Lonelady - Nerve Up (Warp)
This album ticks so many hipster boxes that I ought really to despise it. There’s the moody, enigmatic monochrome cover shot. It’s one of Warp records’ increasingly frequent ventures outside the world of intelligent electronica. The musical reference points are specific and fashionable – a bit of wiry Gang of Four scratchy guitar, the jangle of early REM or the skeletal funk of ESG. Julie Campbell is from Manchester – the sound of the Factory era clearly also still resonates with her. Surely, ‘Nerve Up’ is simply traversing old, very familiar ground?
Beneath the surface though, there’s actually something a little out of the ordinary about ‘Nerve Up’. Perhaps it’s that Julie Campbell has had the audacity to cherry pick from all these influences, rather than focusing too tightly on a tired punk-funk agenda. More significantly, it’s that the music, thanks in part to Campbell’s songwriting, mostly rises above mere facsimile. It is taut and exciting – with a nervous itchiness of its own.
It’s rare to find a female solo artist that sounds so solitary and alienated. Usually, we get the sensual, idiosyncratic, fantastic personalities of the likes of Kate Bush, Bjork, PJ Harvey or Joanna Newsom. Lonelady does not belong in that world. Her voice is strange, slippery and beguiling. Her music is precise, rigid and austere rather than flighty and wild.
It’s odd that the twitchy, anxious outsider position that Campbell has assumed became such a male pursuit. One of the most exciting things about Nerve Up is hearing Campbell’s distinctive thin but intoxicating voice set against this resolute, propulsive music. The Byrdsian twang of ‘Immaterial’ might hint back at Murmur-era REM, but Campbell’s voice also adds a fairytale sense of mystery and enchantment.
Everything here is minimal, perhaps even slightly desolate. There’s scratchy guitar, a drum machine and Campbell’s voice. The title track particularly succeeds in building a detailed impression with a rigorous approach. There are very few constituent elements. What further overdubs there are always serve the tense, nervous mood. On tracks like ‘Army’ and ‘Intuition’, there’s also an irrepressible and irresistible urgency.
Campbell won’t be able to repeat this trick too often. Yet the closing ‘Fear No More’ betrays a softer core. Whilst it’s not in itself entirely successful, it at least demonstrates another dimension to Campbell’s world and hints at other paths that she could follow. In the meantime, ‘Nerve Up’ is an authoritative, surprisingly satisfying work.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
Dive In
Pantha du Prince - Black Noise (Rough Trade)
Caribou - Swim (City Slang)
There's already a sense that 2010 is shaping up to be a particularly fine year for electronic music. We've already enjoyed superb albums from Four Tet and Hot Chip, and there have been a number of releases I haven't yet managed to digest (including Autechre). Although there's an argument that his debut album 'This Bliss' (released in 2007) is even better, Pantha du Prince's 'Black Noise' adds to the list by virtue of being a lush, compelling piece of work. Like its predecessor, it's a rapturous and immersive experience.
This is spare and minimal music that still finds room for a warmth and beauty amidst the mechanical precision. It's repetitive and relentless but in a pleasingly hypnotic, rather than irritating way. The overarching atmosphere is rather magical. A number of the titles are almost onomatopaeic in their aptness ('Lay in a Shimmer', 'The Splendour', 'Bohemian Forest') such is the glimmering, haunting effect of the music.
Much of this is achieved through percussion sounds - be it the clicks and clatters in the background or the steel pan and glockenspiel sounds that yield the subtle but charming melodic lines. The music unfolds slowly and delicately, somehow achieving an effect that is both melancholic and euphoric, reflective and uplifting.
The last album from Caribou, aka Dan Snaith and the artist formerly known as Manitoba, 'Andorra', won Canada's equivalent of the Mercury Music Prize whilst continuing his preference for bucolic, hazy psychedelia and chaotic, cluttered percussion. It was an appealing, summery set but one that hinted that Snaith's sound, however distinctive, may have run its course.
Pleasingly, he has refreshed and refined his approach on 'Swim', which manages to combine some familiar elements of the Caribou sound with at least one eye firmly fixed back on the dancefloor. This is certainly the grooviest album Snaith has made yet - his rhythms have been stripped back to their most essential elements and a lot of the dense noise has been removed. This doesn't mean there isn't room for ambition - towards its conclusion on tracks like 'Hannibal' and 'Jamelia' have bold, expansive arrangements that suggest Snaith may have been listening to Ennio Morricone or David Axelrod.
'Swim' is most surprising when at its simplest and most direct. There's a touch of Prince to the propulsive but light disco of 'Odessa' that makes it both fluffy and infectious and curiously intelligent. On 'Sun', some of Snaith's recognisable concerns reappear, but it's a much more shimmering and aquatic creation, with plenty of breathing space. Perhaps most impressive of all is 'Bowls', the album's stunning, wonderfully linear centrepiece.
Snaith is not blessed with the world's greatest singing voice and there are plenty of borderline Caribou admirers who might well be completely converted were Snaith to abandon singing entirely. 'Odessa' at least hints at a use of his voice that is both more sensible and more creative - the delivery is largely conversational. It's when he attempts to make his vocal the melodic heart of his music that it risks descending into fragile whimsy. Still, the music that dominates 'Swim' is so resonant and so elegantly constructed that this is ultimately a minor concern. This is one of 2010's most enjoyable and adventurous albums so far.
Caribou - Swim (City Slang)
There's already a sense that 2010 is shaping up to be a particularly fine year for electronic music. We've already enjoyed superb albums from Four Tet and Hot Chip, and there have been a number of releases I haven't yet managed to digest (including Autechre). Although there's an argument that his debut album 'This Bliss' (released in 2007) is even better, Pantha du Prince's 'Black Noise' adds to the list by virtue of being a lush, compelling piece of work. Like its predecessor, it's a rapturous and immersive experience.
This is spare and minimal music that still finds room for a warmth and beauty amidst the mechanical precision. It's repetitive and relentless but in a pleasingly hypnotic, rather than irritating way. The overarching atmosphere is rather magical. A number of the titles are almost onomatopaeic in their aptness ('Lay in a Shimmer', 'The Splendour', 'Bohemian Forest') such is the glimmering, haunting effect of the music.
Much of this is achieved through percussion sounds - be it the clicks and clatters in the background or the steel pan and glockenspiel sounds that yield the subtle but charming melodic lines. The music unfolds slowly and delicately, somehow achieving an effect that is both melancholic and euphoric, reflective and uplifting.
The last album from Caribou, aka Dan Snaith and the artist formerly known as Manitoba, 'Andorra', won Canada's equivalent of the Mercury Music Prize whilst continuing his preference for bucolic, hazy psychedelia and chaotic, cluttered percussion. It was an appealing, summery set but one that hinted that Snaith's sound, however distinctive, may have run its course.
Pleasingly, he has refreshed and refined his approach on 'Swim', which manages to combine some familiar elements of the Caribou sound with at least one eye firmly fixed back on the dancefloor. This is certainly the grooviest album Snaith has made yet - his rhythms have been stripped back to their most essential elements and a lot of the dense noise has been removed. This doesn't mean there isn't room for ambition - towards its conclusion on tracks like 'Hannibal' and 'Jamelia' have bold, expansive arrangements that suggest Snaith may have been listening to Ennio Morricone or David Axelrod.
'Swim' is most surprising when at its simplest and most direct. There's a touch of Prince to the propulsive but light disco of 'Odessa' that makes it both fluffy and infectious and curiously intelligent. On 'Sun', some of Snaith's recognisable concerns reappear, but it's a much more shimmering and aquatic creation, with plenty of breathing space. Perhaps most impressive of all is 'Bowls', the album's stunning, wonderfully linear centrepiece.
Snaith is not blessed with the world's greatest singing voice and there are plenty of borderline Caribou admirers who might well be completely converted were Snaith to abandon singing entirely. 'Odessa' at least hints at a use of his voice that is both more sensible and more creative - the delivery is largely conversational. It's when he attempts to make his vocal the melodic heart of his music that it risks descending into fragile whimsy. Still, the music that dominates 'Swim' is so resonant and so elegantly constructed that this is ultimately a minor concern. This is one of 2010's most enjoyable and adventurous albums so far.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Identity Crisis
I Am Love (dir: Luca Guadagnino)
Perhaps this movie’s very title, pretentious and grandiose as it is, should have been a giveaway, but I’d read enough positive thoughts on this film (not least Jonathan Romney’s rapturous piece in ‘Sight & Sound’) to believe it might be a bold and exciting piece of cinema. Whilst the film begins with considerable promise, the final impression is one of incoherence and catastrophic misjudgement. Ultimately, ‘I Am Love’ is exhausting and infuriating.
Film critics are now so frequently blinded by technical skill. As a result, directors such as Carlos Reygadas are all too easily indulged for pompous and didactic work. There is certainly enough technical accomplishment in ‘I Am Love’ to suggest that Luca Guadagnino is a promising director. The names of many Italian masters have been used as reference points – not least film-makers as different from each other as Visconti and Antonioni. In the early stages of the film, with its superb family dinner sequence, and with some elegant, meticulously framed shots of the Recchi family’s extraordinary mansion home (particularly of Tilda Swinton’s graceful walks up and down the staircase), I felt a more transparent influence was the great Orson Welles.
The film begins as what appears to be a subtle, restrained but simultaneously poised family saga. When the retiring grandfather unexpectedly bequeaths the family textile empire to both his son and grandson to share, it sets the scene for an intriguing and compelling power struggle. Yet this becomes simply the restrictive and repressive context for the film’s central concern – the tragedy that accompanies Emma Recchi’s sexual awakening and discovering of her true self.
There are some positive aspects to this film. Daughter Betta’s lesbianism (a no doubt still shocking and unacceptable thing to a wealthy Italian family such as this) is handled with great tenderness, and there are some delightful scenes between her and Emma. Swinton is every bit as majestic as you might expect – brilliantly capturing the conflict between social duty and inner desire.
Also impressive is the way the film withholds crucial information until quite late in its running time. We only find out Emma’s personal history through the course of her affair with Antonio, and this is the film’s one intriguing and original device. Unfortunately, it is only really used to inform the film’s hackneyed and rather muddled theme of personal identity.
However, this is most certainly a film with fatal flaws that sadly linger long in the mind. Many critics have praised the film’s exploration of the sensual aspects of food – but I found this crass. Guadagnino and Swinton seem keen to browbeat the audience with culinary eroticism. Had they left this notion implied or understated, it could have been much more interesting. Instead, these scenes come across more like a piece of gastropornography from a Nigella Lawson programme.
Even worse is the film’s handling of sex itself. Emma and Antonio’s lengthy soft focus al fresco love scene might have been better placed in one of the Emmanuelle films, so horribly clichéd is its cutting between the building natural elements and the moving bodies. The close-ups of skin are unusual in contemporary cinema and could have been quite erotic if left on their own, but the opening scene of Resnais’ ‘Hiroshima Mon Amour’ achieved so much more to this effect.
Perhaps more fatally is the way that, in spite of the film’s overlong two hour running time, characters and plot strands are left undeveloped. Given his youthful energy, natural talent and passion for food, it’s easy to see why Emma might be attracted to Antonio, but less easy to see why she would fall in love with him. It’s even harder to accept that this love would endure the terrible, cataclysmic event that befalls her family as an indirect result of her actions.
It is perhaps suggested that Emma’s son and heir to the business Eduardo may too have affections for Antonio (‘when I first tasted this man’s cooking, I fell in love with him’), but we are supposed to accept that Emma is completely impervious to this closeness. Similarly, we are expected to accept that Antonio would be completely careless in his attitude towards protecting the secrecy of his relationship with Emma (the ultimate revelation, inevitably, involves food).
What we are left with is a rather didactic and unsubtle divide in the family between socially repressed women allying themselves in self-discovery, and authoritarian, conforming men. This might well be an entirely fair and observant comment on wealthy Italian society – but it is hardly in itself original. The film’s final descent into melodrama merely serves to bludgeon the audience with this point, with entirely embarrassing results.
The confrontation between Tancredi (who is a stereotyped sexless regal male throughout) and Emma in the cathedral, complete with the obligatory baptismal rainstorm, is screamingly awful. However impressive an actress Swinton is, she cannot rise above this level of cliché and heavy-handed direction. Whilst the nature of the tragic event that destroys the family is in itself shocking and unexpected, the film’s treatment of its immediate aftermath is completely lacking in nuance or understanding.
If the melodramatic final scenes, complete with religious symbolism (a post-credits coda shows Emma and Antonio entwined in a cave) are supposed to betray the influence of Douglas Sirk, the only plausible response is to highlight how superior a homage Todd Haynes made with the wonderful ‘Far From Heaven’. Many have praised the use of the bombastic music of American composer John Adams here, but I found it intrusive and unpleasant. Whilst I could just about tolerate its role in the sequence where Emma follows Antonio through the streets of San Remo (where the film achieves an enjoyable albeit decidedly Hitchcockian balance of tension and playfulness), the grandiose music that accompanies the final moments is cloying and overblown.
The problem is precisely that ‘I Am Love’ tries so hard to achieve a grand operatic sweep. This is a film crying out for a little more intimacy, reflection and care. In fact, its precisely in its more tender, less provocative moments that this picture is at its best. In trying to make theatrical gestures and romantic statements from the idea of self-discovery, it conspicuously fails to engage with what self-discovery actually entails, or even what it might mean, save for the inevitable collapse of one wealthy family. I am also deeply suspicious of the film’s implied sense that the discovery of a dormant true identity is a purely feminine thing – why are all the male characters left so stilted and underwritten? It’s entirely reasonable to make a film about female subjugation in Italian society – but it is necessary to do much more than simply render the male characters as cardboard cut-outs.
Given the response this film has had elsewhere, I know there will be people stumbling across this review who passionately disagree with me. Yet the very fact that Guadagnino and Swinton spent seven years working on this project betrays that it is, at its core, a vanity project no more worthy of serious attention than those of Mel Gibson. I honestly find it hard to defend a film that is such an inherent stylistic mess and that so thoroughly botches all its themes.
It is not enough to throw together a disparate array of knowing references for the benefit of cinephiles, nor is it enough to try to make weak material transcendent through the use of melodrama. If we accept films like this, however impressive the photography, acting and staging may be, as the best modern cinema has to offer, we are doing audiences, the art of criticism and the medium of cinema itself a huge disservice. That is simply not good enough.
Perhaps this movie’s very title, pretentious and grandiose as it is, should have been a giveaway, but I’d read enough positive thoughts on this film (not least Jonathan Romney’s rapturous piece in ‘Sight & Sound’) to believe it might be a bold and exciting piece of cinema. Whilst the film begins with considerable promise, the final impression is one of incoherence and catastrophic misjudgement. Ultimately, ‘I Am Love’ is exhausting and infuriating.
Film critics are now so frequently blinded by technical skill. As a result, directors such as Carlos Reygadas are all too easily indulged for pompous and didactic work. There is certainly enough technical accomplishment in ‘I Am Love’ to suggest that Luca Guadagnino is a promising director. The names of many Italian masters have been used as reference points – not least film-makers as different from each other as Visconti and Antonioni. In the early stages of the film, with its superb family dinner sequence, and with some elegant, meticulously framed shots of the Recchi family’s extraordinary mansion home (particularly of Tilda Swinton’s graceful walks up and down the staircase), I felt a more transparent influence was the great Orson Welles.
The film begins as what appears to be a subtle, restrained but simultaneously poised family saga. When the retiring grandfather unexpectedly bequeaths the family textile empire to both his son and grandson to share, it sets the scene for an intriguing and compelling power struggle. Yet this becomes simply the restrictive and repressive context for the film’s central concern – the tragedy that accompanies Emma Recchi’s sexual awakening and discovering of her true self.
There are some positive aspects to this film. Daughter Betta’s lesbianism (a no doubt still shocking and unacceptable thing to a wealthy Italian family such as this) is handled with great tenderness, and there are some delightful scenes between her and Emma. Swinton is every bit as majestic as you might expect – brilliantly capturing the conflict between social duty and inner desire.
Also impressive is the way the film withholds crucial information until quite late in its running time. We only find out Emma’s personal history through the course of her affair with Antonio, and this is the film’s one intriguing and original device. Unfortunately, it is only really used to inform the film’s hackneyed and rather muddled theme of personal identity.
However, this is most certainly a film with fatal flaws that sadly linger long in the mind. Many critics have praised the film’s exploration of the sensual aspects of food – but I found this crass. Guadagnino and Swinton seem keen to browbeat the audience with culinary eroticism. Had they left this notion implied or understated, it could have been much more interesting. Instead, these scenes come across more like a piece of gastropornography from a Nigella Lawson programme.
Even worse is the film’s handling of sex itself. Emma and Antonio’s lengthy soft focus al fresco love scene might have been better placed in one of the Emmanuelle films, so horribly clichéd is its cutting between the building natural elements and the moving bodies. The close-ups of skin are unusual in contemporary cinema and could have been quite erotic if left on their own, but the opening scene of Resnais’ ‘Hiroshima Mon Amour’ achieved so much more to this effect.
