophinist Joe Lovano playing with his Nonet, ably supported by veteran harmonica player Toots Thielmans, accompanied by the expressive, but slightly earnest American pianist Fred Hersch. The 84 year-old Thielmans was a real delight - taking obvious joy in performing, and delivering a set that effortlessly juxtaposed playful nostalgia with delicate melancholy. The musical relationship between Thielmans and Hersch was playful, and the results were frequently inspired. Thielmans' harmonica sound was consistently pure and clear, and he breathed life even into the hoariest of old standards. I particularly enjoyed his takes on 'Ne Me Quitte Pas' and 'Blue In Green'. The duo were joined by Lovano for a couple of pieces, and the subtle musical interplay was quietly inspirational.
I had massively high expecations of Lovano's set, with the saxophonist having just recorded my favourite jazz album of last year. He really is one of the most dynamic and creative improvisers in the world, with a clear knowledge of the jazz tradition, but a force and personality very much his own. If the set didn't quite live up to these expectations, it's almost certainly unfair to condemn it for this, as there were moments of palpable excitement.
I'll start with the bad though - a terrible microphone,which took the word 'unidirectional' beyond literal interpretation, rendered all the trumpet solos unintelligible. If the trumpeter took even a step away he became inaudible, and when he was right against the mic the sound was so muddy as to obscure the notes. My attention was also distracted from the other soloists by the off mic antics of the large band, who often slouched around, talked with each other, and generally looked oddly shambolic on stage.
Still, though, the playing was crisp and dynamic, and I very much enjoyed Otis Brown's very traditional drumming, on a small jazz set-up. When he exchanged 4s and 8s with the other soloists, it made for some inspired creation and release of tension. Tim Garland was also involved, and although the shout of 'let's hear from Tim Garland!' from one particularly moronic audience member riled me intensely (you can hear Garland in London almost every night of the week, given the ridiculous volume of work that comes his way), there's no denying that he provided one of the best moments of the whole concert when he soloed with just Brown's drumming for accompaniment. This was fiery, inventive and thoroughly musical improvising at its best.
Lovano's own soloing was as fluid and controlled as might be expected, and the themes were delivered with passion and clarity. Gunther Schuller's arrangements for the 'Birth Of The Cool' suite predictably provided the centrepiece of the show, although I wondered whether in live performance this seemed more reverent and less inventive than on disc. Lovano's own compositions from the same project fared better, with some really energetic performances.
A trip to Cambridge gave me a rare opportunity to catch a concert in the refined, over-comfortable environment of the Kettle's Yard art gallery. Regardless of the quality of music being performed, I could quite happily have drifted into sleep, slouched as I was on a couch at the side of the stage. This vantage point gave me an excellent view of the rather unconventional posture of Swedish pianist Soren Norbo, although pretty much completely obscured my view of the jovial drummer. Guesting with Norbo's trio was none other than British contemporary jazz legend Django Bates, albeit on a strange valve horn rather than piano. Those expecting a Bates performance may well have been disappointed, although his improvising on the horn was frequently remarkable and always dexterous. He even tried his hand at drums towards the end of the second set, with some more than passable free improvisation.
This was a strange old gig, and whilst the band seemed adept at a plethora of styles, from the broad and abstract to tightly controlled swing, their bizarre case of Attention Defecit Disorder left me a little perplexed. I sense that the main purpose of this gig was really to poke some fun at the jazz tradition by juxtaposing the very conventional with the very weird, and there was plenty of joking around, particularly from the maverick drummer. Some of this was light-hearted and effective, especially Bates' spontaneous and unpredictable bursts into song. Yet, the drummer's insistence on squeezing water bottles and banging on large plastic dustbins seemed unnecessary when his kit playing was creative and musical enough to stand on its own without resorting to gimmicks.
Some seem to cite Bill Evans as the chief influence on Norbo's playing, but I couldn't really detect this too much - I could hear much more of the European and Scandinavian traditions in his improvising than the American. His strange, stubby fingers didn't seem to restrict him too much, although his playing did sometimes match the stiffness of his posture, occasionally seeming more schematic and theoretical than emotional. Perhaps if the band had actually sustained even one of its good ideas to maximum impact, a little more feeling could have seeped through the veneer of slightly po-faced musical comedy. The encore, involving gargling water, certainly raised a few laughs, although mine may have been more in disgust than in amusement - it wasn't exactly pleasant! I'm glad I stuck it out though - Bates' horn playing genuinely thrilled me, and his use of electronic effects was intelligent too. The second set saw the band much more focussed and engaged, and there were moments I really enjoyed.
I alleviated Valentine's Day blues to some degree by heading over to the Metro Club on Oxford Street to see the kind of bill you definitely don't get every week - The Crimea, Piney Gir and Paris Motel all at the same gig! Unfortunately, despite the fact that ticket agencies were billing this as a Piney Gir gig, John Kell (http://www.kingofquiet.co.uk) and I arrived at the venue to find her just finishing her set, having opened proceedings. The subsequent set from Alexander 'Festival' Hall (see what he did there?), hitherto unknown to this writer, only added to the sense of irritation, being as it was a bit self-consciously quirky and, ultimately, quite dull. So far, so disappointing.
Longstanding friends Paris Motel never disappoint though, and Amy May's malleable musical troupe have now expanded both in number and in sound. They find some room for some old favourites from the '071' EP, including the title track and 'Mr. Splintfoot', which with the beefed up sound now resembles Nick Cave's 'Red Right Hand' even more, but I guess even Nick Cave can't claim to own the blues. The new material is expansive and more muscular, and there's a sense of grandeur to rival The Arcade Fire. The sound engineering isn't so hot in the Metro though, so Amy's delicate but appealing vocals sometimes get drowned out. Nevertheless, it all suggests that the debut album proper from this band should be one of 2007's highlights, and there's a sense that this good humoured, romantic and charming group are becoming really rather special. They end with a lush, swooning take on Yeah Yeah Yeahs' 'Maps', providing further evidence that it really is one of the best songs to come from an American rock band in the last decade - it sounds just as magical in this very different setting.
The Crimea play with a vigour and intensity that never lets up, but their set is stifled by yet another indifferent London crowd. It's not the couples that cause the trouble though - it's the frustrated singles toasting their freedom. For God's sake, if you want to do that, go to a pub, not a gig! The familiar, highly infectious material from 'Tragedy Rocks' is dispensed with a bit early, and maybe with that crushing sense of obligation that often frustrates bands working on new material. The new stuff is a bit more forced and serious-minded - I couldn't decide whether or not much of it worked or not. I suspect the new album will require close attention. There's certainly evidence of development, but the strength of 'Tragedy Rocks' lay more in its melodies than its sonic invention, so I'm not sure they're pushing the right buttons here.
A rather different show last Friday at London's Barbican, featuring justly revered American saxophinist Joe Lovano playing with his Nonet, ably supported by veteran harmonica player Toots Thielmans, accompanied by the expressive, but slightly earnest American pianist Fred Hersch. The 84 year-old Thielmans was a real delight - taking obvious joy in performing, and delivering a set that effortlessly juxtaposed playful nostalgia with delicate melancholy. The musical relationship between Thielmans and Hersch was playful, and the results were frequently inspired. Thielmans' harmonica sound was consistently pure and clear, and he breathed life even into the hoariest of old standards. I particularly enjoyed his takes on 'Ne Me Quitte Pas' and 'Blue In Green'. The duo were joined by Lovano for a couple of pieces, and the subtle musical interplay was quietly inspirational.
I had massively high expecations of Lovano's set, with the saxophonist having just recorded my favourite jazz album of last year. He really is one of the most dynamic and creative improvisers in the world, with a clear knowledge of the jazz tradition, but a force and personality very much his own. If the set didn't quite live up to these expectations, it's almost certainly unfair to condemn it for this, as there were moments of palpable excitement.
I'll start with the bad though - a terrible microphone,which took the word 'unidirectional' beyond literal interpretation, rendered all the trumpet solos unintelligible. If the trumpeter took even a step away he became inaudible, and when he was right against the mic the sound was so muddy as to obscure the notes. My attention was also distracted from the other soloists by the off mic antics of the large band, who often slouched around, talked with each other, and generally looked oddly shambolic on stage.
Still, though, the playing was crisp and dynamic, and I very much enjoyed Otis Brown's very traditional drumming, on a small jazz set-up. When he exchanged 4s and 8s with the other soloists, it made for some inspired creation and release of tension. Tim Garland was also involved, and although the shout of 'let's hear from Tim Garland!' from one particularly moronic audience member riled me intensely (you can hear Garland in London almost every night of the week, given the ridiculous volume of work that comes his way), there's no denying that he provided one of the best moments of the whole concert when he soloed with just Brown's drumming for accompaniment. This was fiery, inventive and thoroughly musical improvising at its best.
Lovano's own soloing was as fluid and controlled as might be expected, and the themes were delivered with passion and clarity. Gunther Schuller's arrangements for the 'Birth Of The Cool' suite predictably provided the centrepiece of the show, although I wondered whether in live performance this seemed more reverent and less inventive than on disc. Lovano's own compositions from the same project fared better, with some really energetic performances.
A trip to Cambridge gave me a rare opportunity to catch a concert in the refined, over-comfortable environment of the Kettle's Yard art gallery. Regardless of the quality of music being performed, I could quite happily have drifted into sleep, slouched as I was on a couch at the side of the stage. This vantage point gave me an excellent view of the rather unconventional posture of Swedish pianist Soren Norbo, although pretty much completely obscured my view of the jovial drummer. Guesting with Norbo's trio was none other than British contemporary jazz legend Django Bates, albeit on a strange valve horn rather than piano. Those expecting a Bates performance may well have been disappointed, although his improvising on the horn was frequently remarkable and always dexterous. He even tried his hand at drums towards the end of the second set, with some more than passable free improvisation.
This was a strange old gig, and whilst the band seemed adept at a plethora of styles, from the broad and abstract to tightly controlled swing, their bizarre case of Attention Defecit Disorder left me a little perplexed. I sense that the main purpose of this gig was really to poke some fun at the jazz tradition by juxtaposing the very conventional with the very weird, and there was plenty of joking around, particularly from the maverick drummer. Some of this was light-hearted and effective, especially Bates' spontaneous and unpredictable bursts into song. Yet, the drummer's insistence on squeezing water bottles and banging on large plastic dustbins seemed unnecessary when his kit playing was creative and musical enough to stand on its own without resorting to gimmicks.
Some seem to cite Bill Evans as the chief influence on Norbo's playing, but I couldn't really detect this too much - I could hear much more of the European and Scandinavian traditions in his improvising than the American. His strange, stubby fingers didn't seem to restrict him too much, although his playing did sometimes match the stiffness of his posture, occasionally seeming more schematic and theoretical than emotional. Perhaps if the band had actually sustained even one of its good ideas to maximum impact, a little more feeling could have seeped through the veneer of slightly po-faced musical comedy. The encore, involving gargling water, certainly raised a few laughs, although mine may have been more in disgust than in amusement - it wasn't exactly pleasant! I'm glad I stuck it out though - Bates' horn playing genuinely thrilled me, and his use of electronic effects was intelligent too. The second set saw the band much more focussed and engaged, and there were moments I really enjoyed.