Perhaps more fatally is the way that, in spite of the film’s overlong two hour running time, characters and plot strands are left undeveloped. Given his youthful energy, natural talent and passion for food, it’s easy to see why Emma might be attracted to Antonio, but less easy to see why she would fall in love with him. It’s even harder to accept that this love would endure the terrible, cataclysmic event that befalls her family as an indirect result of her actions.
It is perhaps suggested that Emma’s son and heir to the business Eduardo may too have affections for Antonio (‘when I first tasted this man’s cooking, I fell in love with him’), but we are supposed to accept that Emma is completely impervious to this closeness. Similarly, we are expected to accept that Antonio would be completely careless in his attitude towards protecting the secrecy of his relationship with Emma (the ultimate revelation, inevitably, involves food).
What we are left with is a rather didactic and unsubtle divide in the family between socially repressed women allying themselves in self-discovery, and authoritarian, conforming men. This might well be an entirely fair and observant comment on wealthy Italian society – but it is hardly in itself original. The film’s final descent into melodrama merely serves to bludgeon the audience with this point, with entirely embarrassing results.
The confrontation between Tancredi (who is a stereotyped sexless regal male throughout) and Emma in the cathedral, complete with the obligatory baptismal rainstorm, is screamingly awful. However impressive an actress Swinton is, she cannot rise above this level of cliché and heavy-handed direction. Whilst the nature of the tragic event that destroys the family is in itself shocking and unexpected, the film’s treatment of its immediate aftermath is completely lacking in nuance or understanding.
If the melodramatic final scenes, complete with religious symbolism (a post-credits coda shows Emma and Antonio entwined in a cave) are supposed to betray the influence of Douglas Sirk, the only plausible response is to highlight how superior a homage Todd Haynes made with the wonderful ‘Far From Heaven’. Many have praised the use of the bombastic music of American composer John Adams here, but I found it intrusive and unpleasant. Whilst I could just about tolerate its role in the sequence where Emma follows Antonio through the streets of San Remo (where the film achieves an enjoyable albeit decidedly Hitchcockian balance of tension and playfulness), the grandiose music that accompanies the final moments is cloying and overblown.
The problem is precisely that ‘I Am Love’ tries so hard to achieve a grand operatic sweep. This is a film crying out for a little more intimacy, reflection and care. In fact, its precisely in its more tender, less provocative moments that this picture is at its best. In trying to make theatrical gestures and romantic statements from the idea of self-discovery, it conspicuously fails to engage with what self-discovery actually entails, or even what it might mean, save for the inevitable collapse of one wealthy family. I am also deeply suspicious of the film’s implied sense that the discovery of a dormant true identity is a purely feminine thing – why are all the male characters left so stilted and underwritten? It’s entirely reasonable to make a film about female subjugation in Italian society – but it is necessary to do much more than simply render the male characters as cardboard cut-outs.
Given the response this film has had elsewhere, I know there will be people stumbling across this review who passionately disagree with me. Yet the very fact that Guadagnino and Swinton spent seven years working on this project betrays that it is, at its core, a vanity project no more worthy of serious attention than those of Mel Gibson. I honestly find it hard to defend a film that is such an inherent stylistic mess and that so thoroughly botches all its themes.
It is not enough to throw together a disparate array of knowing references for the benefit of cinephiles, nor is it enough to try to make weak material transcendent through the use of melodrama. If we accept films like this, however impressive the photography, acting and staging may be, as the best modern cinema has to offer, we are doing audiences, the art of criticism and the medium of cinema itself a huge disservice. That is simply not good enough.
Saturday, April 03, 2010
Quantity
Field Music - (Measure) (Memphis Industries)
The story of Field Music is one of the more interesting industry sagas of recent years, and a refreshing example of how a combination of imagination and sheer persistence can reap rewards. Unfairly written off as an inferior cousin to The Futureheads, there's now plenty of evidence that Field Music were always the better band - a group with an unusual ability to be as inventive as possible with the traditional rock group set-up. Perhaps their quirky, angular, constantly shifting approach to classic pop was never likely to have mass appeal, but the excellent 'Tones of Town' album was cruelly overlooked both by critics and the public. Meeting with such indifference, Field Music announced an indefinite hiatus, but rather than abandoning their musical dreams altogether, the Brewis brothers sub-divided into two separate projects, School of Language and The Week That Was. Both yielded outstanding results and had distinctive individual identities.
With their profile now duly raised by this clever musical and promotional game playing, the Brewis brothers return as Field Music with a substantial double album demonstrating their ambition, if not quite the full scope of their interests. As if by way of atonement, '(Measure)' has received ecstatic featured reviews in the monthly rock press. Critics are correct to eulogise the Brewis' melodic and rhythmic gifts - and '(Measure)' is unsurprisingly filled with structural intelligence and exceedingly clever writing. At times, it also sounds remarkably taut - the sound of a well-rehearsed, carefully arranged small unit.
There is much to admire on '(Measure)', from the nimble chamber-pop of the title track to the insistent, spiky adrenaline rush of 'Effortlessly' or the infectious chime of 'Them That Do Nothing'. Many of these songs are astute lessons in how to produce guitar based pop with sophistication and clarity. The Brewis brothers work brilliantly together, and their refined vocal harmonies are a major feature of the group's sound. Similarly, they design their songs to feature intricate, complementary guitar parts. They rarely resort to bland strumming or the simple marking of time. This is often what makes their songs stand out as exciting.
Sometimes, I suspect, it makes their music seem more adventurous than it actually is. '(Measure)' is very much rooted in classic British pop - and for much of its duration it seems like a more progressive reformulation of the essential ingredients of pop music as defined by the great acts of the 60s and 70s. Perhaps as a result, it does occasionally drift into slightly plodding, guitar-rock formula ('Lights Up'). As much as I enjoy it (and I really do), I can't help feeling it's a less intriguing project than either the School of Language or The Week That Was albums. Those albums had strong conceptual foundations and drew from a less obvious array of musical influences.
'(Measure)' works best when it hints at this broader knowledge - the superb minimal synth and percussion workout of 'Let's Write A Book' or the Afro-Cuban informed coda to 'All You'd Ever Need To Say'. The latter is a good example of another frustrating tendency here - occasionally, the Brewis brothers have great ideas which they simply throw in loosely and fail to develop. Still, there's no doubting the Brewis brothers have major talent and an appetite for adventure - and it's great to see their peculiar business model sustaining them. This should set the benchmark for British rock bands. It provides clear evidence that it is possible to play classic rock music with a pioneering spirit.
The story of Field Music is one of the more interesting industry sagas of recent years, and a refreshing example of how a combination of imagination and sheer persistence can reap rewards. Unfairly written off as an inferior cousin to The Futureheads, there's now plenty of evidence that Field Music were always the better band - a group with an unusual ability to be as inventive as possible with the traditional rock group set-up. Perhaps their quirky, angular, constantly shifting approach to classic pop was never likely to have mass appeal, but the excellent 'Tones of Town' album was cruelly overlooked both by critics and the public. Meeting with such indifference, Field Music announced an indefinite hiatus, but rather than abandoning their musical dreams altogether, the Brewis brothers sub-divided into two separate projects, School of Language and The Week That Was. Both yielded outstanding results and had distinctive individual identities.
With their profile now duly raised by this clever musical and promotional game playing, the Brewis brothers return as Field Music with a substantial double album demonstrating their ambition, if not quite the full scope of their interests. As if by way of atonement, '(Measure)' has received ecstatic featured reviews in the monthly rock press. Critics are correct to eulogise the Brewis' melodic and rhythmic gifts - and '(Measure)' is unsurprisingly filled with structural intelligence and exceedingly clever writing. At times, it also sounds remarkably taut - the sound of a well-rehearsed, carefully arranged small unit.
There is much to admire on '(Measure)', from the nimble chamber-pop of the title track to the insistent, spiky adrenaline rush of 'Effortlessly' or the infectious chime of 'Them That Do Nothing'. Many of these songs are astute lessons in how to produce guitar based pop with sophistication and clarity. The Brewis brothers work brilliantly together, and their refined vocal harmonies are a major feature of the group's sound. Similarly, they design their songs to feature intricate, complementary guitar parts. They rarely resort to bland strumming or the simple marking of time. This is often what makes their songs stand out as exciting.
Sometimes, I suspect, it makes their music seem more adventurous than it actually is. '(Measure)' is very much rooted in classic British pop - and for much of its duration it seems like a more progressive reformulation of the essential ingredients of pop music as defined by the great acts of the 60s and 70s. Perhaps as a result, it does occasionally drift into slightly plodding, guitar-rock formula ('Lights Up'). As much as I enjoy it (and I really do), I can't help feeling it's a less intriguing project than either the School of Language or The Week That Was albums. Those albums had strong conceptual foundations and drew from a less obvious array of musical influences.
'(Measure)' works best when it hints at this broader knowledge - the superb minimal synth and percussion workout of 'Let's Write A Book' or the Afro-Cuban informed coda to 'All You'd Ever Need To Say'. The latter is a good example of another frustrating tendency here - occasionally, the Brewis brothers have great ideas which they simply throw in loosely and fail to develop. Still, there's no doubting the Brewis brothers have major talent and an appetite for adventure - and it's great to see their peculiar business model sustaining them. This should set the benchmark for British rock bands. It provides clear evidence that it is possible to play classic rock music with a pioneering spirit.
Friday, April 02, 2010
New Directions
Polar Bear - Peepers (Leaf)
I don't always admire the work of Paul Morley, but his current Guardian video series investigating the nature of modern jazz in Britain is fascinating and important. So often, jazz cocoons itself in existential worries ('is this jazz?' 'is it too accessible?') and shields itself from other forms. Yet in this country right now, there is a very vibrant scene of improvising musicians forging connections across the contemporary musical spectrum. It was pleasing to see Polar Bear's Sebastian Rochford and Pete Wareham, in conversation with Morley, highlighting the likes of Zed-U and TrioVD, but also recognise that adventurous, compositional rock bands such as Grizzly Bear might offer inspiration to the aspiring jazz musician.
Rochford appears to see jazz as more of a concept or approach than a sound - it doesn't have to swing, but it does have to be 'liberating', confident and prepared to take risks. Rochford is something of an old-fashioned collector of music who enjoys making new discoveries in independent record shops. He has absorbed a massive range of music yet the result of his avid listening is a remarkably distinctive compositional voice. Perhaps there was a danger of this developing into a formula - many will probably feel that 'Peepers', a relatively concise and focused set, is exactly what was required after the dense, sprawling exploration of their previous self-titled work (for the record, I loved that album too).
There are two central relationships crucial to Polar Bear's alchemy - the powerful connection between Rochford and Tom Herbert, which is both steady and dynamic, and the relationship between saxophonists Mark Lockheart and Pete Wareham, as contrasting and complementary a frontline as you could hope to find. 'Peepers' sees Rochford now using this foundation to branch out into new territory. Electronics wizard Leafcutter John plays guitar on a number of tracks, giving the band harmonic accompaniment for the first time. If anything, though, the effect is largely rhythmic or atmospheric, either producing ska-infused choppiness or surprising tenderness.
The exhilarating burst of unashamed joy on the opening 'Happy For You' will be familiar to long time Polar Bear fans, as will the lurching groove Rochford deploys on the hugely enjoyable 'Drunken Pharoah'. These are unselfconcious pieces of music, rich in character and humour, but with a strong musical understanding and interplay cementing them. What will be less familiar are the moments of delicacy and vulnarability that mark 'Peepers' out as Polar Bear's most varied and immersing work so far. 'The Love Don't Go Anywhere' is an impressionistic piece tinged with sadness and regret, whilst 'A New Morning Will Come' is a shimmering delight.
Perhaps my favourite moment on the album is the subtle 'Want To Believe Everything', on which the internal dynamics of Rochford's drumming are brilliantly controlled. The piece takes Polar Bear's familiar off-kilter groove and plays it out in a lighter, more airy setting. The gentle closer 'All Here' has something of an inspirational feel - like a soft prayer. It sounds like a Stax soul ballad - a Mavis Staples song as played by a jazz ensemble. This is new territory for the group, and certainly not unwelcome.
'Peepers', contrary to its title, is not the sound of a band tentatively peeping at another direction. It's a confident, assured opening of new doors. It has a raw, unpolished sound that may infuriate some but which delights me - it sounds like a real band playing intuitively.
I don't always admire the work of Paul Morley, but his current Guardian video series investigating the nature of modern jazz in Britain is fascinating and important. So often, jazz cocoons itself in existential worries ('is this jazz?' 'is it too accessible?') and shields itself from other forms. Yet in this country right now, there is a very vibrant scene of improvising musicians forging connections across the contemporary musical spectrum. It was pleasing to see Polar Bear's Sebastian Rochford and Pete Wareham, in conversation with Morley, highlighting the likes of Zed-U and TrioVD, but also recognise that adventurous, compositional rock bands such as Grizzly Bear might offer inspiration to the aspiring jazz musician.
Rochford appears to see jazz as more of a concept or approach than a sound - it doesn't have to swing, but it does have to be 'liberating', confident and prepared to take risks. Rochford is something of an old-fashioned collector of music who enjoys making new discoveries in independent record shops. He has absorbed a massive range of music yet the result of his avid listening is a remarkably distinctive compositional voice. Perhaps there was a danger of this developing into a formula - many will probably feel that 'Peepers', a relatively concise and focused set, is exactly what was required after the dense, sprawling exploration of their previous self-titled work (for the record, I loved that album too).
There are two central relationships crucial to Polar Bear's alchemy - the powerful connection between Rochford and Tom Herbert, which is both steady and dynamic, and the relationship between saxophonists Mark Lockheart and Pete Wareham, as contrasting and complementary a frontline as you could hope to find. 'Peepers' sees Rochford now using this foundation to branch out into new territory. Electronics wizard Leafcutter John plays guitar on a number of tracks, giving the band harmonic accompaniment for the first time. If anything, though, the effect is largely rhythmic or atmospheric, either producing ska-infused choppiness or surprising tenderness.
The exhilarating burst of unashamed joy on the opening 'Happy For You' will be familiar to long time Polar Bear fans, as will the lurching groove Rochford deploys on the hugely enjoyable 'Drunken Pharoah'. These are unselfconcious pieces of music, rich in character and humour, but with a strong musical understanding and interplay cementing them. What will be less familiar are the moments of delicacy and vulnarability that mark 'Peepers' out as Polar Bear's most varied and immersing work so far. 'The Love Don't Go Anywhere' is an impressionistic piece tinged with sadness and regret, whilst 'A New Morning Will Come' is a shimmering delight.
Perhaps my favourite moment on the album is the subtle 'Want To Believe Everything', on which the internal dynamics of Rochford's drumming are brilliantly controlled. The piece takes Polar Bear's familiar off-kilter groove and plays it out in a lighter, more airy setting. The gentle closer 'All Here' has something of an inspirational feel - like a soft prayer. It sounds like a Stax soul ballad - a Mavis Staples song as played by a jazz ensemble. This is new territory for the group, and certainly not unwelcome.
'Peepers', contrary to its title, is not the sound of a band tentatively peeping at another direction. It's a confident, assured opening of new doors. It has a raw, unpolished sound that may infuriate some but which delights me - it sounds like a real band playing intuitively.
Summer tinged with sadness
Laura Veirs - July Flame (Bella Union)
Laura Veirs is the sort of singer-songwriter it's all too easy to take for granted, releasing new albums of dependable quality at regular intervals without really making radical shifts in direction. Amidst all the noise currently being made around female talents (the elaborate fantasias of Joanna Newsom or the supposed prodigious maturity of Laura Marling), it would be easy for 'July Flame' to fall by the wayside. This would be a real shame, for there's definitely an argument to be made that 'July Flame' is Veirs' most accomplished work.
As its title suggests, 'July Flame' works as a warmer, brighter flipside to the icy charm of her previous career watermark 'Carbon Glacier'. The albums Veirs has released in between the two have all been good, but maybe burdened by the weight of one or two standout songs apiece. 'July Flame' is a good deal more consistent - brimming with largely simple, unaffected but strikingly beautiful songwriting. The arrangements are mostly minimal but characterised by delightful textural nuances.
Veirs continues to work with producer Tucker Martine and 'July Flame' contains the finest results yet from this fruitful collaboration. I became tremendously excited when I heard the news that REM were recording new demos with Martine, for he is exactly the sort of producer to reinject some mystery into that band - but it seems they have returned to the ugly, hyper-compressed commercialism of Jacknife Lee for their forthcoming album. What a shame because judging by what Veirs and Martine have achieved here - an unassuming, home recorded work still full of richness and beauty - a Martine-helmed REM might have been something both surprising and special.