The Vanguard vs. The Old Guard
Why is it that veteran music journalists so often have to resort to petty dismissals of us poor, insignificant bloggers? It's one of Petridish's hot topics in The Guardian, and increasingly the likes of Krissi Murison in the NME and even Paul Morley have been chipping in (how ignorant and inexperienced we all are! It's like we're all spotty virgins or something...). Is it perhaps because they feel genuinely threatened by the fact that internet writers are helping to establish acts, and that traditional print journalism may be under threat? If so, they are merely contributing to their own downfall. Here's an interesting piece from Paul Morley:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,,2012799,00.html
Reading this, it's difficult to comprehend how Morley was ever at the forefront of a Zeitgeist. He now writes, and frequently speaks, in sentences clunkier and more verbose even than mine, and with a marked lack of critical acumen. There's no selective judgement on display in this piece - yes the likes of Franz Ferdinand, Arctic Monkeys et al have been overrated, but exactly who in any journalistic sphere has been portraying Adem as some sort of revolutionary master? He's a lovely chap who writes good songs, and there's nothing wrong with that. And if Morley was disappointed when he heard Spiritualized's 'Feel So Sad' (assuming he was still aware at that point), or even the Spiritualized of 'Ladies and Gentlemen...', I'm a bit baffled as to why, ditto the thrill that comes from the real passion and enthusiasm for music evident in the work of LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy.
Let's not forget that all the really over-hyped, mostly reactionary bands of the moment (The Kooks, Arctic Monkeys, Babyshambles, The (sinking) Feeling, The Hours et al) have all been zealously praised by print journos. Take a closer look at the acts I've found via the blogosphere - Arcade Fire, Burial, Benoit Pioulard, Subtle, Broken Social Scene, Beirut, Susanna and The Magical Orchestra, Bat For Lashes - the difference in judgement and breadth of interest immediately becomes apparent.
Marcello Carlin (an experienced and authoritative writer both in print and online) writes an interesting repost over at Church Of Me (http://www.cookham.blogspot.com), which is all the more fascinating because his subsequent piece on Judee Sill's 'Heart Food' is both passionate and sceptical, as all the best music writing should be.
On a completely different topic, it's of course not just music where amateur writing can prove illuminating. My old school friend Alex Stein maintains a very interesting blog called False Dichotomies http://www.falsedichotomies.com , with some carefully balanced explorations of Israel/Palestine in particular. I don't elect to write about politics much here, but I do try and keep informed! It strikes me that unhelpful schematic presentations of issues rarely help us understand them. My current bugbear is 'the conflict between national security and civil liberties'. The two aren't mutually exclusive - we can and should have both!
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,,2012799,00.html
Reading this, it's difficult to comprehend how Morley was ever at the forefront of a Zeitgeist. He now writes, and frequently speaks, in sentences clunkier and more verbose even than mine, and with a marked lack of critical acumen. There's no selective judgement on display in this piece - yes the likes of Franz Ferdinand, Arctic Monkeys et al have been overrated, but exactly who in any journalistic sphere has been portraying Adem as some sort of revolutionary master? He's a lovely chap who writes good songs, and there's nothing wrong with that. And if Morley was disappointed when he heard Spiritualized's 'Feel So Sad' (assuming he was still aware at that point), or even the Spiritualized of 'Ladies and Gentlemen...', I'm a bit baffled as to why, ditto the thrill that comes from the real passion and enthusiasm for music evident in the work of LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy.
Let's not forget that all the really over-hyped, mostly reactionary bands of the moment (The Kooks, Arctic Monkeys, Babyshambles, The (sinking) Feeling, The Hours et al) have all been zealously praised by print journos. Take a closer look at the acts I've found via the blogosphere - Arcade Fire, Burial, Benoit Pioulard, Subtle, Broken Social Scene, Beirut, Susanna and The Magical Orchestra, Bat For Lashes - the difference in judgement and breadth of interest immediately becomes apparent.
Marcello Carlin (an experienced and authoritative writer both in print and online) writes an interesting repost over at Church Of Me (http://www.cookham.blogspot.com), which is all the more fascinating because his subsequent piece on Judee Sill's 'Heart Food' is both passionate and sceptical, as all the best music writing should be.
On a completely different topic, it's of course not just music where amateur writing can prove illuminating. My old school friend Alex Stein maintains a very interesting blog called False Dichotomies http://www.falsedichotomies.com , with some carefully balanced explorations of Israel/Palestine in particular. I don't elect to write about politics much here, but I do try and keep informed! It strikes me that unhelpful schematic presentations of issues rarely help us understand them. My current bugbear is 'the conflict between national security and civil liberties'. The two aren't mutually exclusive - we can and should have both!
Friday, February 02, 2007
Triumph and Tribulation
Arcade Fire, Porchester Hall, 1st February 2007
Frankly, anyone wishing to instigate a premature backlash against this remarkable band really ought to think again. Of course, there's a level of anticipation for these five intimate London shows that could only come with feverish hype, and the critical consensus surrounding 'Funeral' naturally invites suspicion. Yet, whilst Arcade Fire have all the necessary indicators of a major band (a very 'big' sound, a strange mass of ideas which would be rendered chaotic by lesser groups, intriguing concepts and appealing lyrics), what really elevates them to another level entirely is the extraordinary rapport they have built with their audience. It's worth remembering that much of the buzz surrounding them came directly from the audience itself - through the internet, and word of mouth in general. I first wrote about 'Funeral' in late 2004 - it took the rest of the UK music press a good few months to notice its existence, let alone its quality.
Arriving at the venue early, and waiting for a friend, I observe the band of indie kids desperate to pick up a stray ticket by whatever means possible. The touts, however, have all been moved on by exceptionally zealous security, and the extra tickets released at 6pm appear to have already all been snapped up. Relief comes for these boys when none other than Win Butler should open the venue's backstage door. He asks me if I have a ticket, to which I reply that I do and I'm just waiting for a friend rather than loitering for a tout. We exchange friendly smiles and he moves on to the boys still waiting for what would appear to be impossible. When they say they don't have any tickets at all between them, Butler does something entirely unexpected - surreptitously beckoning them forward, he invites them through the backstage door and ushers them quickly into the venue. It's a wonderful, really quite touching moment (although these boys were admittedly very lucky to be there at the right time), and just the start of a gig these kids will surely never forget.
Opting to play gigs in grand old buildings entirely unused to hosting 11-piece grandiose rock bands does have its pitfalls of course. The sound is initially a little muddy, and it later transpires that the left hand stack of speakers has cut out completely. There are a few moments where Win and Regine particularly look a little uncomfortable with the onstage sound, and the whole affair did lack the seamless continuity of their first ever UK performance at King's College London in 2005, with a good deal more time spent on tuning and general faffing between songs.
There's also the more traditional problem of London audiences in general. It's clear from the outset that these are people who really want to be here, to the extent that they all managed to pick up tickets within two minutes of the onsale time. So why does it take so long for them to react to the extraordinary music being played? It's surely no radical surprise that these gigs are used to showcase upcoming new album 'The Neon Bible', but it really isn't until the band drop the more obvious choices from 'Funeral' towards the end of the show that things really get going. When they do, the results are revelatory. Hearing this mostly young crowd bellow back the complete lyrics to 'The Power Out' and 'Rebellion' gives further evidence that we are watching a genuinely significant rock band - one that can connect with people and inspire them in the way that The Smiths or Nirvana, whilst writing about dark and unusual subject matter. This leaves me with a troubling question at the end of the gig though: why are there no British bands achieving this right now?
All the niggles are really insubstantial though given how this band craft their sound, and how carefully they present themselves on stage. Dressed in matching uniform, constantly swapping instruments, bolstered by unconventional, driving string arrangements and French Horn, and often shouting out key lyrics in unison, this is a band every bit as exciting to watch as to hear. Of the new material, some of it chugs along reasonably predictably ('Black Mirror' particularly), albeit with a peculiarly gothic undertone and with energy and passion that elevate it above the indie conventions that underpin it. Some of the songs represent a real shift of emphasis, though. 'My Body Is A Cage' is outstanding, and with a hint of genuine soul that could have come directly from a James Carr or Percy Sledge. Unbelievably, 'The Well and The Lighthouse' succeeds in amplifying the more grandiose elements of the band's sound and there's even one song (possibly 'Antichrist Television Blues'?) that closely resembles Bruce Springsteen in full E Street Band pomp. No bad thing!
They squeeze in a handful of classics to keep people happy, in spite of turning down numerous requests for 'Tunnels'. There's a compelling rendition of 'Haiti', with Regine at her most theatrical and plenty of drum-thumping. Playing 'Cold Wind' (a limited edition single and the band's contribution to Six Feet Under) is a nice touch, and provides an ocean of subtlety amidst the thunderous clamour of much of the rest of the set. The medley of 'The Power Out' and 'Rebellion (Lies)', with Win Butler bursting into the crowd is simply electrifying.
They save the best for last though. After finishing with a typically intense new song, they process offstage with their instruments (including a giant upright bass), and a few minutes later emerge in the venue foyer, leading the crowd in an entirely acoustic rendition of 'Wake Up' (according to the NME, Butler had to scuffle with security to get this to happen, but I didn't manage to see this). The band then snake their way up the stairs and back into the hall whilst performing. We quickly follow them, and end up standing two feet away as they perform an acoustic take on The Clash's 'Guns Of Brixton' in the middle of the venue floor. It's a fascinating extension of the trick they developed in their early live shows, and there are very few other bands with the courage to really make something of their encores in this way.
It's rare to see a band so artistically successful, and so uncompromising in executing their ideas that are also so obviously unashamed to treat their audience to something special, and to make sure they go home satisfied. By descending literally to the same level as the crowd, the band emphasise the special relationship between themselves and their ardent followers. 'The Neon Bible' may or may not equal the achievement of its predecessor, but it promises to be at the very least a damn good album, and there's every sense now that this band can transcend temporal admiration to the next level - they may well turn out to be the key rock band of this time.
Frankly, anyone wishing to instigate a premature backlash against this remarkable band really ought to think again. Of course, there's a level of anticipation for these five intimate London shows that could only come with feverish hype, and the critical consensus surrounding 'Funeral' naturally invites suspicion. Yet, whilst Arcade Fire have all the necessary indicators of a major band (a very 'big' sound, a strange mass of ideas which would be rendered chaotic by lesser groups, intriguing concepts and appealing lyrics), what really elevates them to another level entirely is the extraordinary rapport they have built with their audience. It's worth remembering that much of the buzz surrounding them came directly from the audience itself - through the internet, and word of mouth in general. I first wrote about 'Funeral' in late 2004 - it took the rest of the UK music press a good few months to notice its existence, let alone its quality.
Arriving at the venue early, and waiting for a friend, I observe the band of indie kids desperate to pick up a stray ticket by whatever means possible. The touts, however, have all been moved on by exceptionally zealous security, and the extra tickets released at 6pm appear to have already all been snapped up. Relief comes for these boys when none other than Win Butler should open the venue's backstage door. He asks me if I have a ticket, to which I reply that I do and I'm just waiting for a friend rather than loitering for a tout. We exchange friendly smiles and he moves on to the boys still waiting for what would appear to be impossible. When they say they don't have any tickets at all between them, Butler does something entirely unexpected - surreptitously beckoning them forward, he invites them through the backstage door and ushers them quickly into the venue. It's a wonderful, really quite touching moment (although these boys were admittedly very lucky to be there at the right time), and just the start of a gig these kids will surely never forget.
Opting to play gigs in grand old buildings entirely unused to hosting 11-piece grandiose rock bands does have its pitfalls of course. The sound is initially a little muddy, and it later transpires that the left hand stack of speakers has cut out completely. There are a few moments where Win and Regine particularly look a little uncomfortable with the onstage sound, and the whole affair did lack the seamless continuity of their first ever UK performance at King's College London in 2005, with a good deal more time spent on tuning and general faffing between songs.
There's also the more traditional problem of London audiences in general. It's clear from the outset that these are people who really want to be here, to the extent that they all managed to pick up tickets within two minutes of the onsale time. So why does it take so long for them to react to the extraordinary music being played? It's surely no radical surprise that these gigs are used to showcase upcoming new album 'The Neon Bible', but it really isn't until the band drop the more obvious choices from 'Funeral' towards the end of the show that things really get going. When they do, the results are revelatory. Hearing this mostly young crowd bellow back the complete lyrics to 'The Power Out' and 'Rebellion' gives further evidence that we are watching a genuinely significant rock band - one that can connect with people and inspire them in the way that The Smiths or Nirvana, whilst writing about dark and unusual subject matter. This leaves me with a troubling question at the end of the gig though: why are there no British bands achieving this right now?
All the niggles are really insubstantial though given how this band craft their sound, and how carefully they present themselves on stage. Dressed in matching uniform, constantly swapping instruments, bolstered by unconventional, driving string arrangements and French Horn, and often shouting out key lyrics in unison, this is a band every bit as exciting to watch as to hear. Of the new material, some of it chugs along reasonably predictably ('Black Mirror' particularly), albeit with a peculiarly gothic undertone and with energy and passion that elevate it above the indie conventions that underpin it. Some of the songs represent a real shift of emphasis, though. 'My Body Is A Cage' is outstanding, and with a hint of genuine soul that could have come directly from a James Carr or Percy Sledge. Unbelievably, 'The Well and The Lighthouse' succeeds in amplifying the more grandiose elements of the band's sound and there's even one song (possibly 'Antichrist Television Blues'?) that closely resembles Bruce Springsteen in full E Street Band pomp. No bad thing!
They squeeze in a handful of classics to keep people happy, in spite of turning down numerous requests for 'Tunnels'. There's a compelling rendition of 'Haiti', with Regine at her most theatrical and plenty of drum-thumping. Playing 'Cold Wind' (a limited edition single and the band's contribution to Six Feet Under) is a nice touch, and provides an ocean of subtlety amidst the thunderous clamour of much of the rest of the set. The medley of 'The Power Out' and 'Rebellion (Lies)', with Win Butler bursting into the crowd is simply electrifying.
They save the best for last though. After finishing with a typically intense new song, they process offstage with their instruments (including a giant upright bass), and a few minutes later emerge in the venue foyer, leading the crowd in an entirely acoustic rendition of 'Wake Up' (according to the NME, Butler had to scuffle with security to get this to happen, but I didn't manage to see this). The band then snake their way up the stairs and back into the hall whilst performing. We quickly follow them, and end up standing two feet away as they perform an acoustic take on The Clash's 'Guns Of Brixton' in the middle of the venue floor. It's a fascinating extension of the trick they developed in their early live shows, and there are very few other bands with the courage to really make something of their encores in this way.
It's rare to see a band so artistically successful, and so uncompromising in executing their ideas that are also so obviously unashamed to treat their audience to something special, and to make sure they go home satisfied. By descending literally to the same level as the crowd, the band emphasise the special relationship between themselves and their ardent followers. 'The Neon Bible' may or may not equal the achievement of its predecessor, but it promises to be at the very least a damn good album, and there's every sense now that this band can transcend temporal admiration to the next level - they may well turn out to be the key rock band of this time.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Looking In My Rear View Mirror with One Eye On The Road Ahead
First up, a couple of albums that got lost from last year...
'Su-Ling' is the debut album from saxophonist and flautist Finn Peters, and yet another outstanding album from the Babel label (the forthcoming release from Mark Holub's extraordinary Led Bib also looks set to add to this expanding list). The overlapping networks of jazz musicians currently operating in London is making this a most exciting and inventive period for British jazz, and Peters can join the likes of Acoustic Ladyland, Polar Bear, Oriole, Tom Arthurs and Jim Hart's Gemini in successfully translating the fluidity of live performance to a superb recorded collection. It helps that he's assembled an outstanding band - with the effortlessly swinging rhythms and daring creativity of Tom Skinner on drums, the dependably solid Tom Herbert on bass and the Afrobeat-inspired lines from guitarist Dave Okumu, this is a bold and inventive rhythm section. Nick Ramm's rich chord voicings on piano also add depth and feeling. There's also a remarkably sensitive group dynamic at work, and there's a quiet intensity to the best tracks here. With inspiration also coming from more modern musical forms such as hip-hop, it's a particularly fascinating album rhythmically, and tracks such as 'Al Dar Gazelli' and 'Red Fish' seem to develop outwards from a basic rhythmic motif. The latter begins with an outrageously groovy figure from Skinner. Elsewhere, there is a distinctly exotic flavour to the minimalist title track, and 'N.R. Shackleton Goes To The Circus' is as vigorous and playful as its title suggests. Peters' blowing is muscular and committed, and the whole group seems zesty and joyful in its exposition of Peters' intelligent themes. This would have been very high in my 2006 albums list had I actually heard it in time!
I have no idea quite why it's taken so long for Destroyer's Rubies, one of the most universally acclaimed albums of 2006, to gain proper distribution in Britian. At last, it now seems to be readily available, and it's been well worth the wait. It's completely removed from the last Destroyer album (the peculiarly hypnotic, synth-heavy 'Your Blues'), and also a good deal more unconventional than Dan Bejar's work with the New Pornographers. Epic songs with dense, allusive, occasionally pompous lyrics are the order of the day here, and most of the structures are defiantly unpredictable. It's not as perplexing as the recent Swan Lake project though, and there are plenty of enthralling guitar lines and appealing melodies scattered through this ambitious work. Bejar's strangely nasal voice is increasingly Dylan-esque in phrasing and delivery, and frequently the words and music are forced together with increasingly extravagant verve. The stop-start nature of tracks like 'Rubies' and 'A Dangerous Woman Up To A Point' make them sound like potted symphonies for a rock ensemble, whilst the shorter songs add more comfortable and familiar pleasures. It makes for an effective balance, although the inclusion of a 21 minute bonus suite of improvised electronics, whilst showing Bejar's attempts at infinite variety, only makes me head for the stop button.
As for 2007, everyone's still talking about Klaxons of course, although for how long is something of a moot point. Actually, the album 'Myths Of The Near Future' has much to recommend it, even if the group look likely to become victims of their own success. Much has been made of there being a nascent 'nu-rave' scene, and whilst most of these taglines are spurious at best, there may just be something in this. There's something enticing in the day glo clothes and siren horns for those of us slightly too young to have experienced rave culture the first time round (and there's little doubt that there was a genuine subculture at this time, initiated in simple rebellion and later fuelled by anger at the Conservative government's Criminal Justice Bill). There's also a pan-ganerational appeal in Jamie Reynolds' intention to recreate the relentless rhythms and primal assault of dance music on live instruments, a goal also pursued by Hot Chip (albeit with results likely to be much more enduring). The band do sometimes achieve real results to match this admirable theory - witness the minimal, insistent and repetetive melodies of 'Isle Of Her', or the loose groove of 'Forgotten Works'.
Actually, 'Myths...' seems to fit perfectly with another current trend - in its drive to cross-pollenate between musical genres. With its heavily overdriven basslines and vocals set octaves apart, it may actually most closely resemble the work of the acclaimed US group TV On The Radio, although others have also suggested kinship with the modern psychedelia of Super Furry Animals. It works best when at its most melodic - and 'Golden Skans' and 'Gravity's Rainbow' are genuinely sophisticated, whilst 'Atlantis To Interzone' has retained its visceral thrill.
What's most surprising is that, whilst the singles still pack a punch, the group have achieved a remarkable consistency of quality and mood across an album that excites without outstaying its welcome. This is a band I've tried desperately hard to ignore, but there's definitely something compelling and powerful about this driving, restless music.
The problem comes with the lofty pretentions of the lyrics, probably more irritating than intriguing. It's probably harsh but fair to suggest that the bulk of these songs lack depth, and certainly lack emotional warmth or feeling. Like The Manics before them, Klaxons have digested influences well beyond the musical, and there are signs of Burroughs, Bukowski, and Pynchon here, all rather inadequately digested. Still, at least they can think outside the box, and if the media are not too fickle, maybe they will get at least a second chance to state their case.
When I first read about 'Wincing The Night Away', the third album from quirky US popsters The Shins, I was a little worried. It sounded like it would emphasise lush atmospherics over melodic invention. Well, the actual results are by no means bad, and this collection effectively pushes the band into new territories whilst retaining all the elements that made them such an interesting proposition in the first place. James Mercer's lyrics remain verbose and unwieldy, but he continues to marry them to tunes that, whilst enchanting, veer off at peculiar and unexpected tangents. 'Sealegs' and 'Black Wave' may push the band further into electronic territory than we've been accustomed too, but the opening 'Sleeping Lessons', with its Wilco-esque coda, and the single 'Phantom Limb' are as spirited and immediate as anything on 'Chutes Too Narrow'. Mercer's Anglophile tendencies are all too frequently mentioned, but whilst I couldn't really detect the Echo and The Bunnymen influence on 'Chutes Too Narrow' there's the obvious reference point of The Smiths here. Many of the melodies have a Morrissey-esque twang, and the introduction of programmed beats and strange effects on 'Sealegs' may owe something to 'How Soon Is Now?'. Best of all though is the immediately loveable 'Girl Sailor' and the lush, strangely moving delicacy of 'Red Rabbits'. It's another dependably concise collection of winning pop songs - nothing more, nothing less.
Those readers who heard my student radio show and have followed my progress since will know of my admiration for former Appendix Out mainman Alasdair Roberts. His solo debut was a remarkably unfashionable collection of traditional Scottish folk songs that had timeless spirit whilst also having the bewitching and mysterious quality of the unknown. 'Farewell Sorrow' melded borrowed fragments from the same tradition with Roberts' own work, and resulted in something more accessible that retained the distinctive magic of that excellent debut. The subsequent collaborations with Will Oldham on the Amalgamated Sons Of Rest project and the 'No Earthly Man' album (a surreal and thoroughly disorientating reinvention of folk music) made perfect sense.
Roberts now returns with the excellent 'Amber Gatherers', a record which of the three previous albums, most closely resembles 'Farewell Sorrow' in its merging of traditional concerns with original music. It features contributions from regular Roberts sidemen Gareth Eggie and Tom Crossley, but it's the addition of Teenage Fanclub's Gerard Love to the ensemble that really makes a substantial difference. The sound of this album is much brighter and warmer than any of Roberts' previous efforts (indeed, the gorgeous 'Where Twines The Path' could even be one of The Fannies' own acoustic adventures).