'July Flame' delicately unfolds into a mission of quiet discovery. There's the gentle reverb (applied carefully and thoughtfully) that renders 'I Can See Your Tracks' a mesmerising introduction. There's the otherwordly, slightly woozy waltz of 'Little Deschutes' and the southern gothic tapestry of 'Where Are You Driving?'. Veirs seems to have ironed out some of the harshness from her voice and, whilst these songs are not without her trademark wistful melacholy, they do seem to have a warmer, more enchanted gaze. Perhaps best of all is the sensual, rapturous but avowedly linear title track.
Veirs comes across as a disarmingly modest writer and performer (and her humility comes across in her sincere tribute to legendary session bassist Carol Kaye), but also a meticulously honest one - and this is perhaps why she appears to have so many admirers. Colin Meloy from the Decemberists campaigned for 'July Flame' to get a proper release when Nonesuch records declined to put it out (did they learn nothing from the 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot' farce?) and Jim James from My Morning Jacket provides some suitably spectral vocal harmonies. It's good to hear James' voice in a more sympathetic context after the uncomfortable fusions of 'Evil Urges'. I suspect 'July Flame' will be one of the albums I listen to most this year, such is its winning combination of adventure and accessibility.
Laura Veirs is the sort of singer-songwriter it's all too easy to take for granted, releasing new albums of dependable quality at regular intervals without really making radical shifts in direction. Amidst all the noise currently being made around female talents (the elaborate fantasias of Joanna Newsom or the supposed prodigious maturity of Laura Marling), it would be easy for 'July Flame' to fall by the wayside. This would be a real shame, for there's definitely an argument to be made that 'July Flame' is Veirs' most accomplished work.
As its title suggests, 'July Flame' works as a warmer, brighter flipside to the icy charm of her previous career watermark 'Carbon Glacier'. The albums Veirs has released in between the two have all been good, but maybe burdened by the weight of one or two standout songs apiece. 'July Flame' is a good deal more consistent - brimming with largely simple, unaffected but strikingly beautiful songwriting. The arrangements are mostly minimal but characterised by delightful textural nuances.
Veirs continues to work with producer Tucker Martine and 'July Flame' contains the finest results yet from this fruitful collaboration. I became tremendously excited when I heard the news that REM were recording new demos with Martine, for he is exactly the sort of producer to reinject some mystery into that band - but it seems they have returned to the ugly, hyper-compressed commercialism of Jacknife Lee for their forthcoming album. What a shame because judging by what Veirs and Martine have achieved here - an unassuming, home recorded work still full of richness and beauty - a Martine-helmed REM might have been something both surprising and special.
'July Flame' delicately unfolds into a mission of quiet discovery. There's the gentle reverb (applied carefully and thoughtfully) that renders 'I Can See Your Tracks' a mesmerising introduction. There's the otherwordly, slightly woozy waltz of 'Little Deschutes' and the southern gothic tapestry of 'Where Are You Driving?'. Veirs seems to have ironed out some of the harshness from her voice and, whilst these songs are not without her trademark wistful melacholy, they do seem to have a warmer, more enchanted gaze. Perhaps best of all is the sensual, rapturous but avowedly linear title track.
Veirs comes across as a disarmingly modest writer and performer (and her humility comes across in her sincere tribute to legendary session bassist Carol Kaye), but also a meticulously honest one - and this is perhaps why she appears to have so many admirers. Colin Meloy from the Decemberists campaigned for 'July Flame' to get a proper release when Nonesuch records declined to put it out (did they learn nothing from the 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot' farce?) and Jim James from My Morning Jacket provides some suitably spectral vocal harmonies. It's good to hear James' voice in a more sympathetic context after the uncomfortable fusions of 'Evil Urges'. I suspect 'July Flame' will be one of the albums I listen to most this year, such is its winning combination of adventure and accessibility.
The Return
I've not been able to blog in some time now. My life is taking all sorts of interesting twists and turns at the moment, involving plenty of uncertainty but also, I hope, some new opportunities. I hope, slowly but surely, to ease back into regular writing again.
Whilst I've been busy working and planning for the future, plenty seems to have happened in the world of music, not least the sad loss of two figures personally significant for me (and many others). Along with John Peel, Charlie Gillett was surely one of the two most important voices in British broadcasting. He treated his listeners with respect, trusting them to have the same keen and adventurous ears that he had. His style was totally and refreshingly unshowy and unpretentious, allowing the music to speak for itself whilst also communicating his enthusiasm and passion for it in a naturalistic, almost effortless manner. He was a broadcaster of real integrity - compromising his own tastes and interests in the service of his career would have been unthinkable. Compare this with the excitable preaching of Zane Lowe and it's easy to see what has been lost to the tradition of radio with Charlie's passing. He can't be replaced - but I do hope the World Service continues to devote a small part of its schedule to sharing music from around the world.
Alex Chilton was a more tricksy character but, at his best, undeniably one of the great pop songwriters. Big Star were a band that sounded like they ought to have had hit after hit but, in the end, they remained a cult concern. It's worth remembering that, over time, cult interest bands have considerable impact on a wide range of people - and the many tributes to Alex on Twitter are testament to the fact that conventional, commercial measures of popularity often serve to marginalise immensely significant players. 'The Ballad of El Goodo', 'September Gurls', 'Thirteen', 'Thank You Friends', 'Kanga Roo' rank among some of the finest songs I know. As a solo artist, Chilton was wayward and unpredictable - although there are those for whom the ragged charm of 'Like Flies on Sherbert' holds more interest than the more polished sound of the first two Big Star albums. There's definitely a sense that, middling quality of the recent Big Star album notwithstanding, Chilton had more to offer.
I now have a large task on my hands attempting to catch up on everything I've been enjoying recently. Blogging will probably remain intermittent as I start a month of new work on Tuesday and I really hope to get the best out of a short amount of time.
Whilst I've been busy working and planning for the future, plenty seems to have happened in the world of music, not least the sad loss of two figures personally significant for me (and many others). Along with John Peel, Charlie Gillett was surely one of the two most important voices in British broadcasting. He treated his listeners with respect, trusting them to have the same keen and adventurous ears that he had. His style was totally and refreshingly unshowy and unpretentious, allowing the music to speak for itself whilst also communicating his enthusiasm and passion for it in a naturalistic, almost effortless manner. He was a broadcaster of real integrity - compromising his own tastes and interests in the service of his career would have been unthinkable. Compare this with the excitable preaching of Zane Lowe and it's easy to see what has been lost to the tradition of radio with Charlie's passing. He can't be replaced - but I do hope the World Service continues to devote a small part of its schedule to sharing music from around the world.
Alex Chilton was a more tricksy character but, at his best, undeniably one of the great pop songwriters. Big Star were a band that sounded like they ought to have had hit after hit but, in the end, they remained a cult concern. It's worth remembering that, over time, cult interest bands have considerable impact on a wide range of people - and the many tributes to Alex on Twitter are testament to the fact that conventional, commercial measures of popularity often serve to marginalise immensely significant players. 'The Ballad of El Goodo', 'September Gurls', 'Thirteen', 'Thank You Friends', 'Kanga Roo' rank among some of the finest songs I know. As a solo artist, Chilton was wayward and unpredictable - although there are those for whom the ragged charm of 'Like Flies on Sherbert' holds more interest than the more polished sound of the first two Big Star albums. There's definitely a sense that, middling quality of the recent Big Star album notwithstanding, Chilton had more to offer.
I now have a large task on my hands attempting to catch up on everything I've been enjoying recently. Blogging will probably remain intermittent as I start a month of new work on Tuesday and I really hope to get the best out of a short amount of time.
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Rock Heritage
John Cale and The Heritage Orchestra perform Paris 1919
Royal Festival Hall – 5th March 2010
Having never seen the great John Cale live before, and with the knowledge that he would be performing his superb ‘Paris 1919’ album in full, I’d been eagerly anticipating this concert for some time. I use the word ‘concert’ rather than gig because that is very much what it was – a stately, reverential and, for the most part, somewhat uninspired recreation of Cale’s 1973 hymn to cold war Europe, coupled with a rather short and ungenerous second half of more adventurous pieces for the band.
‘Paris 1919’ is rightly regarded as one of Cale’s more conventional albums. Whilst it has rich orchestral arrangements, it’s very much a set of melodic pop songs and there is very little hint of Cale’s interest in the avant garde, or of the poised confrontation of The Velvet Underground. The recording, however, is beautifully nuanced and with members of Little Feat in the original band, even the languid ballads threaten to tip into a lithe groove.
Yet when the band finally joins the orchestra onstage after a somewhat unprofessional and uncertain pause, the opening ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales’ simply lacks punch. Perhaps it’s something to do with drummer Michael Jerome playing an unconventional kit, largely sticking to brushes and providing the kick from a cajon. The problem isn’t confined just to this song, unfortunately, with the entire rendition of the album seeming slick, over-rehearsed and lacking any injection of immediacy or inspiration.
The arrangements seemed to suffer from overthinking how best to combine band and orchestra. Perhaps wary of cutting through the string section, guitarist Dustin Boyer repeatedly resorted to a clichéd and grating distorted rock ballad guitar sound that undermined the sensitivities of the songs. Rather than touching or affecting, the album’s ballads ended up overcooked and bordering on histrionic. The album’s livelier moments, such as ‘Macbeth’ (moved to the end of the set presumably to create a rousing finale), seemed to lack teeth. Only ‘Graham Greene’, one of my least favourite songs on the album, seemed to achieve a fresh impetus – less playful but more insistent than the studio version.
If the original recording has a significant fault, it’s that Cale’s consistently double tracked vocals are often uncomfortably flat. Tonight, his voice sounded stronger, more confident and more articulate. The intelligent, wry wordplay of much of the album’s lyrics at least came through with clarity and purpose. This made it all the more unfortunate that the sound of the musicians was so muddy and undefined. At one point, a near constant low level feedback from the horn section threatened to completely destroy the mood.
After a short break (the brevity of which certainly caught out those who insisted on another trip to the bar), the group returned to perform some choice selections from Cale’s career. These included a wiry, claustrophobic interpretation of The Velvet Underground’s ‘Femme Fatale’ (intercut with ‘Rosegarden Funeral of Sores’), a somewhat dreamy ‘Amsterdam’ and an outstanding, clamorous, deeply weird deconstruction of ‘Heartbreak Hotel’. In this short section of the concert, the band played so much more intuitively and intelligently, crafting thrilling and futuristic music. I would have appreciated more of this. Both orchestra and bombast return for a rapturously applauded ‘Hedda Gabbler’.
The concert has been well received elsewhere in the press, and the audience afforded Cale a rather uncritical standing ovation. Yet, to me, it all seemed rather perfunctory and ungenerous – an example of getting a job done rather than anything more artistically adventurous. The performance of ‘Paris 1919’, curiously unsatisfying as it was, didn’t even provide the warm glow of nostalgia one might reasonably expect. Perhaps there is a broader problem with this recent trend of performing classic albums in full – but if classical audiences pay to see complete symphonies, I don’t really see the difference. For a large portion of popular music’s history now, the album has been the nearest equivalent to a full composed work, and reports of its death are no doubt greatly exaggerated. Still, any attempt to produce a tasteful facsimile of the original work, rather than something living, breathing and challenging, ought to be avoided at all costs.
Royal Festival Hall – 5th March 2010
Having never seen the great John Cale live before, and with the knowledge that he would be performing his superb ‘Paris 1919’ album in full, I’d been eagerly anticipating this concert for some time. I use the word ‘concert’ rather than gig because that is very much what it was – a stately, reverential and, for the most part, somewhat uninspired recreation of Cale’s 1973 hymn to cold war Europe, coupled with a rather short and ungenerous second half of more adventurous pieces for the band.
‘Paris 1919’ is rightly regarded as one of Cale’s more conventional albums. Whilst it has rich orchestral arrangements, it’s very much a set of melodic pop songs and there is very little hint of Cale’s interest in the avant garde, or of the poised confrontation of The Velvet Underground. The recording, however, is beautifully nuanced and with members of Little Feat in the original band, even the languid ballads threaten to tip into a lithe groove.
Yet when the band finally joins the orchestra onstage after a somewhat unprofessional and uncertain pause, the opening ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales’ simply lacks punch. Perhaps it’s something to do with drummer Michael Jerome playing an unconventional kit, largely sticking to brushes and providing the kick from a cajon. The problem isn’t confined just to this song, unfortunately, with the entire rendition of the album seeming slick, over-rehearsed and lacking any injection of immediacy or inspiration.
The arrangements seemed to suffer from overthinking how best to combine band and orchestra. Perhaps wary of cutting through the string section, guitarist Dustin Boyer repeatedly resorted to a clichéd and grating distorted rock ballad guitar sound that undermined the sensitivities of the songs. Rather than touching or affecting, the album’s ballads ended up overcooked and bordering on histrionic. The album’s livelier moments, such as ‘Macbeth’ (moved to the end of the set presumably to create a rousing finale), seemed to lack teeth. Only ‘Graham Greene’, one of my least favourite songs on the album, seemed to achieve a fresh impetus – less playful but more insistent than the studio version.
If the original recording has a significant fault, it’s that Cale’s consistently double tracked vocals are often uncomfortably flat. Tonight, his voice sounded stronger, more confident and more articulate. The intelligent, wry wordplay of much of the album’s lyrics at least came through with clarity and purpose. This made it all the more unfortunate that the sound of the musicians was so muddy and undefined. At one point, a near constant low level feedback from the horn section threatened to completely destroy the mood.
After a short break (the brevity of which certainly caught out those who insisted on another trip to the bar), the group returned to perform some choice selections from Cale’s career. These included a wiry, claustrophobic interpretation of The Velvet Underground’s ‘Femme Fatale’ (intercut with ‘Rosegarden Funeral of Sores’), a somewhat dreamy ‘Amsterdam’ and an outstanding, clamorous, deeply weird deconstruction of ‘Heartbreak Hotel’. In this short section of the concert, the band played so much more intuitively and intelligently, crafting thrilling and futuristic music. I would have appreciated more of this. Both orchestra and bombast return for a rapturously applauded ‘Hedda Gabbler’.
The concert has been well received elsewhere in the press, and the audience afforded Cale a rather uncritical standing ovation. Yet, to me, it all seemed rather perfunctory and ungenerous – an example of getting a job done rather than anything more artistically adventurous. The performance of ‘Paris 1919’, curiously unsatisfying as it was, didn’t even provide the warm glow of nostalgia one might reasonably expect. Perhaps there is a broader problem with this recent trend of performing classic albums in full – but if classical audiences pay to see complete symphonies, I don’t really see the difference. For a large portion of popular music’s history now, the album has been the nearest equivalent to a full composed work, and reports of its death are no doubt greatly exaggerated. Still, any attempt to produce a tasteful facsimile of the original work, rather than something living, breathing and challenging, ought to be avoided at all costs.
Monday, March 08, 2010
Enough To Get You Drunk
Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me (Drag City)
Joanna Newsom seems to be one of those artists about whom writers are incapable of exercising nuance – she’s a polarising figure who has taken to making grand, indulgent and idiosyncratic works that demand to be either loved or hated. There’s little room for indifference. Looking back over my rather cursory review of Joanna Newsom’s last album ‘Ys’, I wasn’t quite as dismissive as I’d thought I’d been, but I did question the lack of perspective and distance deployed in criticism of the record. Music critics (mostly males it must be admitted) seemed to veer into rhapsodic swoons at Newsom’s unrestrained verbosity and the romantic sweep of Van Dyke Parks’ grandiose arrangements.
I’ve been a good deal more agnostic about Newsom. ‘The Milk Eyed Mendor’ had some endearing songs but was undermined by Newsom’s grating childlike whimsy. ‘Ys’, on the other hand, was a bizarre detour into a world of excess. With barely a moment free from the piercing sound of Newsom’s voice, certainly an acquired taste, it seemed to me oppressive and not especially likeable. It was rare to find a record rooted in conventional harmony and folk traditions that also sounded so confrontational and difficult.
‘Have One On Me’ sounds even more daunting on paper – more than two hours of Newsom’s music spread across three CDs! She simply does not know how to edit herself. In reality, though, it’s a much more accessible album than ‘Ys’ and arguably a more artistic one too. There are no Van Dyke Parks arrangements here, instead that responsibility falls to Ryan Francesconi, leader of Newsom’s touring band. The arrangements here are occasionally intricate, but always serve to complement or enhance the song. On five of the eighteen tracks, Newsom even forsakes the harp in favour of the piano. Most importantly, these factors combine to ensure that there is a great range in texture and dynamic that had been largely absent from ‘Ys’.
Also immediately noticeable are the changes in Newsom’s vocal delivery. Apparently she underwent surgery for vocal chord nodules last year – I’m not sure whether it’s this or a conscious decision that has prompted the greater restraint. She now sings with a much greater depth of feeling, poise and soulfulness. Sometimes the delivery is so subtle it’s almost ghostly, a big contrast from Newsom’s previous tendency to impose her personality with unwavering intensity. She still sounds quirky, for sure, but now far more naturally so and much less irritating as a result. There’s also much greater attention paid to phrasing, and there are fewer moments when Newsom seems to be forcing her flighty lyrics to scan. The squeakier, less controlled side of her voice threatens to re-emerge on the third disc, but it sounds more surprising as a result of her control elsewhere.
Newsom also displays a penchant for direct and simple melodies here, as well as her gradually unfolding, lengthy linear narratives that will be familiar to devotees of ‘Ys’. The uncharacteristically concise ‘On A Good Day’ resembles a hymn and elsewhere it sounds as if Newsom might be crafting her own traditional folk songs or nursery rhymes. This is not a criticism – a lot of these songs have direct and clear charm. On much of ‘Have One On Me’, Newsom appears to have developed the artistry and self belief to be simple but not simplistic. It’s pretty clear that she herself recognises the difference.
There’s so much material here it’s hard to know where to start. The most striking tracks are those that present the clearest sense of departure for Newsom. There’s the gently rolling road song ‘Good Intentions Paving Company’, on which Newsom sings with a chorus of her band members, phrasing the vocals in line with the song’s harmonic rhythm. It’s light and bouncy but, for those used to Newsom’s harp and voice based performances, also curiously strident. It also takes a completely unexpected twist into romantic territory as Newsom realises that the long journey has to end somewhere. The song is driven by Newsom’s basic piano style, not unlike Dylan’s untutored gospel touch on ‘New Morning’, and by the limber, creative drumming of Neal Morgan.
Similarly impressive is ‘Baby Birch’, which begins as a plaintive, gospel tinged ballad but gradually builds a delicate momentum, punctuated with bursts of electric guitar. What is most striking here is that, in contrast to pretty much all of ‘Ys’, ‘Baby Birch’ is full of space and calm – moments where Newsom no longer feels she has to browbeat us with linguistic or musical clutter. She has the confidence here to let her ideas unfold slowly and gracefully.
There are many tracks that take off where ‘Ys’ left off. They begin with Newsom alone with her harp, or have her accompanied by a string or woodwind section, and feature dense, sprawling fantasies brimming with alliteration. Disc three probably presents the more challenging of these rapturous fantasias, including the uncompromising, exaggerated ‘Esme’. Perhaps the most successful example is the extraordinary ‘Go Long’, during which no lyrical conceit seems too bizarre or wild for Newsom (she is carried in on a ‘palanquin’ made from the naked bodies of many beautiful women). Her disconcerting intensity is softened, however, by a spine-tingling integrated mesh of harp and kora.
Indeed, the instrumentation throughout hints at a wider range of influences, many of which add texture, depth and nuance to Newsom’s idiosyncratic visions. Andrew Strain’s trombone is a particularly welcome presence, adding warmth and a hint of New Orleans to ‘You and Me, Bess’ and ‘Good Intentions Paving Company’. Newsom’s piano playing, slightly untutored and unsophisticated, has something of the gospel-infused urgency of Dylan’s piano playing on the still underrated ‘New Morning’. The closing ‘Does Not Suffice’ is therefore unexpectedly soulful. The hints of Eastern musical flavours on ‘Kingfisher’ are similarly unpredictable and charming. Newsom’s range on ‘Have One On Me’ is broader and more inclusive.
Lyrically, there are still certainly moments when Newsom’s insistence on luxuriating in language leads to uncomfortable displays of verbose banality (‘her faultlessly etiolated fish-belly face’ on ‘No Provenance’ is a line that sticks out like a sore thumb). However, the overall impression left by ‘Have One On Me’ is that Newsom has balanced her expansive dreamy reveries with a new lyrical directness and self reflection. There’s the affecting pleas at the end of ‘Good Intentions…’ (‘I only want for you to pull over and hold me, til I can’t remember my own name’) and Jackrabbits (‘tell me that I can love you again’), or there’s the preoccupation with the idea of home on songs like ‘In California’ or ‘Autumn’. Then there’s the celebration of drinking, not only confined to the extraordinary title track.
Given that I listened to ‘Ys’ only three times before giving up on it and confining it to the shelves, it’s entirely surprising just how much I’ve wanted to revel in the plethora of ideas and riches on display here. For anyone previously averse to Newsom, I recommend keeping an open mind – ‘Have One On Me’ is indulgent and extravagant for sure, but it’s also deeply touching and brilliantly imaginative. It’s the kind of record no-one else would dare to make. The question, of course, is where she could possibly go from here – one hopes it doesn’t all result in a dreadful hangover.
Joanna Newsom seems to be one of those artists about whom writers are incapable of exercising nuance – she’s a polarising figure who has taken to making grand, indulgent and idiosyncratic works that demand to be either loved or hated. There’s little room for indifference. Looking back over my rather cursory review of Joanna Newsom’s last album ‘Ys’, I wasn’t quite as dismissive as I’d thought I’d been, but I did question the lack of perspective and distance deployed in criticism of the record. Music critics (mostly males it must be admitted) seemed to veer into rhapsodic swoons at Newsom’s unrestrained verbosity and the romantic sweep of Van Dyke Parks’ grandiose arrangements.
I’ve been a good deal more agnostic about Newsom. ‘The Milk Eyed Mendor’ had some endearing songs but was undermined by Newsom’s grating childlike whimsy. ‘Ys’, on the other hand, was a bizarre detour into a world of excess. With barely a moment free from the piercing sound of Newsom’s voice, certainly an acquired taste, it seemed to me oppressive and not especially likeable. It was rare to find a record rooted in conventional harmony and folk traditions that also sounded so confrontational and difficult.
‘Have One On Me’ sounds even more daunting on paper – more than two hours of Newsom’s music spread across three CDs! She simply does not know how to edit herself. In reality, though, it’s a much more accessible album than ‘Ys’ and arguably a more artistic one too. There are no Van Dyke Parks arrangements here, instead that responsibility falls to Ryan Francesconi, leader of Newsom’s touring band. The arrangements here are occasionally intricate, but always serve to complement or enhance the song. On five of the eighteen tracks, Newsom even forsakes the harp in favour of the piano. Most importantly, these factors combine to ensure that there is a great range in texture and dynamic that had been largely absent from ‘Ys’.
Also immediately noticeable are the changes in Newsom’s vocal delivery. Apparently she underwent surgery for vocal chord nodules last year – I’m not sure whether it’s this or a conscious decision that has prompted the greater restraint. She now sings with a much greater depth of feeling, poise and soulfulness. Sometimes the delivery is so subtle it’s almost ghostly, a big contrast from Newsom’s previous tendency to impose her personality with unwavering intensity. She still sounds quirky, for sure, but now far more naturally so and much less irritating as a result. There’s also much greater attention paid to phrasing, and there are fewer moments when Newsom seems to be forcing her flighty lyrics to scan. The squeakier, less controlled side of her voice threatens to re-emerge on the third disc, but it sounds more surprising as a result of her control elsewhere.
Newsom also displays a penchant for direct and simple melodies here, as well as her gradually unfolding, lengthy linear narratives that will be familiar to devotees of ‘Ys’. The uncharacteristically concise ‘On A Good Day’ resembles a hymn and elsewhere it sounds as if Newsom might be crafting her own traditional folk songs or nursery rhymes. This is not a criticism – a lot of these songs have direct and clear charm. On much of ‘Have One On Me’, Newsom appears to have developed the artistry and self belief to be simple but not simplistic. It’s pretty clear that she herself recognises the difference.
There’s so much material here it’s hard to know where to start. The most striking tracks are those that present the clearest sense of departure for Newsom. There’s the gently rolling road song ‘Good Intentions Paving Company’, on which Newsom sings with a chorus of her band members, phrasing the vocals in line with the song’s harmonic rhythm. It’s light and bouncy but, for those used to Newsom’s harp and voice based performances, also curiously strident. It also takes a completely unexpected twist into romantic territory as Newsom realises that the long journey has to end somewhere. The song is driven by Newsom’s basic piano style, not unlike Dylan’s untutored gospel touch on ‘New Morning’, and by the limber, creative drumming of Neal Morgan.
Similarly impressive is ‘Baby Birch’, which begins as a plaintive, gospel tinged ballad but gradually builds a delicate momentum, punctuated with bursts of electric guitar. What is most striking here is that, in contrast to pretty much all of ‘Ys’, ‘Baby Birch’ is full of space and calm – moments where Newsom no longer feels she has to browbeat us with linguistic or musical clutter. She has the confidence here to let her ideas unfold slowly and gracefully.
There are many tracks that take off where ‘Ys’ left off. They begin with Newsom alone with her harp, or have her accompanied by a string or woodwind section, and feature dense, sprawling fantasies brimming with alliteration. Disc three probably presents the more challenging of these rapturous fantasias, including the uncompromising, exaggerated ‘Esme’. Perhaps the most successful example is the extraordinary ‘Go Long’, during which no lyrical conceit seems too bizarre or wild for Newsom (she is carried in on a ‘palanquin’ made from the naked bodies of many beautiful women). Her disconcerting intensity is softened, however, by a spine-tingling integrated mesh of harp and kora.
Indeed, the instrumentation throughout hints at a wider range of influences, many of which add texture, depth and nuance to Newsom’s idiosyncratic visions. Andrew Strain’s trombone is a particularly welcome presence, adding warmth and a hint of New Orleans to ‘You and Me, Bess’ and ‘Good Intentions Paving Company’. Newsom’s piano playing, slightly untutored and unsophisticated, has something of the gospel-infused urgency of Dylan’s piano playing on the still underrated ‘New Morning’. The closing ‘Does Not Suffice’ is therefore unexpectedly soulful. The hints of Eastern musical flavours on ‘Kingfisher’ are similarly unpredictable and charming. Newsom’s range on ‘Have One On Me’ is broader and more inclusive.
Lyrically, there are still certainly moments when Newsom’s insistence on luxuriating in language leads to uncomfortable displays of verbose banality (‘her faultlessly etiolated fish-belly face’ on ‘No Provenance’ is a line that sticks out like a sore thumb). However, the overall impression left by ‘Have One On Me’ is that Newsom has balanced her expansive dreamy reveries with a new lyrical directness and self reflection. There’s the affecting pleas at the end of ‘Good Intentions…’ (‘I only want for you to pull over and hold me, til I can’t remember my own name’) and Jackrabbits (‘tell me that I can love you again’), or there’s the preoccupation with the idea of home on songs like ‘In California’ or ‘Autumn’. Then there’s the celebration of drinking, not only confined to the extraordinary title track.
Given that I listened to ‘Ys’ only three times before giving up on it and confining it to the shelves, it’s entirely surprising just how much I’ve wanted to revel in the plethora of ideas and riches on display here. For anyone previously averse to Newsom, I recommend keeping an open mind – ‘Have One On Me’ is indulgent and extravagant for sure, but it’s also deeply touching and brilliantly imaginative. It’s the kind of record no-one else would dare to make. The question, of course, is where she could possibly go from here – one hopes it doesn’t all result in a dreadful hangover.
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Caught In The Waves
Corinne Bailey Rae - The Sea
The fact that I'm sitting down to write a review of a Corinne Bailey Rae album comes as something of a surprise to me. I should state for the record that I don't have any particular axe to grind with Ms. Rae, it's simply that her debut was far too light and frothy a concoction to really have registered with me, although her Jools Holland performances certainly showed she had vocal talents. Her follow up album 'The Sea' is a totally different story.
It would be very tempting to write about the sad and untimely death of Bailey Rae's partner Jason Rae and how it has informed this album. Whilst it is a record touched by grief and loss, much of the writing had been done before the event, and certain songs have probably been made more poignant by the tragedy. There can be no doubt that this must have affected Bailey Rae tremendously - perhaps some of the pain was poured into completing this surprisingly powerful, dramatic and engaging album. But this is speculation - what seems more important from the context of Bailey Rae's developing career is that she seems to have been left free to make precisely the album she wanted to make. So many different styles inform this liberated, free flowing music. There are hints at Bailey Rae's love of jazz (particularly Billie Holliday records), but also material drawn from the folk world, and even from indie rock. The seductive opener 'Are You Here?' begins with an electric guitar riff that could have been drawn from a PJ Harvey record. Indeed, it comes as something of a surprise to hear Bailey Rae's soft, playful vocal delivery over it.
This sophisticated, superbly executed music is quite some way from the coffee table blandness with which Bailey Rae has been, perhaps unfairly, associated. It's a record that suggests that of all the recent heavily hyped, BBC sound-of-the-year approved female solo artists, Bailey Rae may well turn out to be the one with long term artistic potential. Artists that spring to mind when listening to 'The Sea' include Joni Mitchell, John Martyn and Terry Callier - the kind of solo artists that blurred genre boundaries with effortless, intoxicating ease.
Even the single 'I'd Do It All Again', itself a powerfully linear, deeply expressed and passionate song, gives little indication of the quality of the writing and the ensemble performances on 'The Sea'. The music is sensitively delivered and thoughtfully textured. A song like 'Feels Like The First Time', which initially threatens to be generic summery funk-lite unfolds to reveal a slightly exotic, menacing chorus with vaguely threatening string lines.
More surprising are the upbeat, sultry and insistent pieces such as 'The Blackest Lily'. With Hammond organ and spiky electric guitar, the song has a slightly retro vibe, but everything about the delivery is so righteous and confident that it ends up being thoroughly irresistible. Perhaps the breezy pop of 'Paris Nights/New York Mornings' is slightly out of place on an otherwise intense and rapturous set of songs, but the sheer panache of the band performances make it seem necessary.
Perhaps the album's greatest strengths lie in its lush, rhapsodic ballads, which are emotional without becoming histrionic. Bailey Rae has a control and delicacy that suggests turmoil in the most unforced and convincing of ways. 'I Would Like To Call It Beauty' is particularly beautiful - sensual and gentle but compelling from start to finish, whilst 'Love's On Its Way' gradually builds into something somehow both overwhelming and underplayed. The closing title track is aptly named - the sensation of listening to it is akin to being washed with waves of water. It feels like writing it may have been a cathartic, purgatorial experience.
There will always be some people for whom Bailey Rae is just not edgy enough a personality. Yet these people will miss out by unfairly ignoring this excellent album. Whilst her soft, sometimes childlike vocals could sit very comfortably in lightweight presentation, the contexts Bailey Rae has chosen here are a good deal more mature and adventurous. A great deal of attention has been paid to the detail of the arrangements and the sounds of particular instruments and to the overall mood. 'The Sea' is an elemental triumph.
The fact that I'm sitting down to write a review of a Corinne Bailey Rae album comes as something of a surprise to me. I should state for the record that I don't have any particular axe to grind with Ms. Rae, it's simply that her debut was far too light and frothy a concoction to really have registered with me, although her Jools Holland performances certainly showed she had vocal talents. Her follow up album 'The Sea' is a totally different story.
It would be very tempting to write about the sad and untimely death of Bailey Rae's partner Jason Rae and how it has informed this album. Whilst it is a record touched by grief and loss, much of the writing had been done before the event, and certain songs have probably been made more poignant by the tragedy. There can be no doubt that this must have affected Bailey Rae tremendously - perhaps some of the pain was poured into completing this surprisingly powerful, dramatic and engaging album. But this is speculation - what seems more important from the context of Bailey Rae's developing career is that she seems to have been left free to make precisely the album she wanted to make. So many different styles inform this liberated, free flowing music. There are hints at Bailey Rae's love of jazz (particularly Billie Holliday records), but also material drawn from the folk world, and even from indie rock. The seductive opener 'Are You Here?' begins with an electric guitar riff that could have been drawn from a PJ Harvey record. Indeed, it comes as something of a surprise to hear Bailey Rae's soft, playful vocal delivery over it.
This sophisticated, superbly executed music is quite some way from the coffee table blandness with which Bailey Rae has been, perhaps unfairly, associated. It's a record that suggests that of all the recent heavily hyped, BBC sound-of-the-year approved female solo artists, Bailey Rae may well turn out to be the one with long term artistic potential. Artists that spring to mind when listening to 'The Sea' include Joni Mitchell, John Martyn and Terry Callier - the kind of solo artists that blurred genre boundaries with effortless, intoxicating ease.
Even the single 'I'd Do It All Again', itself a powerfully linear, deeply expressed and passionate song, gives little indication of the quality of the writing and the ensemble performances on 'The Sea'. The music is sensitively delivered and thoughtfully textured. A song like 'Feels Like The First Time', which initially threatens to be generic summery funk-lite unfolds to reveal a slightly exotic, menacing chorus with vaguely threatening string lines.
More surprising are the upbeat, sultry and insistent pieces such as 'The Blackest Lily'. With Hammond organ and spiky electric guitar, the song has a slightly retro vibe, but everything about the delivery is so righteous and confident that it ends up being thoroughly irresistible. Perhaps the breezy pop of 'Paris Nights/New York Mornings' is slightly out of place on an otherwise intense and rapturous set of songs, but the sheer panache of the band performances make it seem necessary.