Roberts is not a technically gifted singer, but I simply adore his deceptively vulnerable tone, emphatic Scottish dialect and elaborate phrasing. His voice melds delightfully with the delicate pluckings of the arrangements, and the subtle percussive undercurrents at work in many of these songs support his delivery intelligently. As the title implies, there's a recurring theme about gathering amber (or 'Baltic Gold') running through many of the songs. Like recent efforts from The Decemberists or Midlake, there is a tacit assumption that listeners will be able to immerse themselves in this antiquated landscape. Yet, Roberts can also draw magic from the most basic of images, as on 'River Rhine' ('Where does the River Rhine rise, it rises in her eyes/When I look in her eyes, I see the River Rhine/I see the river widen; she sees the Clyde in mine'). His melodies here are also full of warmth and genuine feeling.
Despite being played entirely on acoustic instruments, the music here still achieves an alien and otherwordly atmosphere, perhaps achieved through the deployment of unconventional guitar tunings, which the CD inlay helpfully reveals. In fact, the bluesy 'I Have A Charm' as much resembles the desert heat of Ali Farka Toure's 'Savane' as it does some of the more rural American moments in the Will Oldham back catalogue.
'The Amber Gatherers' is another fascinating addition to what is already a remarkably consistent solo career. Roberts is currently supporting the much lauded Joanna Newsom in the UK. It's a controversial suggestion - but Roberts is every bit as auteurist and unusual as Newsom, and may just be the more natural and convincing of the two. He is acutely aware that moving forwards sometimes means looking back.
'Su-Ling' is the debut album from saxophonist and flautist Finn Peters, and yet another outstanding album from the Babel label (the forthcoming release from Mark Holub's extraordinary Led Bib also looks set to add to this expanding list). The overlapping networks of jazz musicians currently operating in London is making this a most exciting and inventive period for British jazz, and Peters can join the likes of Acoustic Ladyland, Polar Bear, Oriole, Tom Arthurs and Jim Hart's Gemini in successfully translating the fluidity of live performance to a superb recorded collection. It helps that he's assembled an outstanding band - with the effortlessly swinging rhythms and daring creativity of Tom Skinner on drums, the dependably solid Tom Herbert on bass and the Afrobeat-inspired lines from guitarist Dave Okumu, this is a bold and inventive rhythm section. Nick Ramm's rich chord voicings on piano also add depth and feeling. There's also a remarkably sensitive group dynamic at work, and there's a quiet intensity to the best tracks here. With inspiration also coming from more modern musical forms such as hip-hop, it's a particularly fascinating album rhythmically, and tracks such as 'Al Dar Gazelli' and 'Red Fish' seem to develop outwards from a basic rhythmic motif. The latter begins with an outrageously groovy figure from Skinner. Elsewhere, there is a distinctly exotic flavour to the minimalist title track, and 'N.R. Shackleton Goes To The Circus' is as vigorous and playful as its title suggests. Peters' blowing is muscular and committed, and the whole group seems zesty and joyful in its exposition of Peters' intelligent themes. This would have been very high in my 2006 albums list had I actually heard it in time!
I have no idea quite why it's taken so long for Destroyer's Rubies, one of the most universally acclaimed albums of 2006, to gain proper distribution in Britian. At last, it now seems to be readily available, and it's been well worth the wait. It's completely removed from the last Destroyer album (the peculiarly hypnotic, synth-heavy 'Your Blues'), and also a good deal more unconventional than Dan Bejar's work with the New Pornographers. Epic songs with dense, allusive, occasionally pompous lyrics are the order of the day here, and most of the structures are defiantly unpredictable. It's not as perplexing as the recent Swan Lake project though, and there are plenty of enthralling guitar lines and appealing melodies scattered through this ambitious work. Bejar's strangely nasal voice is increasingly Dylan-esque in phrasing and delivery, and frequently the words and music are forced together with increasingly extravagant verve. The stop-start nature of tracks like 'Rubies' and 'A Dangerous Woman Up To A Point' make them sound like potted symphonies for a rock ensemble, whilst the shorter songs add more comfortable and familiar pleasures. It makes for an effective balance, although the inclusion of a 21 minute bonus suite of improvised electronics, whilst showing Bejar's attempts at infinite variety, only makes me head for the stop button.
As for 2007, everyone's still talking about Klaxons of course, although for how long is something of a moot point. Actually, the album 'Myths Of The Near Future' has much to recommend it, even if the group look likely to become victims of their own success. Much has been made of there being a nascent 'nu-rave' scene, and whilst most of these taglines are spurious at best, there may just be something in this. There's something enticing in the day glo clothes and siren horns for those of us slightly too young to have experienced rave culture the first time round (and there's little doubt that there was a genuine subculture at this time, initiated in simple rebellion and later fuelled by anger at the Conservative government's Criminal Justice Bill). There's also a pan-ganerational appeal in Jamie Reynolds' intention to recreate the relentless rhythms and primal assault of dance music on live instruments, a goal also pursued by Hot Chip (albeit with results likely to be much more enduring). The band do sometimes achieve real results to match this admirable theory - witness the minimal, insistent and repetetive melodies of 'Isle Of Her', or the loose groove of 'Forgotten Works'.
Actually, 'Myths...' seems to fit perfectly with another current trend - in its drive to cross-pollenate between musical genres. With its heavily overdriven basslines and vocals set octaves apart, it may actually most closely resemble the work of the acclaimed US group TV On The Radio, although others have also suggested kinship with the modern psychedelia of Super Furry Animals. It works best when at its most melodic - and 'Golden Skans' and 'Gravity's Rainbow' are genuinely sophisticated, whilst 'Atlantis To Interzone' has retained its visceral thrill.
What's most surprising is that, whilst the singles still pack a punch, the group have achieved a remarkable consistency of quality and mood across an album that excites without outstaying its welcome. This is a band I've tried desperately hard to ignore, but there's definitely something compelling and powerful about this driving, restless music.
The problem comes with the lofty pretentions of the lyrics, probably more irritating than intriguing. It's probably harsh but fair to suggest that the bulk of these songs lack depth, and certainly lack emotional warmth or feeling. Like The Manics before them, Klaxons have digested influences well beyond the musical, and there are signs of Burroughs, Bukowski, and Pynchon here, all rather inadequately digested. Still, at least they can think outside the box, and if the media are not too fickle, maybe they will get at least a second chance to state their case.
When I first read about 'Wincing The Night Away', the third album from quirky US popsters The Shins, I was a little worried. It sounded like it would emphasise lush atmospherics over melodic invention. Well, the actual results are by no means bad, and this collection effectively pushes the band into new territories whilst retaining all the elements that made them such an interesting proposition in the first place. James Mercer's lyrics remain verbose and unwieldy, but he continues to marry them to tunes that, whilst enchanting, veer off at peculiar and unexpected tangents. 'Sealegs' and 'Black Wave' may push the band further into electronic territory than we've been accustomed too, but the opening 'Sleeping Lessons', with its Wilco-esque coda, and the single 'Phantom Limb' are as spirited and immediate as anything on 'Chutes Too Narrow'. Mercer's Anglophile tendencies are all too frequently mentioned, but whilst I couldn't really detect the Echo and The Bunnymen influence on 'Chutes Too Narrow' there's the obvious reference point of The Smiths here. Many of the melodies have a Morrissey-esque twang, and the introduction of programmed beats and strange effects on 'Sealegs' may owe something to 'How Soon Is Now?'. Best of all though is the immediately loveable 'Girl Sailor' and the lush, strangely moving delicacy of 'Red Rabbits'. It's another dependably concise collection of winning pop songs - nothing more, nothing less.
Those readers who heard my student radio show and have followed my progress since will know of my admiration for former Appendix Out mainman Alasdair Roberts. His solo debut was a remarkably unfashionable collection of traditional Scottish folk songs that had timeless spirit whilst also having the bewitching and mysterious quality of the unknown. 'Farewell Sorrow' melded borrowed fragments from the same tradition with Roberts' own work, and resulted in something more accessible that retained the distinctive magic of that excellent debut. The subsequent collaborations with Will Oldham on the Amalgamated Sons Of Rest project and the 'No Earthly Man' album (a surreal and thoroughly disorientating reinvention of folk music) made perfect sense.
Roberts now returns with the excellent 'Amber Gatherers', a record which of the three previous albums, most closely resembles 'Farewell Sorrow' in its merging of traditional concerns with original music. It features contributions from regular Roberts sidemen Gareth Eggie and Tom Crossley, but it's the addition of Teenage Fanclub's Gerard Love to the ensemble that really makes a substantial difference. The sound of this album is much brighter and warmer than any of Roberts' previous efforts (indeed, the gorgeous 'Where Twines The Path' could even be one of The Fannies' own acoustic adventures).
Roberts is not a technically gifted singer, but I simply adore his deceptively vulnerable tone, emphatic Scottish dialect and elaborate phrasing. His voice melds delightfully with the delicate pluckings of the arrangements, and the subtle percussive undercurrents at work in many of these songs support his delivery intelligently. As the title implies, there's a recurring theme about gathering amber (or 'Baltic Gold') running through many of the songs. Like recent efforts from The Decemberists or Midlake, there is a tacit assumption that listeners will be able to immerse themselves in this antiquated landscape. Yet, Roberts can also draw magic from the most basic of images, as on 'River Rhine' ('Where does the River Rhine rise, it rises in her eyes/When I look in her eyes, I see the River Rhine/I see the river widen; she sees the Clyde in mine'). His melodies here are also full of warmth and genuine feeling.
Despite being played entirely on acoustic instruments, the music here still achieves an alien and otherwordly atmosphere, perhaps achieved through the deployment of unconventional guitar tunings, which the CD inlay helpfully reveals. In fact, the bluesy 'I Have A Charm' as much resembles the desert heat of Ali Farka Toure's 'Savane' as it does some of the more rural American moments in the Will Oldham back catalogue.
'The Amber Gatherers' is another fascinating addition to what is already a remarkably consistent solo career. Roberts is currently supporting the much lauded Joanna Newsom in the UK. It's a controversial suggestion - but Roberts is every bit as auteurist and unusual as Newsom, and may just be the more natural and convincing of the two. He is acutely aware that moving forwards sometimes means looking back.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Buried Treasure #1
It's not the most original idea I've ever had but, partially because I've been writing almost exclusively about new music here, and also simply because I feel like it, I've decided to initiate a new occasional series focusing on lost or undiscovered classic albums. Here's the first.
Peter Gabriel - Us (Realworld, 1992)
Artists can sometimes never win. They are often lambasted for compromising, and paying too much attention to their core audience, as Coldplay were (perhaps justly) for resisting experimentalism on 'X&Y'. Sometimes there's a much thornier criticism though - that an artist has made a record purely for themselves, and if anyone else likes it, well, it's just a bonus. This is how many approached 'Us', Peter Gabriel's magnum opus dissecting human relationships, when it finally appeared six long years after the commercial triumph of 'So'.
It's certainly a difficult record, and perhaps there are parts of it that are easier to admire than like. Only two of the album's ten tracks are less than five minutes long. I was a mere eleven years old when the album first appeared, and much of its subtle ambience baffled me at that age. Had I purchased it on CD rather than cheapo cassette, I would surely have skipped to the more rhythmic and accessible singles - 'Steam', 'Digging In The Dirt', and 'Kiss That Frog' (the first basically a verbatim rewrite of 'Sledgehammer'), all three of which I completely adored.