Perhaps the album's greatest strengths lie in its lush, rhapsodic ballads, which are emotional without becoming histrionic. Bailey Rae has a control and delicacy that suggests turmoil in the most unforced and convincing of ways. 'I Would Like To Call It Beauty' is particularly beautiful - sensual and gentle but compelling from start to finish, whilst 'Love's On Its Way' gradually builds into something somehow both overwhelming and underplayed. The closing title track is aptly named - the sensation of listening to it is akin to being washed with waves of water. It feels like writing it may have been a cathartic, purgatorial experience.
There will always be some people for whom Bailey Rae is just not edgy enough a personality. Yet these people will miss out by unfairly ignoring this excellent album. Whilst her soft, sometimes childlike vocals could sit very comfortably in lightweight presentation, the contexts Bailey Rae has chosen here are a good deal more mature and adventurous. A great deal of attention has been paid to the detail of the arrangements and the sounds of particular instruments and to the overall mood. 'The Sea' is an elemental triumph.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Celebrating a Polymath
Ian Carr - A Celebration of a Life in Music
Nikki Yeoh
Art Themen, Norma Winstone, Michael Garrick, Don Rendell, Dave Green, Trevor Tomkins
Musicians from Royal College of Music, Guy Barker, Tim Whitehead
Nucleus Revisited: Geoff Castle, Mark Wood, Rob Statham, Nic France, Tim Whitehead, Chris Batchelor, Phil Todd, plus guests John Marshall and Ray Russell
Queen Elizbeth Hall, 23rd February
Given his achievements as a jazz musician, a composer, a pioneer of jazz-rock fusion and also as a writer and educator, this concert celebration of the great Ian Carr (who died from Alzheimer’s disease last year) was always going to be an ambitious task. Luckily, it had been carefully planned, satisfying those in the audience who knew Ian well (I myself was one of his students at WAC in North London) and offering a neat snapshot for the uninitiated.
The words often seemed as vital and important as the music. The musings and memories of Nikki Yeoh, Julian Joseph and Michael Garrick captured Ian’s character (his breadth of knowledge, his passions for literature as well as music, his encouragement and his occasionally acid tongue) with real detail and affection, with Garrick even veering into an uncanny impression.
The concert opened with a short solo set from Nikki Yeoh, a star student of Ian’s, who spoke openly and honestly about his inspirational teaching. Her ‘Dance of Two Small Bears’ seemed appropriately indebted to Keith Jarrett (who, along with Miles Davis, represented the pinnacle of musical achievement for Ian), delightfully playful and vibrant but with a deeper, more romantic substance.
Yeoh was followed by a group lead by Michael Garrick, and featuring members of the great Rendell-Carr quintet. The rhythm section of Dave Green and Trevor Tomkins seemed more pensive and less propulsive, but compositions such as ‘Dusk Fire’ and ‘Voices’ still have a commanding resonance. The involvement of the great vocalist Norma Winstone elevated the performance, even if she occasionally threatened to interject too frequently. The appearance of an aged but still powerful Don Rendell drew deserved cheers from the audience.
The second half began with arguably the concert’s highlight, the London premier of Carr’s work for jazz trumpet, saxophone and small string orchestra ‘Northumbrian Sketches’, originally commissioned twenty five years ago. These pieces vividly capture a sense of time and place and the writing, whilst unassuming, is absorbed in the blues and rhythmically driven. Soloists Guy Barker and Tim Whitehead played with clarity and feeling and conductor Mike Gibbs controlled the ensemble with the very minimum of physical effort. Hearing a string orchestra swing will probably always remain an unusual experience. In this case, it was also a richly enjoyable one.
The finale of a very long evening was provided by a large ensemble based on the Nucleus fusion groups of the 70s and 80s. It was extremely loud, and dominated by distorted guitar and a tightly grooving rhythm section (with Rob Statham on bass and the excellent Nic France on drums). Geoff Castle’s keyboards, especially the acoustic piano, were sadly occasionally overwhelmed. The short selection of Ian’s pieces was judicious, including ‘Mister Jelly Lord’, ‘Selena’ (inspired by Miles Davis’ ‘All Blues’ and writer for Ian’s daughter), ‘Lady Bountiful’, ‘Roots’ and a majestic ‘Things Past’. I must admit to preferring the more intuitive and considered improvising of special guest guitarist Ray Russell to the histrionic shredding from Mark Wood, although the roof-raising finale featuring two guitarists and two drummers (John Marshall joining Nic France) was as vibrant and brilliantly chaotic as one of Ian’s WAC workshops. Tim Whitehead’s exultant solo on the closing ‘Things Past’ was both fittingly emotional and musically articulate.
Nikki Yeoh
Art Themen, Norma Winstone, Michael Garrick, Don Rendell, Dave Green, Trevor Tomkins
Musicians from Royal College of Music, Guy Barker, Tim Whitehead
Nucleus Revisited: Geoff Castle, Mark Wood, Rob Statham, Nic France, Tim Whitehead, Chris Batchelor, Phil Todd, plus guests John Marshall and Ray Russell
Queen Elizbeth Hall, 23rd February
Given his achievements as a jazz musician, a composer, a pioneer of jazz-rock fusion and also as a writer and educator, this concert celebration of the great Ian Carr (who died from Alzheimer’s disease last year) was always going to be an ambitious task. Luckily, it had been carefully planned, satisfying those in the audience who knew Ian well (I myself was one of his students at WAC in North London) and offering a neat snapshot for the uninitiated.
The words often seemed as vital and important as the music. The musings and memories of Nikki Yeoh, Julian Joseph and Michael Garrick captured Ian’s character (his breadth of knowledge, his passions for literature as well as music, his encouragement and his occasionally acid tongue) with real detail and affection, with Garrick even veering into an uncanny impression.
The concert opened with a short solo set from Nikki Yeoh, a star student of Ian’s, who spoke openly and honestly about his inspirational teaching. Her ‘Dance of Two Small Bears’ seemed appropriately indebted to Keith Jarrett (who, along with Miles Davis, represented the pinnacle of musical achievement for Ian), delightfully playful and vibrant but with a deeper, more romantic substance.
Yeoh was followed by a group lead by Michael Garrick, and featuring members of the great Rendell-Carr quintet. The rhythm section of Dave Green and Trevor Tomkins seemed more pensive and less propulsive, but compositions such as ‘Dusk Fire’ and ‘Voices’ still have a commanding resonance. The involvement of the great vocalist Norma Winstone elevated the performance, even if she occasionally threatened to interject too frequently. The appearance of an aged but still powerful Don Rendell drew deserved cheers from the audience.
The second half began with arguably the concert’s highlight, the London premier of Carr’s work for jazz trumpet, saxophone and small string orchestra ‘Northumbrian Sketches’, originally commissioned twenty five years ago. These pieces vividly capture a sense of time and place and the writing, whilst unassuming, is absorbed in the blues and rhythmically driven. Soloists Guy Barker and Tim Whitehead played with clarity and feeling and conductor Mike Gibbs controlled the ensemble with the very minimum of physical effort. Hearing a string orchestra swing will probably always remain an unusual experience. In this case, it was also a richly enjoyable one.
The finale of a very long evening was provided by a large ensemble based on the Nucleus fusion groups of the 70s and 80s. It was extremely loud, and dominated by distorted guitar and a tightly grooving rhythm section (with Rob Statham on bass and the excellent Nic France on drums). Geoff Castle’s keyboards, especially the acoustic piano, were sadly occasionally overwhelmed. The short selection of Ian’s pieces was judicious, including ‘Mister Jelly Lord’, ‘Selena’ (inspired by Miles Davis’ ‘All Blues’ and writer for Ian’s daughter), ‘Lady Bountiful’, ‘Roots’ and a majestic ‘Things Past’. I must admit to preferring the more intuitive and considered improvising of special guest guitarist Ray Russell to the histrionic shredding from Mark Wood, although the roof-raising finale featuring two guitarists and two drummers (John Marshall joining Nic France) was as vibrant and brilliantly chaotic as one of Ian’s WAC workshops. Tim Whitehead’s exultant solo on the closing ‘Things Past’ was both fittingly emotional and musically articulate.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Playlist
I haven't had much time to write recently - apologies for that. I definitely need to write something about last night's epic Ian Carr celebration concert, and I must also express my thoughts on all of these releases at some point:
Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me
Laura Veirs - July Flame
Ali Farka Toure and Toumani Diabate - Ali and Toumani
Fringe Magnetic - Empty Spaces
Kairos 4Tet - Kairos Moment
Jaga Jazzist - One Armed Bandit
Bass Clef - May The Bridges I Burn Light The Way
Myra Melford Be Bread - The Whole Tree Gone
Pantha Du Prince - Black Noise
Polar Bear - Peepers
Field Music - (Measure)
Corinne Bailey Rae - The Sea (no, really...)
Tamikrest - Adagh
Richard Skelton - Landings
The Knife with Mt Sims and Planningtorock - Tomorrow in a Year
Pat Metheny - Orchestrion
Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me
Laura Veirs - July Flame
Ali Farka Toure and Toumani Diabate - Ali and Toumani
Fringe Magnetic - Empty Spaces
Kairos 4Tet - Kairos Moment
Jaga Jazzist - One Armed Bandit
Bass Clef - May The Bridges I Burn Light The Way
Myra Melford Be Bread - The Whole Tree Gone
Pantha Du Prince - Black Noise
Polar Bear - Peepers
Field Music - (Measure)
Corinne Bailey Rae - The Sea (no, really...)
Tamikrest - Adagh
Richard Skelton - Landings
The Knife with Mt Sims and Planningtorock - Tomorrow in a Year
Pat Metheny - Orchestrion
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Orchestral Manouevres In the Dark
Peter Gabriel - Scratch My Back (Realworld)
For those who have us who have been waiting for ‘I/O’, the new album of original material Peter Gabriel has been promising for the past eight years, his ‘song exchange’ project ‘Scratch My Back’ is somewhat unexpected. For some, it will no doubt also be frustrating. It is now conventional for the covers album to be seen as a disappointment, a sign of diminishing creative powers or an abrogation of artistic responsibilities. This is something that always irritates me given the importance of the art of interpretation in the development of popular music.
In Peter Gabriel’s case, there’s a strong argument to be made that ‘Scratch My Back’ is the most radical move he could have made. Although his previous two albums ‘Us’ and ‘Up’ came spaced far apart, they gave a strong sense of consistent artistic preoccupations. Gabriel was fascinated by sound, by linear song structure and by a wide variety of music from around the world. He had developed a perfectionist streak in his own private studio and would rework his compositions for as long as he felt it necessary to tinker and tweak. He was also becoming strongly associated with personal, confessional lyrics, which added a human dimension to what could easily have been made for alienating listening. Both albums are brilliant and original – but I wonder what more of the same would have added to our understanding of this most underrated of artists.
Given the extent to which Gabriel’s sound is associated with his regular rhythm section (not least bassist Tony Levin and his customised ‘funk fingers’), recording an album without drums, guitar or electric bass and with an orchestra represents a substantial departure. For the most part, the orchestrations on ‘Scratch My Back’, by John Metcalfe, are not particularly adventurous, although sometimes stirring, sitting squarely in film soundtrack territory. It therefore falls more to Gabriel’s strengths and limitations as a singer to determine which of these musical settings work and which do not. His voice has not sounded this exposed since ‘Here Comes the Flood’ on his debut solo recording. Sometimes the results are grandiose or schmaltzy, but on other occasions, Gabriel finds a restrained and dignified sense of reflection and regret in his material.
Although its title suggests there is something lighthearted, entertaining, perhaps even humorous about this project, but the album that Gabriel has produced is unflinchingly earnest and sincere. Whilst he alters the mood of many of these songs, he also treats them with tremendous reverence. His aim seems to have been to strip these songs of the trappings of their original productions and amplify the emotions beneath the artifice. This is a bit difficult to achieve with a selection such as Neil Young’s wonderful ‘Philadelphia’, which was all about naked simplicity and vulnerability in the first place, the song demonstrating considerably more artistry than the film it soundtracked. Gabriel speeds up the temp slightly and makes the phrasing more precise, meaning that there’s less lilt and gentle swing. The orchestrations eventually drown both the melody and the purpose of the song. Similarly, it’s hard to add additional dense arrangements to Arcade Fire’s ‘My Body Is a Cage’, hardly a song that could have been much more portentous in its original guise. Somehow Gabriel succeeds in making it so however, although he finds something more intimate and restrained in the song’s coda.
There are moments, however, when his approach works to startling and transformative effect. With Radiohead’s ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)’, he alters the phrasing of the vocal in the opposite way from ‘Philadelphia’, protracting the lines and finding the song’s inherent sadness and claustrophobia. His voice is cracked and wayward here. He’s by no means the most technically gifted of singers, but his voice has rarely been used so compellingly as an instrument before. Regina Spektor’s ‘Apres Moi’ sounds enticing when stripped of her indulgent kookiness, whilst Elbow’s ‘Mirrorball’ sounds a good deal more mysterious and elegant when divorced from Guy Garvey’s homely blokiness. It’s one of the more slippery and elusive songs here, and Gabriel handles its subtleties adroitly.
Best of all surely must be the lush, captivating take on Bon Iver’s ‘Flume’. This somehow retains all the passion and the emotion of the original, adding theatricality and drama but removing Justin Vernon’s trademark vocal trickery. It helps that this results in a clearer communication of the lyric. Gabriel completely inhabits this song, sounding at once powerful and mournful. This is a tremendous reading of an already excellent song.
Elsewhere, the situation is more complicated than merely a matter of straightforward success of failure. Removing the joyful township spirit of Paul Simon’s ‘The Boy In The Bubble’ radically alters its mood and feeling, although I can’t help feeling that this slow motion version is a little too soporific. The success of the version of The Magnetic Fields’ ‘The Book of Love’ depends on whether or not Stephin Merritt’s songs work when his layers of irony are peeled away. Some will find this conversational take sweet and endearing, others may feel it is sentimental. The piano-lead take on Randy Newman’s ‘I Think It’s Going to Rain Today’ is arguably too faithful and certainly pales into insignificance when placed against Nina Simone’s magisterial version. Uncharacteristically, Gabriel overdoes the forced emoting at the outset of his version of Bowie’s ‘Heroes’, but the song magically comes alive with the introduction of a Steve Reich-esque string figure. This in turn allows Gabriel’s voice to take full, natural flight.
By some distance the most surprising setting is a de-funked, chamber take on Talking Heads’ alarmingly prophetic ‘Listening Wind’. It’s the one that seems least likely to work given how much Talking Heads songs tended to rely on their spindly, angular grooves. Gabriel’s reading emphasises the importance of David Byrne’s vocal phrasing, and his ear for an engaging melody.
‘Scratch My Back’ is by no means a masterpiece, but it is an important addition to the catalogue of a major artist. Bob Ezrin, far better known as a fairly blustery rock producer, but who of course worked wonders on Lou Reed's 'Berlin', has captured the orchestral sound effortlessly, although I would have preferred it had the orchestrations focussed more on texture and colour and less on cinematic sweep. Nevertheless, Gabriel has pushed himself outside his usual comfort zone. The results are mixed, but never less than interesting.
For those who have us who have been waiting for ‘I/O’, the new album of original material Peter Gabriel has been promising for the past eight years, his ‘song exchange’ project ‘Scratch My Back’ is somewhat unexpected. For some, it will no doubt also be frustrating. It is now conventional for the covers album to be seen as a disappointment, a sign of diminishing creative powers or an abrogation of artistic responsibilities. This is something that always irritates me given the importance of the art of interpretation in the development of popular music.
In Peter Gabriel’s case, there’s a strong argument to be made that ‘Scratch My Back’ is the most radical move he could have made. Although his previous two albums ‘Us’ and ‘Up’ came spaced far apart, they gave a strong sense of consistent artistic preoccupations. Gabriel was fascinated by sound, by linear song structure and by a wide variety of music from around the world. He had developed a perfectionist streak in his own private studio and would rework his compositions for as long as he felt it necessary to tinker and tweak. He was also becoming strongly associated with personal, confessional lyrics, which added a human dimension to what could easily have been made for alienating listening. Both albums are brilliant and original – but I wonder what more of the same would have added to our understanding of this most underrated of artists.
Given the extent to which Gabriel’s sound is associated with his regular rhythm section (not least bassist Tony Levin and his customised ‘funk fingers’), recording an album without drums, guitar or electric bass and with an orchestra represents a substantial departure. For the most part, the orchestrations on ‘Scratch My Back’, by John Metcalfe, are not particularly adventurous, although sometimes stirring, sitting squarely in film soundtrack territory. It therefore falls more to Gabriel’s strengths and limitations as a singer to determine which of these musical settings work and which do not. His voice has not sounded this exposed since ‘Here Comes the Flood’ on his debut solo recording. Sometimes the results are grandiose or schmaltzy, but on other occasions, Gabriel finds a restrained and dignified sense of reflection and regret in his material.