Yet 'Us' is a defiantly mature record, rich in wisdom and experience, and something much greater than just a conventional 'breakup' record. The sensory, atmospheric flourishes to much of the music, the meticulous studio sheen and the sheer ambition of the arrangements serve to highlight its emotional and thematic complexity. It's a collection of songs that, challenging conventional wisdom, dare to suggest that as we grow older, we merely become more confused and perplexed by the intricacies of emotion and feeling. As such, it makes perfect sense that the accompanying music is frequently labyrinthine and difficult to interpret.
Thus far, 'Us' is probably the most coherent synthesis of Gabriel's preoccupations with Western production techniques, pop melody and the rhythms of music from around the globe, particularly from Africa. It's a much less schematic and less explicit synthesis than Paul Simon's 'Graceland', or even much of the recent solo work of David Byrne. For example, the combination of Irish intonations and harmony (as emphasised by Sinead O' Connor's longing backing vocals) with the elaborate rhythms of the Boubacar Faye Drummers on 'Come Talk To Me' makes for something mysterious and intoxicating. What a perfect backdrop all this is for Gabriel's extraordinary opening lyrics, compelling in their considered intensity: 'The wretched desert takes its form/The Jackal proud and tight/In search of you I feel my way/Through the slowest heaving night/Whatever fear invents, I swear it makes no sense/ I reach out through the border fence/Come down, come talk to me'. It has the beauty and poise of great poetry.
Elsewhere, Gabriel's imagery is unafraid to delve into the darkest of places. On 'Only Us', he sums up the album's themes most succinctly: '..I'm finding my way home from the great escape/The further on I go, oh the less I know/I can find only us breathing, only us sleeping, only us dreaming'. On 'Digging In The Dirt', he's actively searching for the unpleasant truths concealed beneath thick skin ('something in me, dark and sticky/all the time it's getting strong'). The opening lines of the gorgeous 'Blood Of Eden' are also extraordinary in their portrayal of a man finally understanding what he sees in the mirror's reflection. Reprieve comes only with the lite funk of 'Steam', a hugely enjoyable pop moment that perhaps sounds out of place, with the baptismal qualities of the vulnerable 'Washing Of The Water', and with the nostalgic regret of the closing 'Secret World'.
The album also benefits massively from its enormous cast list of musicians. Regular collaborators such as drummer Manu Katche, and technically adept bassist Tony 'Mr. Funk Fingers' Levin provide the crisp, almost mechanical rhythm section, whilst appearances from the likes of Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois and Malcolm Burn (as musicians rather than producers), enhance the dense and compelling mood. The contributions of legendary Meters guitarist Leo Nocentelli on 'Steam' and 'Digging In The Dirt' add real spirited groove too. The arrangements are audacious in the extreme - 'Digging In The Dirt' veers through multiple personalities, all the time retaining its relentless metronomic backbeat, whilst 'Kiss That Frog' places the rhythmic emphasis in a place completely unfamiliar to most western ears. What a shame that the version released as a single was plodding and conventional by comparison.
Whilst it's easy to see why the ethereal, otherworldly atmospherics made listeners feel detached from the experience, in retrospect, it's also arguable that this album had an enormous influence. It's perhaps no coincidence that Daniel Lanois and Malcolm Burn would use similar tactics as producers on records as vital as Bob Dylan's 'Time Out Of Mind' and three superb albums from Emmylou Harris ('Wrecking Ball', 'Red Dirt Girl' and, most recently, 'Stumble Into Grace'). They were lucky to be working with artists who could reach similar lyrical depth as Gabriel explored on this candid, challenging and powerful masterpiece.
It's clear now too that 'Us' marked a point of transition in Gabriel's career, much as 'The Royal Scam' marked out a seismic shift for Steely Dan in the mid-70s. After that album, Fagen and Becker became obsessed with the quest for perfection, gradually reducing the input of their always superb groups of session players, and eventually emerging with the total precision of 'Gaucho' in 1980. Gabriel's obsession with sound and studio techniques probably began as early as his time with Genesis, but there was always an organic quality to the best of his early solo albums. He would take more than ten years to produce a successor to 'Us', the meticulously crafted, if less consistent 'Up'. Rumour has it that another album will emerge this year through an online only distribution process - but Gabriel doesn't any longer have a good track record on meeting self-imposed deadlines!
Peter Gabriel - Us (Realworld, 1992)
Artists can sometimes never win. They are often lambasted for compromising, and paying too much attention to their core audience, as Coldplay were (perhaps justly) for resisting experimentalism on 'X&Y'. Sometimes there's a much thornier criticism though - that an artist has made a record purely for themselves, and if anyone else likes it, well, it's just a bonus. This is how many approached 'Us', Peter Gabriel's magnum opus dissecting human relationships, when it finally appeared six long years after the commercial triumph of 'So'.
It's certainly a difficult record, and perhaps there are parts of it that are easier to admire than like. Only two of the album's ten tracks are less than five minutes long. I was a mere eleven years old when the album first appeared, and much of its subtle ambience baffled me at that age. Had I purchased it on CD rather than cheapo cassette, I would surely have skipped to the more rhythmic and accessible singles - 'Steam', 'Digging In The Dirt', and 'Kiss That Frog' (the first basically a verbatim rewrite of 'Sledgehammer'), all three of which I completely adored.
Yet 'Us' is a defiantly mature record, rich in wisdom and experience, and something much greater than just a conventional 'breakup' record. The sensory, atmospheric flourishes to much of the music, the meticulous studio sheen and the sheer ambition of the arrangements serve to highlight its emotional and thematic complexity. It's a collection of songs that, challenging conventional wisdom, dare to suggest that as we grow older, we merely become more confused and perplexed by the intricacies of emotion and feeling. As such, it makes perfect sense that the accompanying music is frequently labyrinthine and difficult to interpret.
Thus far, 'Us' is probably the most coherent synthesis of Gabriel's preoccupations with Western production techniques, pop melody and the rhythms of music from around the globe, particularly from Africa. It's a much less schematic and less explicit synthesis than Paul Simon's 'Graceland', or even much of the recent solo work of David Byrne. For example, the combination of Irish intonations and harmony (as emphasised by Sinead O' Connor's longing backing vocals) with the elaborate rhythms of the Boubacar Faye Drummers on 'Come Talk To Me' makes for something mysterious and intoxicating. What a perfect backdrop all this is for Gabriel's extraordinary opening lyrics, compelling in their considered intensity: 'The wretched desert takes its form/The Jackal proud and tight/In search of you I feel my way/Through the slowest heaving night/Whatever fear invents, I swear it makes no sense/ I reach out through the border fence/Come down, come talk to me'. It has the beauty and poise of great poetry.
Elsewhere, Gabriel's imagery is unafraid to delve into the darkest of places. On 'Only Us', he sums up the album's themes most succinctly: '..I'm finding my way home from the great escape/The further on I go, oh the less I know/I can find only us breathing, only us sleeping, only us dreaming'. On 'Digging In The Dirt', he's actively searching for the unpleasant truths concealed beneath thick skin ('something in me, dark and sticky/all the time it's getting strong'). The opening lines of the gorgeous 'Blood Of Eden' are also extraordinary in their portrayal of a man finally understanding what he sees in the mirror's reflection. Reprieve comes only with the lite funk of 'Steam', a hugely enjoyable pop moment that perhaps sounds out of place, with the baptismal qualities of the vulnerable 'Washing Of The Water', and with the nostalgic regret of the closing 'Secret World'.
The album also benefits massively from its enormous cast list of musicians. Regular collaborators such as drummer Manu Katche, and technically adept bassist Tony 'Mr. Funk Fingers' Levin provide the crisp, almost mechanical rhythm section, whilst appearances from the likes of Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois and Malcolm Burn (as musicians rather than producers), enhance the dense and compelling mood. The contributions of legendary Meters guitarist Leo Nocentelli on 'Steam' and 'Digging In The Dirt' add real spirited groove too. The arrangements are audacious in the extreme - 'Digging In The Dirt' veers through multiple personalities, all the time retaining its relentless metronomic backbeat, whilst 'Kiss That Frog' places the rhythmic emphasis in a place completely unfamiliar to most western ears. What a shame that the version released as a single was plodding and conventional by comparison.
Whilst it's easy to see why the ethereal, otherworldly atmospherics made listeners feel detached from the experience, in retrospect, it's also arguable that this album had an enormous influence. It's perhaps no coincidence that Daniel Lanois and Malcolm Burn would use similar tactics as producers on records as vital as Bob Dylan's 'Time Out Of Mind' and three superb albums from Emmylou Harris ('Wrecking Ball', 'Red Dirt Girl' and, most recently, 'Stumble Into Grace'). They were lucky to be working with artists who could reach similar lyrical depth as Gabriel explored on this candid, challenging and powerful masterpiece.
It's clear now too that 'Us' marked a point of transition in Gabriel's career, much as 'The Royal Scam' marked out a seismic shift for Steely Dan in the mid-70s. After that album, Fagen and Becker became obsessed with the quest for perfection, gradually reducing the input of their always superb groups of session players, and eventually emerging with the total precision of 'Gaucho' in 1980. Gabriel's obsession with sound and studio techniques probably began as early as his time with Genesis, but there was always an organic quality to the best of his early solo albums. He would take more than ten years to produce a successor to 'Us', the meticulously crafted, if less consistent 'Up'. Rumour has it that another album will emerge this year through an online only distribution process - but Gabriel doesn't any longer have a good track record on meeting self-imposed deadlines!
Thursday, January 25, 2007
The Urban Question
No, it's not a post about Joss Stone (heaven forbid), but rather about two of the year's first major releases, both of which seem to focus thematically on modern London. 'A Weekend In The City' is the second album from the much lauded Bloc Party, and it seems that just as I've finally decided that they may just be worth all the column inches, something of an editorial backlash seems to have been instigated. Sometimes I simply don't understand the logic of the music press. Less than a couple of years ago, fashion dictated that the emphasis on rhythm and sound over melody be portrayed as some kind of vanguard, and BP were the leading lights of that movement. The reviews of 'A Weekend In The City' published so far, lukewarm rather than negative, have now highlighted that Kele Okereke doesn't deal much in melodic themes or hooks. All this despite the fact that 'A Weekend In The City' is considerably more accessible and conventional than its predecessor. Whilst it's true that Okereke's vocal range remains limited to about half an octave, he seems to have crafted more memorable songs for this collection.
In fact, the band seem to be pressing all the necessary buttons for their stadium ambitions here, whilst retaining the quirky, most characteristic elements of their original sound (estuary English, off-kilter drumming, crunchy guitars). This time using Jacknife Lee as producer over the more fashionable Paul Epworth, the rough edges are smoothed over and everything becomes crisper and more precise. Yet, in Bloc Party's hands, the big, rousing tactics work remarkably well. The more sensitive songs here have a genuine emotional impact, rather than the manipulative faux-anthemic 'qualities' of a Snow Patrol or a Coldplay. Towards the end of the record, there are three songs with grand ambitions that linger in the mind most effectively. 'Kreuzberg' is a grandiose potted melodrama, complete with chiming guitars and big drums. 'I Still Remember', with its evocative and haunting adolescent recollections (possibly homosexual?) is an intriguing and striking song, and a clear future single. 'Sunday' is slower and more morose, but also eerie and haunting, demonstrating the band's uncanny ability here to meld bombast and subtlety.
The first part of the album seems to deal more explicitly with the London theme - covering issues such as racial tension and the lack of a real sense of belonging. Okereke gave a completely fascinating and riveting interview to The Guardian last month that finally convinced me of his value as a frontman - he's an intriguing and articulate presence. In light of all this, it seems a shame that the record company appeared to have vetoed the inclusion of a track called 'This Is England', which apparently began with recollections of a tense nightbus journey before examining the recent homophobic murder on such a bus. It sounded provocative and daring, and its absence from the final running order is worth noting. Still, tracks like 'Where Is Home?' and 'Waiting For The 7.18' are both mysterious and compelling, all very much helped by a greater emphasis on clarity in the vocals across the whole album. Whilst Okereke's yelps on 'Silent Alarm' often rendered the lyrics incomprehensible, here they are in the main intelligible and completely central to the record's achievement. A Weekend In The City' is a bold, expansive record, but as it turns out, a Bloc Party album with crossover ambitions is a big and beautiful beast.
Damon Albarn has come in for attacks from all corners at various stages of his career - for being a 'mockney', for penning too many songs with 'oom-pah' rhythms, for misappropriating gospel on 'Tender', or hip hop on 'On Your Own'. Whilst in retrospect it's all too easy to emphasise Blur's inconsistencies, it's clear that Albarn was always an outstanding pop songwriter, and in particular a master of the ballad. He has since dabbled in much more esoteric territory, indulging his every whim, with surprisingly dependable levels of success. His latest project, The Good, The Bad and The Queen, is a supergroup with former Clash bassist Paul Simonon, the outstanding Nigerian drummer Tony Allen, and keyboardist/guitarist Simon Tong. The resulting album is as sonically inventive as one might hope, although Allen is not involved as much as he should be. When his drumming is present, the rhythmic emphasis is entirely unpredictable and exciting, and the music takes on a decidedly unusual edge. There's a peculiarly haunting atmosphere throughout, effectively conjuring the sensation of streetlights, damp nights and desolate highways. Albarn's melodies have become more vulnerable and less extravagant as a result of this, and his singing is mostly delicate and unobtrusive.
Whilst the album purports to be about West London, and many have presented it as the dark flipside of the Parklife coin, there's also the lingering spectres of terror, war and, particularly, Iraq. Unfortunately, as on the otherwise splendid 'Think Tank', these appear as abstract forces and are never particularly well fleshed out. Albarn's lyrics have become elusive and frustrating, although he mercifully doesn't quite resort to the Thom Yorke tactic of moaning about everything and never presenting a solution. There's something more substantial here than that, but there's the sense that Albarn feels confused by the gravitas of the global situation, and he's not quite able to articulate these feelings successfully.
Still, it's merely a niggling criticism when so much of this album sounds so assured and enchanting. The sound of the entire record has been carefully planned and cleverly executed, from the rustic pluckings of the opening acoustic guitar to the noisy, extended coda of the closing title track. It moves audaciously from the plaintive to the strident, and the only musical quibble is the slight over-reliance on Albarn's own piano playing, which is slightly heavy-handed and, consequentially, a bit plinky plonk. Still, the highlights here ('History Song', '80s Life', 'A Soldier's Tale' and 'Green Fields') can take their place among Albarn's most considered and affecting works.
In fact, the band seem to be pressing all the necessary buttons for their stadium ambitions here, whilst retaining the quirky, most characteristic elements of their original sound (estuary English, off-kilter drumming, crunchy guitars). This time using Jacknife Lee as producer over the more fashionable Paul Epworth, the rough edges are smoothed over and everything becomes crisper and more precise. Yet, in Bloc Party's hands, the big, rousing tactics work remarkably well. The more sensitive songs here have a genuine emotional impact, rather than the manipulative faux-anthemic 'qualities' of a Snow Patrol or a Coldplay. Towards the end of the record, there are three songs with grand ambitions that linger in the mind most effectively. 'Kreuzberg' is a grandiose potted melodrama, complete with chiming guitars and big drums. 'I Still Remember', with its evocative and haunting adolescent recollections (possibly homosexual?) is an intriguing and striking song, and a clear future single. 'Sunday' is slower and more morose, but also eerie and haunting, demonstrating the band's uncanny ability here to meld bombast and subtlety.
The first part of the album seems to deal more explicitly with the London theme - covering issues such as racial tension and the lack of a real sense of belonging. Okereke gave a completely fascinating and riveting interview to The Guardian last month that finally convinced me of his value as a frontman - he's an intriguing and articulate presence. In light of all this, it seems a shame that the record company appeared to have vetoed the inclusion of a track called 'This Is England', which apparently began with recollections of a tense nightbus journey before examining the recent homophobic murder on such a bus. It sounded provocative and daring, and its absence from the final running order is worth noting. Still, tracks like 'Where Is Home?' and 'Waiting For The 7.18' are both mysterious and compelling, all very much helped by a greater emphasis on clarity in the vocals across the whole album. Whilst Okereke's yelps on 'Silent Alarm' often rendered the lyrics incomprehensible, here they are in the main intelligible and completely central to the record's achievement. A Weekend In The City' is a bold, expansive record, but as it turns out, a Bloc Party album with crossover ambitions is a big and beautiful beast.
Damon Albarn has come in for attacks from all corners at various stages of his career - for being a 'mockney', for penning too many songs with 'oom-pah' rhythms, for misappropriating gospel on 'Tender', or hip hop on 'On Your Own'. Whilst in retrospect it's all too easy to emphasise Blur's inconsistencies, it's clear that Albarn was always an outstanding pop songwriter, and in particular a master of the ballad. He has since dabbled in much more esoteric territory, indulging his every whim, with surprisingly dependable levels of success. His latest project, The Good, The Bad and The Queen, is a supergroup with former Clash bassist Paul Simonon, the outstanding Nigerian drummer Tony Allen, and keyboardist/guitarist Simon Tong. The resulting album is as sonically inventive as one might hope, although Allen is not involved as much as he should be. When his drumming is present, the rhythmic emphasis is entirely unpredictable and exciting, and the music takes on a decidedly unusual edge. There's a peculiarly haunting atmosphere throughout, effectively conjuring the sensation of streetlights, damp nights and desolate highways. Albarn's melodies have become more vulnerable and less extravagant as a result of this, and his singing is mostly delicate and unobtrusive.
Whilst the album purports to be about West London, and many have presented it as the dark flipside of the Parklife coin, there's also the lingering spectres of terror, war and, particularly, Iraq. Unfortunately, as on the otherwise splendid 'Think Tank', these appear as abstract forces and are never particularly well fleshed out. Albarn's lyrics have become elusive and frustrating, although he mercifully doesn't quite resort to the Thom Yorke tactic of moaning about everything and never presenting a solution. There's something more substantial here than that, but there's the sense that Albarn feels confused by the gravitas of the global situation, and he's not quite able to articulate these feelings successfully.
Still, it's merely a niggling criticism when so much of this album sounds so assured and enchanting. The sound of the entire record has been carefully planned and cleverly executed, from the rustic pluckings of the opening acoustic guitar to the noisy, extended coda of the closing title track. It moves audaciously from the plaintive to the strident, and the only musical quibble is the slight over-reliance on Albarn's own piano playing, which is slightly heavy-handed and, consequentially, a bit plinky plonk. Still, the highlights here ('History Song', '80s Life', 'A Soldier's Tale' and 'Green Fields') can take their place among Albarn's most considered and affecting works.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Bjork
There are all sorts of half confirmed rumours going around about the next Bjork album. I take most of these with a pinch of salt as 'Medulla' was supposed to be an entirely vocal album, and it didn't quite fulfil that brief, excellent though it was. Still, if the new record really does feature a collaboration with Anthony Hegarty as well as appearances from Konono No. 1, masterful kora player Toumani Diabate and production from Timbaland, it could really be something quite unexpected and special!
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Bottomless Swamp
Chris Potter's Underground, Pizza Express Jazz Club, Mon 15th Jan 2007
Chris Potter is a musician now really starting to find his own space. His phenomenal playing with the Dave Holland Quintet lead me to seek out his own 'Underground' album from last year (which I managed to find for just £1.49 in an Oxfam shop - some people are just foolish in what they decide to give away). The band is a quartet without a bass player, but no less groovy for that. In fact, the sound the group create shakes the relatively intimate Pizza Express club for all it's worth.
Opening with the superbly titled 'Next Best Western' ('it's a long story we don't need to go into now', says Potter evasively), the band waste no time and immediately hit their stride, the sound dominated by Nate Smith's crisp and ebullient drumming, full of unusual accents and unorthodox interplay between snare and hi-hat. Potter's playing is mostly loud and full, he plays a lot of notes, but mostly in a dynamic and musical way. Most impressive is his sheer physical ability - it's hard to imagine how he hits such levels of intensity in his solos in the first place, let alone how he sustains them for anything up to fifteen minutes at a time.
It initially seemed like there might be problems. Potter can blow so hard for so long that it looked like the rest of the group might not get a look in. Actually, some of the gig's most exciting and unpredictable moments came when Potter retreated to the back of the stage and allowed Smith, keyboardist Craig Taborn and guitarist Adam Rodgers to trade playful and concise phrases. Taborn and Rodgers play minimally, but in doing so add much to the group's sound - the style is taut and percussive, relying more on rhythm and phrasing than carefully voiced chords.
It would also have been a problem had the group settled in to their mightily impressive heavy swamp groove for the entire set. Mercifully, two new compositions, both calm and enthralling, showed the increasing breadth of Potter's vision as a writer. The concentration and energy of the players was first rate throughout, the icing on the cake being a spectacularly dexterous and innovative drum solo from Smith. Smith is not just a joy to hear, but fascinating to watch, his posture peculiar, his body constantly twitching and moving in tandem with his rhythms.
A consistently invigorating and entertaining performance, this has already set the standard for gigs in 2007.
Chris Potter is a musician now really starting to find his own space. His phenomenal playing with the Dave Holland Quintet lead me to seek out his own 'Underground' album from last year (which I managed to find for just £1.49 in an Oxfam shop - some people are just foolish in what they decide to give away). The band is a quartet without a bass player, but no less groovy for that. In fact, the sound the group create shakes the relatively intimate Pizza Express club for all it's worth.
Opening with the superbly titled 'Next Best Western' ('it's a long story we don't need to go into now', says Potter evasively), the band waste no time and immediately hit their stride, the sound dominated by Nate Smith's crisp and ebullient drumming, full of unusual accents and unorthodox interplay between snare and hi-hat. Potter's playing is mostly loud and full, he plays a lot of notes, but mostly in a dynamic and musical way. Most impressive is his sheer physical ability - it's hard to imagine how he hits such levels of intensity in his solos in the first place, let alone how he sustains them for anything up to fifteen minutes at a time.