Although its title suggests there is something lighthearted, entertaining, perhaps even humorous about this project, but the album that Gabriel has produced is unflinchingly earnest and sincere. Whilst he alters the mood of many of these songs, he also treats them with tremendous reverence. His aim seems to have been to strip these songs of the trappings of their original productions and amplify the emotions beneath the artifice. This is a bit difficult to achieve with a selection such as Neil Young’s wonderful ‘Philadelphia’, which was all about naked simplicity and vulnerability in the first place, the song demonstrating considerably more artistry than the film it soundtracked. Gabriel speeds up the temp slightly and makes the phrasing more precise, meaning that there’s less lilt and gentle swing. The orchestrations eventually drown both the melody and the purpose of the song. Similarly, it’s hard to add additional dense arrangements to Arcade Fire’s ‘My Body Is a Cage’, hardly a song that could have been much more portentous in its original guise. Somehow Gabriel succeeds in making it so however, although he finds something more intimate and restrained in the song’s coda.
There are moments, however, when his approach works to startling and transformative effect. With Radiohead’s ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)’, he alters the phrasing of the vocal in the opposite way from ‘Philadelphia’, protracting the lines and finding the song’s inherent sadness and claustrophobia. His voice is cracked and wayward here. He’s by no means the most technically gifted of singers, but his voice has rarely been used so compellingly as an instrument before. Regina Spektor’s ‘Apres Moi’ sounds enticing when stripped of her indulgent kookiness, whilst Elbow’s ‘Mirrorball’ sounds a good deal more mysterious and elegant when divorced from Guy Garvey’s homely blokiness. It’s one of the more slippery and elusive songs here, and Gabriel handles its subtleties adroitly.
Best of all surely must be the lush, captivating take on Bon Iver’s ‘Flume’. This somehow retains all the passion and the emotion of the original, adding theatricality and drama but removing Justin Vernon’s trademark vocal trickery. It helps that this results in a clearer communication of the lyric. Gabriel completely inhabits this song, sounding at once powerful and mournful. This is a tremendous reading of an already excellent song.
Elsewhere, the situation is more complicated than merely a matter of straightforward success of failure. Removing the joyful township spirit of Paul Simon’s ‘The Boy In The Bubble’ radically alters its mood and feeling, although I can’t help feeling that this slow motion version is a little too soporific. The success of the version of The Magnetic Fields’ ‘The Book of Love’ depends on whether or not Stephin Merritt’s songs work when his layers of irony are peeled away. Some will find this conversational take sweet and endearing, others may feel it is sentimental. The piano-lead take on Randy Newman’s ‘I Think It’s Going to Rain Today’ is arguably too faithful and certainly pales into insignificance when placed against Nina Simone’s magisterial version. Uncharacteristically, Gabriel overdoes the forced emoting at the outset of his version of Bowie’s ‘Heroes’, but the song magically comes alive with the introduction of a Steve Reich-esque string figure. This in turn allows Gabriel’s voice to take full, natural flight.
By some distance the most surprising setting is a de-funked, chamber take on Talking Heads’ alarmingly prophetic ‘Listening Wind’. It’s the one that seems least likely to work given how much Talking Heads songs tended to rely on their spindly, angular grooves. Gabriel’s reading emphasises the importance of David Byrne’s vocal phrasing, and his ear for an engaging melody.
‘Scratch My Back’ is by no means a masterpiece, but it is an important addition to the catalogue of a major artist. Bob Ezrin, far better known as a fairly blustery rock producer, but who of course worked wonders on Lou Reed's 'Berlin', has captured the orchestral sound effortlessly, although I would have preferred it had the orchestrations focussed more on texture and colour and less on cinematic sweep. Nevertheless, Gabriel has pushed himself outside his usual comfort zone. The results are mixed, but never less than interesting.
Second Album Fail
Yeasayer – Odd Blood (Mute)
Yeasayer’s debut album ‘All Hour Cymbals’ seemed precariously balanced on a knife-edge between two extremes – hippy idealist psychedelia on one side and over-egged 80s pop on the other. It succeeded in walking a tightrope between the two due to its graceful melodies and the group’s instrumental prowess and skills in arranging. Its follow-up ‘Odd Blood’ certainly favours the band’s 80s preoccupations, frequently resembling Tears for Fears or Duran Duran.
It starts auspiciously with a total red herring. ‘The Children’ is an uncomfortable and sinister concoction dominated by creepy vocal effects, eerie sounds and a slow pace that serves to bewitch and hypnotise rather than soothe the listener. Its sheer weirdness suggests that ‘Odd Blood’ might live up to its title.
What follows mostly favours bright, infectious choruses that border on irritating. The musical backdrop largely consists of tribal-sounding tom toms and swathes of synth pads that do little to enhance or support these rather thin and lightweight songs. Occasionally, there is superimposed faux-sophistication that feels forced and lacks depth. The frequent comparisons with Animal Collective are understandable, but the similarities are all superficial. ‘Odd Blood’ doesn’t invoke anything as startling as the joyful synaesthesia of ‘Merriweather Post Pavilion’.
This sonic consistency perhaps shouldn’t be all that surprising. ‘2080’, one of the most popular songs on ‘All Hour Cymbals’ worked in spite of its strong resemblance to ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’. Sometimes they pull off a similar trick here. Despite its litany of lyrical clichés, ‘Ambling Alp’ still manages to be maddeningly irresistible. This is at least in part because the band imposes an entirely unexpected and highly imaginative middle section, complete with bizarre saxophones and deviating from the song’s otherwise predictable and formulaic structure.
The biggest problem with ‘Odd Blood’ is the switch of focus away from the arrangements and on to Chris Keating’s slight, reedy vocals, particularly grating when he adopts an untutored falsetto. ‘I Remember’ is another song of love, loss and memory to add to the substantial canon, but the bland and dated backing makes it difficult to experience any emotional impact. Peter Gabriel might be a reference point for this and the preceding ‘Madder Red’, but Gabriel’s songs have always had so much more depth and honesty. Most of the songs on ‘Odd Blood’ seem tricksy and contrived.
‘O.N.E.’ and ‘Love Me Girl’ make up the album’s quirky, upbeat centre. It’s difficult to resist unfavourable comparisons with Hot Chip here. There are a number of musical similarities – not least the 80s influences and single line synth riffs. But there’s nothing affecting or emotionally nuanced here. Regardless of the lyrical context, the insistent but limited melodies offer little hint of longing, melancholy, regret, excitement or discovery. ‘Love Me Girl’ particularly emerges as something of an incoherent mess of pick and mix influences (Prince, Depeche Mode, A-Ha, Duran Duran and much more besides).
In the album’s less focused second half, there are teasing hints of what might have been. The asymmetrical ‘Strange Reunions’, with its offbeat handclaps, devious melodic lines and psychedelic influences is initially beguiling, but it fades out abruptly, seeming like an interrupted journey. Nevertheless, it’s the one point where the group sound relaxed, not trying too hard to be accessible or clever. The saxophones are back to entertaining effect on ‘Mondegreen’, a nimble update of the Motown Stomp severely let down by some silly lyrics (‘everybody’s talking about me and my baby making love ‘til the morning light’ – are we really?).
However elaborately produced ‘All Hour Cymbals’ may have been, it was still believably the work of a band. On ‘Odd Blood’, Yeasayer appear to have stifled any sense of interaction or musicality in favour of a self-regarding, artificial sheen. It’s worth remembering that if the band really are hinting at the artful electro-pop of Talk Talk, then those records sound more durable and satisfying now than ‘Odd Blood’ does. This is a record that is trying desperately to impress, but ends up deeply irritating. It’s a real disappointment from a band that appeared to have considerable potential.
Yeasayer’s debut album ‘All Hour Cymbals’ seemed precariously balanced on a knife-edge between two extremes – hippy idealist psychedelia on one side and over-egged 80s pop on the other. It succeeded in walking a tightrope between the two due to its graceful melodies and the group’s instrumental prowess and skills in arranging. Its follow-up ‘Odd Blood’ certainly favours the band’s 80s preoccupations, frequently resembling Tears for Fears or Duran Duran.
It starts auspiciously with a total red herring. ‘The Children’ is an uncomfortable and sinister concoction dominated by creepy vocal effects, eerie sounds and a slow pace that serves to bewitch and hypnotise rather than soothe the listener. Its sheer weirdness suggests that ‘Odd Blood’ might live up to its title.
What follows mostly favours bright, infectious choruses that border on irritating. The musical backdrop largely consists of tribal-sounding tom toms and swathes of synth pads that do little to enhance or support these rather thin and lightweight songs. Occasionally, there is superimposed faux-sophistication that feels forced and lacks depth. The frequent comparisons with Animal Collective are understandable, but the similarities are all superficial. ‘Odd Blood’ doesn’t invoke anything as startling as the joyful synaesthesia of ‘Merriweather Post Pavilion’.
This sonic consistency perhaps shouldn’t be all that surprising. ‘2080’, one of the most popular songs on ‘All Hour Cymbals’ worked in spite of its strong resemblance to ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’. Sometimes they pull off a similar trick here. Despite its litany of lyrical clichés, ‘Ambling Alp’ still manages to be maddeningly irresistible. This is at least in part because the band imposes an entirely unexpected and highly imaginative middle section, complete with bizarre saxophones and deviating from the song’s otherwise predictable and formulaic structure.
The biggest problem with ‘Odd Blood’ is the switch of focus away from the arrangements and on to Chris Keating’s slight, reedy vocals, particularly grating when he adopts an untutored falsetto. ‘I Remember’ is another song of love, loss and memory to add to the substantial canon, but the bland and dated backing makes it difficult to experience any emotional impact. Peter Gabriel might be a reference point for this and the preceding ‘Madder Red’, but Gabriel’s songs have always had so much more depth and honesty. Most of the songs on ‘Odd Blood’ seem tricksy and contrived.
‘O.N.E.’ and ‘Love Me Girl’ make up the album’s quirky, upbeat centre. It’s difficult to resist unfavourable comparisons with Hot Chip here. There are a number of musical similarities – not least the 80s influences and single line synth riffs. But there’s nothing affecting or emotionally nuanced here. Regardless of the lyrical context, the insistent but limited melodies offer little hint of longing, melancholy, regret, excitement or discovery. ‘Love Me Girl’ particularly emerges as something of an incoherent mess of pick and mix influences (Prince, Depeche Mode, A-Ha, Duran Duran and much more besides).
In the album’s less focused second half, there are teasing hints of what might have been. The asymmetrical ‘Strange Reunions’, with its offbeat handclaps, devious melodic lines and psychedelic influences is initially beguiling, but it fades out abruptly, seeming like an interrupted journey. Nevertheless, it’s the one point where the group sound relaxed, not trying too hard to be accessible or clever. The saxophones are back to entertaining effect on ‘Mondegreen’, a nimble update of the Motown Stomp severely let down by some silly lyrics (‘everybody’s talking about me and my baby making love ‘til the morning light’ – are we really?).
However elaborately produced ‘All Hour Cymbals’ may have been, it was still believably the work of a band. On ‘Odd Blood’, Yeasayer appear to have stifled any sense of interaction or musicality in favour of a self-regarding, artificial sheen. It’s worth remembering that if the band really are hinting at the artful electro-pop of Talk Talk, then those records sound more durable and satisfying now than ‘Odd Blood’ does. This is a record that is trying desperately to impress, but ends up deeply irritating. It’s a real disappointment from a band that appeared to have considerable potential.
Friday, February 05, 2010
Bruised but Unbeaten
Gil Scott Heron - I'm New Here (XL Recordings)
This intriguing comeback from Gil Scott Heron is actually an incredibly difficult album to review. Scott Heron has arguably never made a bad record – even his last release, 1994’s ‘Spirits’, had its moments. Whilst ‘I’m New Here’ belatedly continues the quality streak, it stands alone in Scott Heron’s catalogue in terms of its sound and instrumentation. Yet it’s faintly ludicrous to applaud it for ‘incorporating hip-hop’ when, along with the Last Poets, Scott Heron is one of the founding fathers of rap. XL boss Richard Russell’s production therefore represents a sensitive and logical modernisation, rather than a forced or unnecessary one.
The sonic environment Russell has crafted for Scott Heron may not actually be all that radical. His claustrophobic, sinister but minimalist combination of strings and beats could easily have come from a Massive Attack album. He at least seems to be a good deal more creative with such backing tracks than Massive Attack themselves are these days. His accompaniments take Scott Heron away from his natural comfort zone without making him sound distant or uncomfortable. There’s no Fender Rhodes piano or live percussion and no attempt to smooth over the rough, nervy reality of Scott Heron’s words. The jazz lineage (the world of ‘lady Day and John Coltrane’) may have been sacrificed – but the results are suitably dank and fearsome.
What is most interesting about this record though is Scott Heron’s voice, which now sounds deeper and more resonant, but somehow simultaneously more weathered and dry. He now sounds like a man who has been through a tough prison sentence and various drug rehabilitation programmes. In this sense, the musical backings work remarkably well, given that they are atmospheric but unobtrusive – allowing that peculiar but powerful voice space to communicate.
This set supremely reaffirms Scott Heron’s talents as a performance poet. It is full of interludes and brief skits which complement the flow of the overall album rather than interrupt it. It is bookended by two parts of an autobiographical tale entitled ‘On Coming From A Broken Home’ in which Scott Heron’s elaborate language is as rich and evocative as the sound of his voice. Even more intense is the stark, pounding ‘Running’, which seems confessional in light of Scott Heron’s recent life experience.
The album is rather dominated by the choice of covers, which leads to obvious comparisons with Rick Rubin’s rehabilitation of Johnny Cash’s career. Yet, to hear Johnny Cash singing with acoustic instrumentation was not surprising. To hear Scott Heron doing it on the surprisingly effective version of Smog’s ‘I’m New Here’ is rather radical and unexpected. The song’s combination of irony and honesty is the perfect vehicle for Scott Heron’s resurrection, with its brilliant chat up lines (‘I met a woman in a bar and told her I was hard to get to know, but damn near impossible to forget’) and self-reflection (‘I had an ego the size of Texas. I forget –does that mean big or small?’).
Perhaps less unexpected are versions of Robert Johnson’s ‘Me and The Devil’, relocated from the Mississippi Delta to a paranoid urban environment, and an ostensibly soft take on Bobby Bland’s ‘I’ll Take Care Of You’. Here, Scott Heron’s harsh voice suggests not compassion or commitment – but rather defiance and conviction.
The only original ‘song’ here – ‘New York Is Killing Me’ – is excellent, and suggests that there may be much more to come from this resurrected artist. Set to a handclap backing reminiscent of the Dixie Cups’ ‘Iko Iko’, the accompanying vocal is anything but lightweight, actually weighed down by its burdensome natural gravitas.
I’ve long had reservations with the image of Scott Heron as a prophet of equality and human rights, given his early song ‘The Subject Was Faggots’, a rather unpleasant piece of observational writing. Perhaps now that he has singlehandedly failed to take his own advice (having fallen victim to the very drink and drugs he warned so gravely about) we can now see him in a different, more nuanced light. On ‘I’m New Here’ he seems defiant, but also wiser and slightly vulnerable too. This is an unexpected, powerful return to the real world.
This intriguing comeback from Gil Scott Heron is actually an incredibly difficult album to review. Scott Heron has arguably never made a bad record – even his last release, 1994’s ‘Spirits’, had its moments. Whilst ‘I’m New Here’ belatedly continues the quality streak, it stands alone in Scott Heron’s catalogue in terms of its sound and instrumentation. Yet it’s faintly ludicrous to applaud it for ‘incorporating hip-hop’ when, along with the Last Poets, Scott Heron is one of the founding fathers of rap. XL boss Richard Russell’s production therefore represents a sensitive and logical modernisation, rather than a forced or unnecessary one.
The sonic environment Russell has crafted for Scott Heron may not actually be all that radical. His claustrophobic, sinister but minimalist combination of strings and beats could easily have come from a Massive Attack album. He at least seems to be a good deal more creative with such backing tracks than Massive Attack themselves are these days. His accompaniments take Scott Heron away from his natural comfort zone without making him sound distant or uncomfortable. There’s no Fender Rhodes piano or live percussion and no attempt to smooth over the rough, nervy reality of Scott Heron’s words. The jazz lineage (the world of ‘lady Day and John Coltrane’) may have been sacrificed – but the results are suitably dank and fearsome.
What is most interesting about this record though is Scott Heron’s voice, which now sounds deeper and more resonant, but somehow simultaneously more weathered and dry. He now sounds like a man who has been through a tough prison sentence and various drug rehabilitation programmes. In this sense, the musical backings work remarkably well, given that they are atmospheric but unobtrusive – allowing that peculiar but powerful voice space to communicate.