It initially seemed like there might be problems. Potter can blow so hard for so long that it looked like the rest of the group might not get a look in. Actually, some of the gig's most exciting and unpredictable moments came when Potter retreated to the back of the stage and allowed Smith, keyboardist Craig Taborn and guitarist Adam Rodgers to trade playful and concise phrases. Taborn and Rodgers play minimally, but in doing so add much to the group's sound - the style is taut and percussive, relying more on rhythm and phrasing than carefully voiced chords.
It would also have been a problem had the group settled in to their mightily impressive heavy swamp groove for the entire set. Mercifully, two new compositions, both calm and enthralling, showed the increasing breadth of Potter's vision as a writer. The concentration and energy of the players was first rate throughout, the icing on the cake being a spectacularly dexterous and innovative drum solo from Smith. Smith is not just a joy to hear, but fascinating to watch, his posture peculiar, his body constantly twitching and moving in tandem with his rhythms.
A consistently invigorating and entertaining performance, this has already set the standard for gigs in 2007.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
An Appreciation of Alice Coltrane
I don't normally post tributes or obituaries on here (not even for pivotal figures such as James Brown), yet somehow I feel compelled to write something about Alice Coltrane. I think this is mainly because she spent most of her life condemned by critics either, entirely unjustly, as a Yoko Ono figure trading incomprehensible work on the legacy of her late husband or simply as an inferior musician worthlessly attempting to continue propagating his concerns. That she was in fact neither of these things has been asserted by a handful of excellent writers, perhaps most notably David Toop, who has written perceptively about her masterpiece, 1972's 'Universal Consciousness'. It has really only been during the past couple of years, with the reissue of her Impulse and Atlantic albums, a fascinating interview in The Wire magazine (one of the magazine's finest issues) and with the 2004 comeback 'Translinear Light', that her own outstanding contribution has really been recognised.
Alice McLeod actually began her musical training remarkably early, at the age of seven, and had become an able, expressive bepop pianist in the manner of Bud Powell well before she met John Coltrane. She performed with Terry Gibbs, Kenny Burrell and, perhaps most significantly, Yusuf Lateef in the early 60s. Her personal and professional union with Coltrane would completely revolutionise her style, however, as she followed her husband creatively into fiery, free-form territory. Yet her playing style was always informed by earlier developments, particularly the modal techniques pioneered by Bill Evans and extended in Coltrane's earlier works. Although there are doubters who understimate her contribution to Coltrane's later music (she doesn't appear on significant studio works such as 'Ascencion'), it's worth emphasising that 'The Olatunji Concert', now readily available on Impulse CD, is considered one of the finest live recordings of free improvisation in the history of the music.
Following John Coltrane's tragically premature death, she produced a series of albums for the Impulse label ('A Montastic Trio', 'Huntinton Ashram Monastery', 'Ptah The El Daoud', 'Journey In Satchidananda', 'Universal Consciousness', 'World Galaxy' and 'Lord Of Lords') that showed her consistent imagination and inspiration, but which mostly baffled the critics of the time. This extraordinary, visionary and exciting music was informed by a vast array of influences, not purely musical but also spiritual. The connection with gospel and the blues ran deep, and as a result the music sounded intense and fervent. Yet Coltrane also admired the Eastern religions, particularly the acts of meditation and spiritual contemplation. The earlier albums have a fiery, furious swing, frequently dominated by the juxtaposition of Rashied Ali's relentless drumming with Coltrane's full, powerful chord voicings on the piano. Where Pharoah Sanders also featured, the results were even more muscular. It was a superb ensemble, revelling in the energy and joy of musical discovery. She had already begun to push herself further in intriguing new directions though, and the deployment of the harp was more than mere novelty - in her hands it became as expressive an improvisatory medium as the piano.
By 'Universal Consciousness', she had moved well away from conventional compositional structure and had begun to explore looser, mostly free styles of playing. Yet the music on this great achievement is neither confounding nor indulgent, but rather characterised by a constant conflict between turblulence and tranquility. The notion that there was a 'universal consciousness' common to all spiritual belief is an idealistic but appealing notion which Coltrane portrayed with quiet dignity through a purely musical language. She would continue to investigate these ideas to their full extent across the next two records, increasingly incorporating strings (still a feature entirely alien to most jazz of the period) to expand the textures. 'Lord Of Lords' (still criminally unavailable on CD - I've seen original vinyl copies on sale for £70+ with that value sure to increase now) even contained her interpretation Stravinsky's 'The Firebird', prefiguring the closer relations between jazz and strict composition that would develop further during the 70s and 80s, especially in Europe. The version of 'A Love Supreme' on 'World Galaxy' neatly encapsulates the complexity of her musical relationship with her husband's legacy - it was a radical re-interpretation, retaining the spirit of the original recording, but with a substance entirely of her own making.
The Atlantic albums of the 70s are less consistent, and frequently more challenging, but they are worth pursuing as they show her reluctance to stand still. Mostly abandoning the piano in favour of a variety of organs, she continued to investigate devotional concerns through her music, and a passionate intensity remained intact. Founding her own religious centre in 1975, much of the rest of her life would be devoted largely to spiritual works and personal retreat.
She continued to perform, albeit infrequently, and judging by the standard of 2004's excellent comeback 'Translinear Light', had lost none of her dynamism or energy. Beginning to perform more regularly last year, and mid-way through recording what appeared to be an intensely serious and significant new work, her passing was unexpected and unbearably badly timed. I plan to listen to all these albums again this week, and it shall no doubt be poignant, but they are the kind of works which intimate new facets and dimensions with every play, so the experience will also be edifying and inspirational. The combination of the spiritual and the musical is difficult to achieve without becoming vulnerable to accusations of pretension, and Coltrane suffered from this during her career. Yet pretension means pretending to be something you are not - my sense of Alice Coltrane is that she was genuinely serious-minded, committed and, yes, perhaps divinely inspired.
Alice McLeod actually began her musical training remarkably early, at the age of seven, and had become an able, expressive bepop pianist in the manner of Bud Powell well before she met John Coltrane. She performed with Terry Gibbs, Kenny Burrell and, perhaps most significantly, Yusuf Lateef in the early 60s. Her personal and professional union with Coltrane would completely revolutionise her style, however, as she followed her husband creatively into fiery, free-form territory. Yet her playing style was always informed by earlier developments, particularly the modal techniques pioneered by Bill Evans and extended in Coltrane's earlier works. Although there are doubters who understimate her contribution to Coltrane's later music (she doesn't appear on significant studio works such as 'Ascencion'), it's worth emphasising that 'The Olatunji Concert', now readily available on Impulse CD, is considered one of the finest live recordings of free improvisation in the history of the music.
Following John Coltrane's tragically premature death, she produced a series of albums for the Impulse label ('A Montastic Trio', 'Huntinton Ashram Monastery', 'Ptah The El Daoud', 'Journey In Satchidananda', 'Universal Consciousness', 'World Galaxy' and 'Lord Of Lords') that showed her consistent imagination and inspiration, but which mostly baffled the critics of the time. This extraordinary, visionary and exciting music was informed by a vast array of influences, not purely musical but also spiritual. The connection with gospel and the blues ran deep, and as a result the music sounded intense and fervent. Yet Coltrane also admired the Eastern religions, particularly the acts of meditation and spiritual contemplation. The earlier albums have a fiery, furious swing, frequently dominated by the juxtaposition of Rashied Ali's relentless drumming with Coltrane's full, powerful chord voicings on the piano. Where Pharoah Sanders also featured, the results were even more muscular. It was a superb ensemble, revelling in the energy and joy of musical discovery. She had already begun to push herself further in intriguing new directions though, and the deployment of the harp was more than mere novelty - in her hands it became as expressive an improvisatory medium as the piano.
By 'Universal Consciousness', she had moved well away from conventional compositional structure and had begun to explore looser, mostly free styles of playing. Yet the music on this great achievement is neither confounding nor indulgent, but rather characterised by a constant conflict between turblulence and tranquility. The notion that there was a 'universal consciousness' common to all spiritual belief is an idealistic but appealing notion which Coltrane portrayed with quiet dignity through a purely musical language. She would continue to investigate these ideas to their full extent across the next two records, increasingly incorporating strings (still a feature entirely alien to most jazz of the period) to expand the textures. 'Lord Of Lords' (still criminally unavailable on CD - I've seen original vinyl copies on sale for £70+ with that value sure to increase now) even contained her interpretation Stravinsky's 'The Firebird', prefiguring the closer relations between jazz and strict composition that would develop further during the 70s and 80s, especially in Europe. The version of 'A Love Supreme' on 'World Galaxy' neatly encapsulates the complexity of her musical relationship with her husband's legacy - it was a radical re-interpretation, retaining the spirit of the original recording, but with a substance entirely of her own making.
The Atlantic albums of the 70s are less consistent, and frequently more challenging, but they are worth pursuing as they show her reluctance to stand still. Mostly abandoning the piano in favour of a variety of organs, she continued to investigate devotional concerns through her music, and a passionate intensity remained intact. Founding her own religious centre in 1975, much of the rest of her life would be devoted largely to spiritual works and personal retreat.
She continued to perform, albeit infrequently, and judging by the standard of 2004's excellent comeback 'Translinear Light', had lost none of her dynamism or energy. Beginning to perform more regularly last year, and mid-way through recording what appeared to be an intensely serious and significant new work, her passing was unexpected and unbearably badly timed. I plan to listen to all these albums again this week, and it shall no doubt be poignant, but they are the kind of works which intimate new facets and dimensions with every play, so the experience will also be edifying and inspirational. The combination of the spiritual and the musical is difficult to achieve without becoming vulnerable to accusations of pretension, and Coltrane suffered from this during her career. Yet pretension means pretending to be something you are not - my sense of Alice Coltrane is that she was genuinely serious-minded, committed and, yes, perhaps divinely inspired.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Update
To their credit, the NME have now published the news of Alice Coltrane's death online (albeit under the predictable header - 'John Coltrane's widow dies'). Astonishingly, they credit Billboard not for the news itself, but for factual details of her discography. Are NME's journalists so ignorant of musical history that they need to credit US industry publications with information very much in the public domain, and which should be standard knowledge for any journalist called upon to report on these matters?
Sad News
The world of jazz has suffered a double devastating loss this weekend, with the deaths of Michael Brecker and Alice Coltrane. The influence of Brecker's technique is hard to overstate and he will be much missed by musicians and enthusiasts alike. Alice Coltrane's death is particularly hard to take - she had only recently started to receive due credit for her substantial body of work, and had spent too much of her life in the shadow of her husband's towering legacy. Only recently performing live again, she was due to appear at the Barbican in London in April, a concert I had been anticipating keenly. It's tragic news. I'll write a full appreciation of her as soon as I have time. Why are no major news outlets in the UK reporting this (even sites primarily dedicated to music)? The Alice Coltrane news came from Pitchfork, an American website that barely otherwise ever even mentions jazz! Maybe I'm too unrealistic in my expectations of the media, but it pains me that Kylie's outbreak of flu is considered more significant.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Sensible Spontaneity
Evan Parker Quartet, The Vortex, London
I can't admit to having much of a taste for, or even much knowledge of, completely free jazz. This comes in spite of (or perhaps because of) being a trained jazz musician myself. I am frequently stunned by the recorded improvised concerts of pianist Keith Jarrett, but this may well be more because of the hypnotic reverie of the style and sound than any technical mastery in the performance. Group free improvising can sometimes feel rampant, excessive and indulgent, without the restraining influence of composed melodic and harmonic structure. It's also frequently difficult to connect with on an emotional, rather than theoretical level. I definitely felt this at Wayne Shorter's highly acclaimed London Jazz Festival perfomance late last year. Although there were moments when everything clicked, and the musicians seemed almost divinely inspired, they were ultimately just moments, and the concert as a whole felt stuttering and tetchy, with the group mostly failing to complete the good ideas they started.