This set supremely reaffirms Scott Heron’s talents as a performance poet. It is full of interludes and brief skits which complement the flow of the overall album rather than interrupt it. It is bookended by two parts of an autobiographical tale entitled ‘On Coming From A Broken Home’ in which Scott Heron’s elaborate language is as rich and evocative as the sound of his voice. Even more intense is the stark, pounding ‘Running’, which seems confessional in light of Scott Heron’s recent life experience.
The album is rather dominated by the choice of covers, which leads to obvious comparisons with Rick Rubin’s rehabilitation of Johnny Cash’s career. Yet, to hear Johnny Cash singing with acoustic instrumentation was not surprising. To hear Scott Heron doing it on the surprisingly effective version of Smog’s ‘I’m New Here’ is rather radical and unexpected. The song’s combination of irony and honesty is the perfect vehicle for Scott Heron’s resurrection, with its brilliant chat up lines (‘I met a woman in a bar and told her I was hard to get to know, but damn near impossible to forget’) and self-reflection (‘I had an ego the size of Texas. I forget –does that mean big or small?’).
Perhaps less unexpected are versions of Robert Johnson’s ‘Me and The Devil’, relocated from the Mississippi Delta to a paranoid urban environment, and an ostensibly soft take on Bobby Bland’s ‘I’ll Take Care Of You’. Here, Scott Heron’s harsh voice suggests not compassion or commitment – but rather defiance and conviction.
The only original ‘song’ here – ‘New York Is Killing Me’ – is excellent, and suggests that there may be much more to come from this resurrected artist. Set to a handclap backing reminiscent of the Dixie Cups’ ‘Iko Iko’, the accompanying vocal is anything but lightweight, actually weighed down by its burdensome natural gravitas.
I’ve long had reservations with the image of Scott Heron as a prophet of equality and human rights, given his early song ‘The Subject Was Faggots’, a rather unpleasant piece of observational writing. Perhaps now that he has singlehandedly failed to take his own advice (having fallen victim to the very drink and drugs he warned so gravely about) we can now see him in a different, more nuanced light. On ‘I’m New Here’ he seems defiant, but also wiser and slightly vulnerable too. This is an unexpected, powerful return to the real world.
Ready For The Four-to-the-Floor
Hot Chip - One Life Stand (DFA/EMI)
It’s quite a long way from ‘drivin’ in my Peugeot, blazin’ out Yo La Tengo’ and being ‘sick of motherf*ckers trying to tell me that they’re down with Prince’ to ‘why can’t I be bright, like my lover’s light?’, ‘happiness is what we all want’ and the various other platitudes that populate Hot Chip’s fourth album. With this record, Hot Chip have moved towards a concept of maturity that favours monogamous relationships and expressions of love. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, of course and unlike, say, Badly Drawn Boy (whose creativity seemed entirely stymied by domestic contentment), there doesn’t seem to be any diminution of Alexis Taylor’s gift for a melancholy melodic line, or Joe Goddard’s production talents.
There has, however, certainly been a reduction of the musical quirks that made Hot Chip such a distinctive proposition. There is already a consensus building around ‘One Life Stand’ being their most consistent (and therefore best) album. If consistent means the most accessible – this is certainly true. Most of the references that spring to mind when listening to these insistent and infectious ten songs are pop songs – New Order’s ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’, Eurythmics circa ‘Sweet Dreams’, the Pet Shop Boys take on ‘Always On My Mind’, early 90s Italian house singles, even Madonna on ‘I Feel Better’. The skittering, uneasy, sometimes disorientating grooves of ‘Coming on Strong’ and parts of ‘The Warning’ have been jettisoned in favour of a constant four to the floor kick drum pulse. The result is a near seamless and richly enjoyable collection of artful pop songs that rejects both the wayward, unpredictable charm of ‘Made In The Dark’ or the radical sophistication of ‘The Warning’.
Hot Chip still work best when deploying their mysterious balance of the sinister and the saccharine. It is this, both natural and unforced, that raises their music above the sum of its influences. Sometimes this peculiar equilibrium is achieved through the highly contrasting vocal contributions of Goddard and Taylor (and it’s great to hear Goddard back to greater prominence here), sometimes it just sounds like they’ve spliced two completely different songs together. This is the case with the title track, which I first heard several months ago in one of Alexis’ DJ sets, in a version that only included the outrageously infectious chorus. That this deceptively simple melody has hardly left my head since is itself testament to Alexis’ melodic strengths but the finished product is substantially more satisfying. The synth riff and verse melody seem almost to stand in opposition to the theme of the song – perhaps influenced by the Chicago house boom, and offering something predatory and seductive before the chorus’ sweet statement of commitment.
The group pull off a similar trick with the magnificent closing track ‘Take It In’. Goddard’s vocal is propulsive, dark and murky, before a wonderful, shimmering chorus takes over and eventually dominates. More linear but no less inventive is the delightful ‘Alley Cats’. This might just be my favourite Hot Chip song to date, slowly building from a subtle, unassuming introduction into something elegiac, haunting and affecting. The intial theme bears more than a passing resemblance (presumably intentionally) to Arthur Russell’s ‘That’s Us/Wild Combination’, a song with which I’ve become somewhat infatuated of late, but it develops into much more than mere homage. It’s a continuously developing, shifting narrative and Taylor’s counter-melody is plaintive and wistful.
Elsewhere, there are a handful of tracks with which I have minor reservations. ‘Brothers’ is a bit earnest, and reminds me inescapably of Boney M, although I’m not sure why. I’m usually a staunch defender of Alexis’ bittersweet ballads, but ‘Slush’ might be a step too far into Bacharach-lite territory even for me. Having said that, its more mysterious, lush and somewhat unexpected coda complete with steel pans takes it to an entirely different space. ‘I Feel Better’ perhaps overplays its synth string hand and steals its chorus melody from Madonna’s ‘La Isla Bonita’. It’s unfortunate also, particularly given that this album was largely completed some time ago, that its use of vocal autotune no longer sounds particularly novel.
Yet the album’s best moments render such problems largely trivial. In addition to the aforementioned triumphs, ‘Keep Quiet’ provides an essential moment of delicate intimacy, whilst ‘We Have Love’ and ‘Thieves in the Night’ are irresistible dancefloor tracks. ‘Hand Me Down Your Love’ ingeniously marries an Italia house piano stomp with the sweetest, most yearning string-laden chorus. As usual with Hot Chip, it’s the material that really shouldn’t work that somehow ends up being the most successful. Whatever they try here, they do so with confidence and conviction. It’s an immediately engaging sugar-rush of an album, but also one which grows with each listen. This one could be for the long term.
It’s quite a long way from ‘drivin’ in my Peugeot, blazin’ out Yo La Tengo’ and being ‘sick of motherf*ckers trying to tell me that they’re down with Prince’ to ‘why can’t I be bright, like my lover’s light?’, ‘happiness is what we all want’ and the various other platitudes that populate Hot Chip’s fourth album. With this record, Hot Chip have moved towards a concept of maturity that favours monogamous relationships and expressions of love. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, of course and unlike, say, Badly Drawn Boy (whose creativity seemed entirely stymied by domestic contentment), there doesn’t seem to be any diminution of Alexis Taylor’s gift for a melancholy melodic line, or Joe Goddard’s production talents.
There has, however, certainly been a reduction of the musical quirks that made Hot Chip such a distinctive proposition. There is already a consensus building around ‘One Life Stand’ being their most consistent (and therefore best) album. If consistent means the most accessible – this is certainly true. Most of the references that spring to mind when listening to these insistent and infectious ten songs are pop songs – New Order’s ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’, Eurythmics circa ‘Sweet Dreams’, the Pet Shop Boys take on ‘Always On My Mind’, early 90s Italian house singles, even Madonna on ‘I Feel Better’. The skittering, uneasy, sometimes disorientating grooves of ‘Coming on Strong’ and parts of ‘The Warning’ have been jettisoned in favour of a constant four to the floor kick drum pulse. The result is a near seamless and richly enjoyable collection of artful pop songs that rejects both the wayward, unpredictable charm of ‘Made In The Dark’ or the radical sophistication of ‘The Warning’.
Hot Chip still work best when deploying their mysterious balance of the sinister and the saccharine. It is this, both natural and unforced, that raises their music above the sum of its influences. Sometimes this peculiar equilibrium is achieved through the highly contrasting vocal contributions of Goddard and Taylor (and it’s great to hear Goddard back to greater prominence here), sometimes it just sounds like they’ve spliced two completely different songs together. This is the case with the title track, which I first heard several months ago in one of Alexis’ DJ sets, in a version that only included the outrageously infectious chorus. That this deceptively simple melody has hardly left my head since is itself testament to Alexis’ melodic strengths but the finished product is substantially more satisfying. The synth riff and verse melody seem almost to stand in opposition to the theme of the song – perhaps influenced by the Chicago house boom, and offering something predatory and seductive before the chorus’ sweet statement of commitment.
The group pull off a similar trick with the magnificent closing track ‘Take It In’. Goddard’s vocal is propulsive, dark and murky, before a wonderful, shimmering chorus takes over and eventually dominates. More linear but no less inventive is the delightful ‘Alley Cats’. This might just be my favourite Hot Chip song to date, slowly building from a subtle, unassuming introduction into something elegiac, haunting and affecting. The intial theme bears more than a passing resemblance (presumably intentionally) to Arthur Russell’s ‘That’s Us/Wild Combination’, a song with which I’ve become somewhat infatuated of late, but it develops into much more than mere homage. It’s a continuously developing, shifting narrative and Taylor’s counter-melody is plaintive and wistful.
Elsewhere, there are a handful of tracks with which I have minor reservations. ‘Brothers’ is a bit earnest, and reminds me inescapably of Boney M, although I’m not sure why. I’m usually a staunch defender of Alexis’ bittersweet ballads, but ‘Slush’ might be a step too far into Bacharach-lite territory even for me. Having said that, its more mysterious, lush and somewhat unexpected coda complete with steel pans takes it to an entirely different space. ‘I Feel Better’ perhaps overplays its synth string hand and steals its chorus melody from Madonna’s ‘La Isla Bonita’. It’s unfortunate also, particularly given that this album was largely completed some time ago, that its use of vocal autotune no longer sounds particularly novel.
Yet the album’s best moments render such problems largely trivial. In addition to the aforementioned triumphs, ‘Keep Quiet’ provides an essential moment of delicate intimacy, whilst ‘We Have Love’ and ‘Thieves in the Night’ are irresistible dancefloor tracks. ‘Hand Me Down Your Love’ ingeniously marries an Italia house piano stomp with the sweetest, most yearning string-laden chorus. As usual with Hot Chip, it’s the material that really shouldn’t work that somehow ends up being the most successful. Whatever they try here, they do so with confidence and conviction. It’s an immediately engaging sugar-rush of an album, but also one which grows with each listen. This one could be for the long term.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Insincerity
The Magnetic Fields - Realism (Nonesuch)
Anyone who still thinks that Americans don’t get irony should be pointed to the work of Stephin Merritt immediately. In fact, in titling the latest Magnetic Fields album ‘Realism’, Merritt has taken his laconic wit to new levels. As ever, Merritt is being slippery and disingenuous here – there’s no greater level of sincerity or honesty than on previous Magnetic Fields albums, and plenty of familiar wordplay and dry humour.
In packaging design and sonic intent, ‘Realism’ is clearly intended as a flip side to the Jesus and Mary Chain-inspired ‘Distortion’. It dispenses not only with that album’s overpowering swathes of noise, but also with all synthesisers, using only acoustic instruments. There’s an obvious problem here that few critics seem to have observed, namely that Merritt has used this particular sonic conceit before, on the album ‘i’. The two albums are not identical by any means – on ‘I’ Merritt sang every song, whereas here he makes bountiful use of guest vocalist Shirley Simms. ‘Realism’ also pays more explicit debts to folk music, and not every song title begins with the letter ‘I’. The similarities probably outweigh the differences though – and there will be no great surprises here for long term followers of Merritt’s work. It’s probably fair to say that this is symptomatic of a wider malaise. Merritt’s magnum opus ’69 Love Songs’ was both an ambitious undertaking and a massive success. Understandably, he has struggled to know exactly how to better it.
This doesn’t mean that the subsequent Magnetic Fields projects have been bad – to the contrary, there are some excellent songs spread across them. It’s just that none has seemed quite so conceptually and musically compelling, or as uniquely ludicrous. It’s actually Merritt’s side projects, the fascinating ‘Showtunes’ album and the musical interpretation of the Lemony Snicket books as The Gothic Archies, which have provided more original and adventurous takes on his by now familiar songwriting tropes.
‘Realism’, then, is another adequate Magnetic Fields album, albeit one that focuses more on Merritt’s purposeful parodies than on his best pop writing. I always feel Magnetic Fields songs are best when they can be interpreted either as ironic commentaries (as the famously acerbic Merritt no doubt intended them), or as pithy expressions of identifiable and real human experience. ‘The Book of Love’ works like this, hence Peter Gabriel was able to cover it as a disarmingly straight (in more than one sense), string-laden ballad for his forthcoming ‘Scratch My Back’ project (quite what Gabriel song Merritt plans to deconstruct in return is anyone’s guess). The first half of ‘Realism’ favours unashamedly silly, nursery rhyme-esque ditties like ‘We Are Having A Hootenanny’ (‘get the lowdown on our hoedown’), ‘The Dolls’ Tea Party’ and ‘Everything is One Big Christmas Tree’. The latter, hilariously, even has its entire lyric repeated in a high-camp German chorus. They are fun, but the appeal is limited, and the acoustic instrumentation, somewhat inevitably when xylophones and glockenspiels are involved, makes them seem a bit plinky plonk.
Luckily, the front half also includes two prime examples of Merritt’s genius, two songs that pull of the neat trick of somehow being endearing and thoroughly charmless at the same time. ‘I Don’t Know What To Say’ is touchingly vulnerable and drenched in surprisingly effective reverb. With its knowing devaluations of romantic clichés, it could have sat comfortably on ’69 Love Songs’. Even better is ‘You Must Be Out of Your Mind’ (followed in the chorus by the brilliantly chastising, patronising word ‘son’). As other reviewers have already noted, it features one of Merritt’s great lyrics in ‘I want you crawling back to me, down on your knees, yeah/Like an appendectomy, sans anasthaesia’.
The best songs here seem to be the most laconic – ‘Walk A Lonely Road’, ‘Better Things’, the accordion-laden ‘From a Sinking Boat’ and Shirley Simms’ wilting vocal on ‘Always Already Gone’ certainly stand out. Merritt’s attempts to balance these with jauntier moments seem to fall flat. ‘The Dada Polka’ irritatingly and inescapably reminds me of Boney M. Wryly amusing though the lyric is, the mock-baroque stylings of ‘Seduced and Abandoned’ have been repeated ad nauseam by Merritt now.
‘Realism’ is a continuation of Merritt’s dogged, largely unchanging path. He sings of ‘real’ rather than ‘absurd’ birds, accompanying his vocals with cheesy sampled birdsong. This album dependably overflows with lyrical and musical conceits. The most radical thing for him to do now would be to record something completely sincere.
Anyone who still thinks that Americans don’t get irony should be pointed to the work of Stephin Merritt immediately. In fact, in titling the latest Magnetic Fields album ‘Realism’, Merritt has taken his laconic wit to new levels. As ever, Merritt is being slippery and disingenuous here – there’s no greater level of sincerity or honesty than on previous Magnetic Fields albums, and plenty of familiar wordplay and dry humour.
In packaging design and sonic intent, ‘Realism’ is clearly intended as a flip side to the Jesus and Mary Chain-inspired ‘Distortion’. It dispenses not only with that album’s overpowering swathes of noise, but also with all synthesisers, using only acoustic instruments. There’s an obvious problem here that few critics seem to have observed, namely that Merritt has used this particular sonic conceit before, on the album ‘i’. The two albums are not identical by any means – on ‘I’ Merritt sang every song, whereas here he makes bountiful use of guest vocalist Shirley Simms. ‘Realism’ also pays more explicit debts to folk music, and not every song title begins with the letter ‘I’. The similarities probably outweigh the differences though – and there will be no great surprises here for long term followers of Merritt’s work. It’s probably fair to say that this is symptomatic of a wider malaise. Merritt’s magnum opus ’69 Love Songs’ was both an ambitious undertaking and a massive success. Understandably, he has struggled to know exactly how to better it.
This doesn’t mean that the subsequent Magnetic Fields projects have been bad – to the contrary, there are some excellent songs spread across them. It’s just that none has seemed quite so conceptually and musically compelling, or as uniquely ludicrous. It’s actually Merritt’s side projects, the fascinating ‘Showtunes’ album and the musical interpretation of the Lemony Snicket books as The Gothic Archies, which have provided more original and adventurous takes on his by now familiar songwriting tropes.