Watching Evan Parker's quartet at the Vortex tonight, just one in a series of monthly performances at the venue, certainly challenged some of my ingrained prejudices against the genre. Predictably, there was plenty of fast and furious blowing, at times an unfathomably intricate barrage of notes being emitted from Parker's saxophone like some unpleasant discharge. Like other free performances I've seen, there were two sets of continuous, unbroken music but, unlike lesser performances, Parker and his technically adept group varied mood and texture with consideration and impeccable timing. As a result, the performance was never anything less than engaging, and frequently even inspiring.
For me, some of the best moments were completely unexpected, such as when the band almost dropped to a ballad tempo mid-way through the second set, and the pianist ushered in an audacious solo with some distinctly bluesy chord patterns. Similarly, during the first set, an eerie calm descended, and Parker's playing suddenly became gentle and lyrical, before returning to the fiery, muscular style for which he is renowned.
For a drummer, the set proved particularly illuminating. Tony Marsh played with palpable sensitivity and control, producing a bewildering array of sounds that made the kit seem positively orchestral. Whilst he demonstrated a comfortable fluency around the kit, the two noticeable occasions he settled back into marking time enabled the group to shift to a different gear, and his phrasing, often mimicking or reacting to the ideas generated by the melodic instrumentalists, felt musical and considered throughout. It's exactly this kind of careful integration and contribution that I strive to achieve with my own ensemble playing, and it's always great to hear when someone has it nailed!
Thanks to James Partridge and Tom Millar (two future stars of composition and performance I have no doubt) for persuading me to listen with an open mind. Parker is the most significant contributor to freely improvised music in Britain - and it's an honour to be able to see him perform in an intimate venue.
I can't admit to having much of a taste for, or even much knowledge of, completely free jazz. This comes in spite of (or perhaps because of) being a trained jazz musician myself. I am frequently stunned by the recorded improvised concerts of pianist Keith Jarrett, but this may well be more because of the hypnotic reverie of the style and sound than any technical mastery in the performance. Group free improvising can sometimes feel rampant, excessive and indulgent, without the restraining influence of composed melodic and harmonic structure. It's also frequently difficult to connect with on an emotional, rather than theoretical level. I definitely felt this at Wayne Shorter's highly acclaimed London Jazz Festival perfomance late last year. Although there were moments when everything clicked, and the musicians seemed almost divinely inspired, they were ultimately just moments, and the concert as a whole felt stuttering and tetchy, with the group mostly failing to complete the good ideas they started.
Watching Evan Parker's quartet at the Vortex tonight, just one in a series of monthly performances at the venue, certainly challenged some of my ingrained prejudices against the genre. Predictably, there was plenty of fast and furious blowing, at times an unfathomably intricate barrage of notes being emitted from Parker's saxophone like some unpleasant discharge. Like other free performances I've seen, there were two sets of continuous, unbroken music but, unlike lesser performances, Parker and his technically adept group varied mood and texture with consideration and impeccable timing. As a result, the performance was never anything less than engaging, and frequently even inspiring.
For me, some of the best moments were completely unexpected, such as when the band almost dropped to a ballad tempo mid-way through the second set, and the pianist ushered in an audacious solo with some distinctly bluesy chord patterns. Similarly, during the first set, an eerie calm descended, and Parker's playing suddenly became gentle and lyrical, before returning to the fiery, muscular style for which he is renowned.
For a drummer, the set proved particularly illuminating. Tony Marsh played with palpable sensitivity and control, producing a bewildering array of sounds that made the kit seem positively orchestral. Whilst he demonstrated a comfortable fluency around the kit, the two noticeable occasions he settled back into marking time enabled the group to shift to a different gear, and his phrasing, often mimicking or reacting to the ideas generated by the melodic instrumentalists, felt musical and considered throughout. It's exactly this kind of careful integration and contribution that I strive to achieve with my own ensemble playing, and it's always great to hear when someone has it nailed!
Thanks to James Partridge and Tom Millar (two future stars of composition and performance I have no doubt) for persuading me to listen with an open mind. Parker is the most significant contributor to freely improvised music in Britain - and it's an honour to be able to see him perform in an intimate venue.
Friday, January 05, 2007
Post-Britpop Rearing Its Ugly Head
From an NME news story:
Albarn said: "I've always had a problem with Jarvis' stance on that, I found it really disturbing when he pulled his pants down in front of Michael Jackson, that just seemed totally wrong. If someone is sick, he's not open to ridicule."He added: "He's got some very odd ideas about reality. I think it's a collective responsibility to say 'No you can't go and do what you're doing', not just to ridicule him. "The world is not full of c*nts; we have a collective responsibility not to slag people off and instead try to understand them."
Now I usually defend Damon Albarn, as I still maintain he's one of the best pop ballad songwriters England has produced (although I can do without the oom-pah stuff these days). But how seriously does the man have to take himself? I don't think Jarvis was ridiculing Michael Jackson for his mental health, more for his pomposity, the specific ghastly nature of that particular performance, and by implication the BPI for allowing it to be staged. As for 'C*nts Are Still Running The World', I think it demonstrates that Jarvis has a reasonably accurate understanding (albeit not a particularly subtle or nuanced one) of the motives of current Western governments. It's leaders and people in privileged positions of power that come under attack in the song - the argument is not that the world is full of c*nts, more that the c*nts tend to exploit all their advantages and benefits, frequently unfairly. It's also, get this, a bit funny. A bit of a joke. Perhaps you should try it, Damon.
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Albarn said: "I've always had a problem with Jarvis' stance on that, I found it really disturbing when he pulled his pants down in front of Michael Jackson, that just seemed totally wrong. If someone is sick, he's not open to ridicule."He added: "He's got some very odd ideas about reality. I think it's a collective responsibility to say 'No you can't go and do what you're doing', not just to ridicule him. "The world is not full of c*nts; we have a collective responsibility not to slag people off and instead try to understand them."
Now I usually defend Damon Albarn, as I still maintain he's one of the best pop ballad songwriters England has produced (although I can do without the oom-pah stuff these days). But how seriously does the man have to take himself? I don't think Jarvis was ridiculing Michael Jackson for his mental health, more for his pomposity, the specific ghastly nature of that particular performance, and by implication the BPI for allowing it to be staged. As for 'C*nts Are Still Running The World', I think it demonstrates that Jarvis has a reasonably accurate understanding (albeit not a particularly subtle or nuanced one) of the motives of current Western governments. It's leaders and people in privileged positions of power that come under attack in the song - the argument is not that the world is full of c*nts, more that the c*nts tend to exploit all their advantages and benefits, frequently unfairly. It's also, get this, a bit funny. A bit of a joke. Perhaps you should try it, Damon.
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document.write('');
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Monday, January 01, 2007
What The New Year Has In Store
Happy New Year to all readers of this blog!
First thing to do is quickly summarise what we can look forward to in 2007.
There is speculation as to whether or not there will be big new albums from the likes of Blur, Radiohead, REM and The Pixies. After their live shows, I have modest expectations of the new Pixies material, and the Blur and Radiohead albums are far from confirmed. Surely much more exciting is a new album from the original, seminal line-up of Dinosaur Jr. At the very least, I look forward to some squalling J Mascis guitar solos and hearing the combination of J and Lou Barlow's vocals again. I do hope that Barlow has more creative input this time around though. REM definitely plan to begin recording in 2007, but it's by no means guaranteed that the album will appear in the same year. Let's at least hope they find a new path away from the plodding monotony of 'Around The Sun'.
It looks increasingly likely that Portishead will finally return next year, and Massive Attack will also release their 'Weather Underground' album, delayed from 2006 thanks to a contractual greatest hits collection. Will these records sound dated or will they capture something more contemporary?
Unbelievably, The Stooges have made a brand new album, 'The Weirdness'. It could well be terrible...
There are certainly some albums I'm very excited about - Spiritualized, The Postal Service, The New Pornographers, Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams, Wilco, Feist, Patrick Wolf, The Earlies, The Shins, Low, Wheat, Bloc Party, LCD Soundsystem, Aesop Rock, EL-P, Cannibal Ox, Animal Collective, Annie, Andrew Bird, Doves, Feist, Fridge, Madvillain, Magnetic Fields (continuing Stephin Merritt's prolific output), Blonde Redhead, Rufus Wainwright, Tortoise, Underworld, Spoon, PJ Harvey and The Breeders all have albums scheduled.
I may be the only person in the world interested in the imminent return of The B-52s.
Nick Cave has a new hardcore band called Grinderman - should be interesting....
'The Neon Bible' is the title of the second album from The Arcade Fire. Will 'Funeral' prove to be an albatross around their necks, or will they exceed its undoubted brilliance?
I'm still investigating jazz releases - but the return of Alice Coltrane is surely one of the most exciting prospects for the year!
First thing to do is quickly summarise what we can look forward to in 2007.
There is speculation as to whether or not there will be big new albums from the likes of Blur, Radiohead, REM and The Pixies. After their live shows, I have modest expectations of the new Pixies material, and the Blur and Radiohead albums are far from confirmed. Surely much more exciting is a new album from the original, seminal line-up of Dinosaur Jr. At the very least, I look forward to some squalling J Mascis guitar solos and hearing the combination of J and Lou Barlow's vocals again. I do hope that Barlow has more creative input this time around though. REM definitely plan to begin recording in 2007, but it's by no means guaranteed that the album will appear in the same year. Let's at least hope they find a new path away from the plodding monotony of 'Around The Sun'.
It looks increasingly likely that Portishead will finally return next year, and Massive Attack will also release their 'Weather Underground' album, delayed from 2006 thanks to a contractual greatest hits collection. Will these records sound dated or will they capture something more contemporary?
Unbelievably, The Stooges have made a brand new album, 'The Weirdness'. It could well be terrible...
There are certainly some albums I'm very excited about - Spiritualized, The Postal Service, The New Pornographers, Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams, Wilco, Feist, Patrick Wolf, The Earlies, The Shins, Low, Wheat, Bloc Party, LCD Soundsystem, Aesop Rock, EL-P, Cannibal Ox, Animal Collective, Annie, Andrew Bird, Doves, Feist, Fridge, Madvillain, Magnetic Fields (continuing Stephin Merritt's prolific output), Blonde Redhead, Rufus Wainwright, Tortoise, Underworld, Spoon, PJ Harvey and The Breeders all have albums scheduled.
I may be the only person in the world interested in the imminent return of The B-52s.
Nick Cave has a new hardcore band called Grinderman - should be interesting....
'The Neon Bible' is the title of the second album from The Arcade Fire. Will 'Funeral' prove to be an albatross around their necks, or will they exceed its undoubted brilliance?
I'm still investigating jazz releases - but the return of Alice Coltrane is surely one of the most exciting prospects for the year!
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