‘Realism’, then, is another adequate Magnetic Fields album, albeit one that focuses more on Merritt’s purposeful parodies than on his best pop writing. I always feel Magnetic Fields songs are best when they can be interpreted either as ironic commentaries (as the famously acerbic Merritt no doubt intended them), or as pithy expressions of identifiable and real human experience. ‘The Book of Love’ works like this, hence Peter Gabriel was able to cover it as a disarmingly straight (in more than one sense), string-laden ballad for his forthcoming ‘Scratch My Back’ project (quite what Gabriel song Merritt plans to deconstruct in return is anyone’s guess). The first half of ‘Realism’ favours unashamedly silly, nursery rhyme-esque ditties like ‘We Are Having A Hootenanny’ (‘get the lowdown on our hoedown’), ‘The Dolls’ Tea Party’ and ‘Everything is One Big Christmas Tree’. The latter, hilariously, even has its entire lyric repeated in a high-camp German chorus. They are fun, but the appeal is limited, and the acoustic instrumentation, somewhat inevitably when xylophones and glockenspiels are involved, makes them seem a bit plinky plonk.
Luckily, the front half also includes two prime examples of Merritt’s genius, two songs that pull of the neat trick of somehow being endearing and thoroughly charmless at the same time. ‘I Don’t Know What To Say’ is touchingly vulnerable and drenched in surprisingly effective reverb. With its knowing devaluations of romantic clichés, it could have sat comfortably on ’69 Love Songs’. Even better is ‘You Must Be Out of Your Mind’ (followed in the chorus by the brilliantly chastising, patronising word ‘son’). As other reviewers have already noted, it features one of Merritt’s great lyrics in ‘I want you crawling back to me, down on your knees, yeah/Like an appendectomy, sans anasthaesia’.
The best songs here seem to be the most laconic – ‘Walk A Lonely Road’, ‘Better Things’, the accordion-laden ‘From a Sinking Boat’ and Shirley Simms’ wilting vocal on ‘Always Already Gone’ certainly stand out. Merritt’s attempts to balance these with jauntier moments seem to fall flat. ‘The Dada Polka’ irritatingly and inescapably reminds me of Boney M. Wryly amusing though the lyric is, the mock-baroque stylings of ‘Seduced and Abandoned’ have been repeated ad nauseam by Merritt now.
‘Realism’ is a continuation of Merritt’s dogged, largely unchanging path. He sings of ‘real’ rather than ‘absurd’ birds, accompanying his vocals with cheesy sampled birdsong. This album dependably overflows with lyrical and musical conceits. The most radical thing for him to do now would be to record something completely sincere.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Celestial Dancing
Four Tet - There Is Love In You (Domino)
Kieren Hebden has been so busy over the past few years DJing, remixing and collaborating (notably with improvising drummer Steve Reid), and briefly reuniting Fridge, that it’s easy to forget that it’s been four years since his last release under the Four Tet moniker. His recent path seems to have veered far from the laboured ‘folktronica’ tag with which he has been somewhat unfairly burdened. ‘There Is Love In You’ achieves quite a neat trick by serving as a reminder of Hebden’s skill for crafting a hinterland where electronic and acoustic sounds meet whilst also imbuing his distinctive vision with fresh and absorbing ideas.
We’re familiar with the bright, sparkling, pastoral melodies with which Hebden has long been associated. Unsurprisingly, ‘There is Love In You’ is liberally peppered with them. Yet the album starts with two pieces founded primarily on vocal sampling, a technique that has not traditionally been a Hebden hallmark. It seems possible that Hebden has digested the pervasive influence of his former schoolmate and dubstep producer Burial, to whom the masterful ‘Angel Echoes’ and ‘Love Cry’ bear some resemblance. Yet these tracks are not mere pastiches or facsimiles of the innovations of other producers – the percussive textures and shimmering sound are entirely characteristic of Hebden. Whereas Burial uses the sound of voices to create something claustrophobic and tense, Hebden uses them to create something open, spacious and invigorating. ‘Love Cry’, particularly, feels like a comprehensive synopsis of recent trends in dance music, all filtered through Hebden’s own distinct and confident gaze.
The abiding mood here is melancholy, but not sad. There’s a sense that private contemplation and reflection can be a comfort and might even result in expressions of joy. In this way, the more languid pace and gentle dynamics of ‘This Unfolds’ make perfect sense in the same company as the insistent, jubilant ‘Sing’. The former is a typically cumulative construction – eventually blossoming into a piece of minimal techno, but with the hazy sensation of its first phase (reminiscent of something from Hebden’s band Fridge) still somehow retained. The latter exhibits more of the physical impetus introduced on last year’s ‘Ringer’ EP. Yet it also has a disorientating false ending before concluding with a more slippery, distant theme.
This combination of the celebratory and the contemplative consistently informs a particularly adventurous, complex and satisfying album, possibly the best of Hebden’s career to date. The music has a rapturous, near-celestial atmosphere, but with the impulsive rhythmic drive of the best club music. It is sensual music in the broadest sense.
Kieren Hebden has been so busy over the past few years DJing, remixing and collaborating (notably with improvising drummer Steve Reid), and briefly reuniting Fridge, that it’s easy to forget that it’s been four years since his last release under the Four Tet moniker. His recent path seems to have veered far from the laboured ‘folktronica’ tag with which he has been somewhat unfairly burdened. ‘There Is Love In You’ achieves quite a neat trick by serving as a reminder of Hebden’s skill for crafting a hinterland where electronic and acoustic sounds meet whilst also imbuing his distinctive vision with fresh and absorbing ideas.
We’re familiar with the bright, sparkling, pastoral melodies with which Hebden has long been associated. Unsurprisingly, ‘There is Love In You’ is liberally peppered with them. Yet the album starts with two pieces founded primarily on vocal sampling, a technique that has not traditionally been a Hebden hallmark. It seems possible that Hebden has digested the pervasive influence of his former schoolmate and dubstep producer Burial, to whom the masterful ‘Angel Echoes’ and ‘Love Cry’ bear some resemblance. Yet these tracks are not mere pastiches or facsimiles of the innovations of other producers – the percussive textures and shimmering sound are entirely characteristic of Hebden. Whereas Burial uses the sound of voices to create something claustrophobic and tense, Hebden uses them to create something open, spacious and invigorating. ‘Love Cry’, particularly, feels like a comprehensive synopsis of recent trends in dance music, all filtered through Hebden’s own distinct and confident gaze.
The abiding mood here is melancholy, but not sad. There’s a sense that private contemplation and reflection can be a comfort and might even result in expressions of joy. In this way, the more languid pace and gentle dynamics of ‘This Unfolds’ make perfect sense in the same company as the insistent, jubilant ‘Sing’. The former is a typically cumulative construction – eventually blossoming into a piece of minimal techno, but with the hazy sensation of its first phase (reminiscent of something from Hebden’s band Fridge) still somehow retained. The latter exhibits more of the physical impetus introduced on last year’s ‘Ringer’ EP. Yet it also has a disorientating false ending before concluding with a more slippery, distant theme.
This combination of the celebratory and the contemplative consistently informs a particularly adventurous, complex and satisfying album, possibly the best of Hebden’s career to date. The music has a rapturous, near-celestial atmosphere, but with the impulsive rhythmic drive of the best club music. It is sensual music in the broadest sense.
Friday, January 15, 2010
A Solipcist's Prayer Meeting
Bill Fay – Still Some Light (Coptic Cat)
I should probably warn at the outset that this is likely to be a somewhat confused and disoriented piece of writing, the British singer-songwriter Bill Fay having been a musical infatuation of mine for a while now. I chanced upon the See For Miles reissue of his two albums originally made for Decca in the early 1970s in my local library some time in the early years of the last decade. I picked it up purely on the basis that I knew nothing about Fay and because the original cover images were striking. Later, when working on a piece on Fay for John Kell’s Unpredictable Same fanzine, I discovered that Fay was also being championed elsewhere. MOJO’s Jim Irvin had drawn attention to these classic, underappreciated albums, whilst Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy had been performing Fay’s ‘Be Not So Fearful’ in his solo concerts, having been introduced to the Decca albums by Jim O’Rourke.
After his Decca contract folded, Fay had not, as many imagined disappeared, but had continued to write and record music at home, away from the commercial imperatives of the music industry. Some of this was released by David Tibet on Current 93 on the excellent, spacious and mysterious ‘Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow’ set. It’s entirely probable that, much like the home tapes of the late, great Arthur Russell, there may be numerous unheard Fay recordings that are worthy of release.
‘Still Some Light’ contains the first brand new Fay recordings for over thirty years, recorded alone at home. It is packaged, delightfully, with a generous set of demo recordings made between 1970 and 1971 with the superb band that made ‘Time of the Last Persecution’ – guitarist Ray Russell, drummer Alan Rushton and bassist Daryl Runswick. All three musicians play beautifully. Russell, better known as a jazz musician with an enthusiasm for ‘freer’ musical forms makes some dramatic and searing contributions, emphasising Fay’s apocalyptic themes of cosmic battle between good and evil.
A number of these demo recordings are invaluable. There are stripped back versions of two songs from the eponymous debut album, which had been embellished with huge orchestrations from Mike Gibbs. ‘The Sun Is Bored’ has even greater menace with the focus shifted from string section to Russell’s violent bursts of guitar, whilst ‘Sing Us One of Your Songs May’ retains its eccentric charm. Then there is the bulk of ‘Time of the Last Persecution’, in prototype form, but largely faithful to the cleaner recordings that ended up on the album itself. The quality of these recordings is not good – there is plenty of residual hiss from the tape sources and the vocals frequently clip in a way that is not easy on the ear. Fay is honest about this in the sleeve notes, and I would argue that he is right that the feel and atmosphere of these sessions, as well as the quality of the songs and the musicianship, outweigh the limitations of the equipment used. It’s actually a great pleasure to hear these songs in such a raw, pure and direct form.
Perhaps even more notable amongst the demos are those songs that did not appear on either ‘Bill Fay’ or ‘Time of the Last Persecution’. There’s a wonderful ‘Love Is The Tune’, which eventually appeared on ‘Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow’ and the charming ‘Arnold is a Simple Man’ seems to be another of Fay’s brilliant character portraits of sympathetic eccentric individuals. It’s a more than worthy addition to his canon. More unexpected is the distorted sturm und drang of ‘There’s A Price Upon My Head’.
The new material is considerably harder to judge. Recorded at home using a Korg keyboard and a basic microphone, it is awash with generic synth pads, facsimile piano sounds, plinky mock pizzicato strings and very basic drum machines. These arrangements will likely present difficulties for those, like me, who love both the lavish Mike Gibbs scores and the excoriating immediacy of the band recordings. It’s quite a similar feeling to listening to those recent low budget albums Leonard Cohen made with Sharon Robinson, although ‘Still Some Light’ rather lacks their sense of irony.
‘Road of Hope’, ‘City of Dreams’, ‘Fill This World With Peace’, ‘Be at Peace with Yourself’, ‘Peace on Earth’ – the song titles certainly offered a clue as to the mood of ‘Still Some Light’. It’s a sincere and earnest collection of songs searching for the spiritual or the numinous in a troubled world. To many people, this may come across as idealistic, spiritual dreaming - to others, the sincere sense of peace, contemplation and devotion may strike a real, personal chord. It’s tempting to suggest, however, that Fay has already written a couple of definitive examples of this kind of spiritual-inspirational song with ‘Methane River’ and ‘Be Not So Fearful’. In those songs, the sentiments were mysterious and eccentric – here, they are sometimes transparently platitudinous. The nadir is probably ‘Hello Old Tree’, a mercifully brief and very whimsical track in which a tired sounding Bill takes a brief pause to commune with nature.
It’s also a challenge to adapt to Fay’s changed singing voice, which may have been diminished by his years of smoking. It’s a weaker instrument now, although much of its conversational, intimate character is retained. Whether Fay’s tepid attempts at vocal treatment – double tracking and reverb particularly – serve to improve the sound of the vocals is a matter for personal taste. I find myself frequently wishing he’d left them dry. Perhaps the biggest obstacle of all is the gentle, hushed dynamic, languid pace and consistent muted tone. Over twenty six tracks, it begins to become more oppressive than it is dreamy or peaceful. A little more rhythm would have been appreciated.
Yet, even though the production values are modest, perhaps even bizarre, there are still flashes of inspiration that remind us of Fay’s dignity, compassion and melodic invention. If we try and imagine these songs as home recorded prototypes for a studio recording that might never be, it starts to make a little more sense. Imagine the mysterious ‘City of Dreams’ with a real vibraphone and some dusty, brushed snare drum and it might sound a whole lot more evocative. There’s a humane soul in ‘There is a Valley’ and ‘Road of Hope’, in the frailty of Fay’s voice in the latter and in the expansive narrative of the former. One can’t help but wonder if the Willie who has a dream in the forest in ‘All Must Have a Dream’ is the same Willie of ‘Gentle Willie’ from the debut album. There’s a sense that the benign feeling at the heart of these songs might be a genuine inner peace and tranquillity from which a conscious rejection of conflict and intensity results.
In his sleevenotes, essentially a history of his career in the form of an embellished acknowledgements list, Fay comes across as a gentle, calm, very dignified human being. It might therefore be unfair to expect any grandstanding musical statements from him now. For all its pleading for hope and peace, ‘Still Some Light’ still seems like an insular and hermetic work. Perhaps it’s all the more interesting for that. Those who have not heard those two incredible Decca albums should certainly start there rather than here – they are wonderful recordings and, honestly, contain some of my favourite music of all time.
I should probably warn at the outset that this is likely to be a somewhat confused and disoriented piece of writing, the British singer-songwriter Bill Fay having been a musical infatuation of mine for a while now. I chanced upon the See For Miles reissue of his two albums originally made for Decca in the early 1970s in my local library some time in the early years of the last decade. I picked it up purely on the basis that I knew nothing about Fay and because the original cover images were striking. Later, when working on a piece on Fay for John Kell’s Unpredictable Same fanzine, I discovered that Fay was also being championed elsewhere. MOJO’s Jim Irvin had drawn attention to these classic, underappreciated albums, whilst Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy had been performing Fay’s ‘Be Not So Fearful’ in his solo concerts, having been introduced to the Decca albums by Jim O’Rourke.
After his Decca contract folded, Fay had not, as many imagined disappeared, but had continued to write and record music at home, away from the commercial imperatives of the music industry. Some of this was released by David Tibet on Current 93 on the excellent, spacious and mysterious ‘Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow’ set. It’s entirely probable that, much like the home tapes of the late, great Arthur Russell, there may be numerous unheard Fay recordings that are worthy of release.
‘Still Some Light’ contains the first brand new Fay recordings for over thirty years, recorded alone at home. It is packaged, delightfully, with a generous set of demo recordings made between 1970 and 1971 with the superb band that made ‘Time of the Last Persecution’ – guitarist Ray Russell, drummer Alan Rushton and bassist Daryl Runswick. All three musicians play beautifully. Russell, better known as a jazz musician with an enthusiasm for ‘freer’ musical forms makes some dramatic and searing contributions, emphasising Fay’s apocalyptic themes of cosmic battle between good and evil.
A number of these demo recordings are invaluable. There are stripped back versions of two songs from the eponymous debut album, which had been embellished with huge orchestrations from Mike Gibbs. ‘The Sun Is Bored’ has even greater menace with the focus shifted from string section to Russell’s violent bursts of guitar, whilst ‘Sing Us One of Your Songs May’ retains its eccentric charm. Then there is the bulk of ‘Time of the Last Persecution’, in prototype form, but largely faithful to the cleaner recordings that ended up on the album itself. The quality of these recordings is not good – there is plenty of residual hiss from the tape sources and the vocals frequently clip in a way that is not easy on the ear. Fay is honest about this in the sleeve notes, and I would argue that he is right that the feel and atmosphere of these sessions, as well as the quality of the songs and the musicianship, outweigh the limitations of the equipment used. It’s actually a great pleasure to hear these songs in such a raw, pure and direct form.
Perhaps even more notable amongst the demos are those songs that did not appear on either ‘Bill Fay’ or ‘Time of the Last Persecution’. There’s a wonderful ‘Love Is The Tune’, which eventually appeared on ‘Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow’ and the charming ‘Arnold is a Simple Man’ seems to be another of Fay’s brilliant character portraits of sympathetic eccentric individuals. It’s a more than worthy addition to his canon. More unexpected is the distorted sturm und drang of ‘There’s A Price Upon My Head’.
The new material is considerably harder to judge. Recorded at home using a Korg keyboard and a basic microphone, it is awash with generic synth pads, facsimile piano sounds, plinky mock pizzicato strings and very basic drum machines. These arrangements will likely present difficulties for those, like me, who love both the lavish Mike Gibbs scores and the excoriating immediacy of the band recordings. It’s quite a similar feeling to listening to those recent low budget albums Leonard Cohen made with Sharon Robinson, although ‘Still Some Light’ rather lacks their sense of irony.
‘Road of Hope’, ‘City of Dreams’, ‘Fill This World With Peace’, ‘Be at Peace with Yourself’, ‘Peace on Earth’ – the song titles certainly offered a clue as to the mood of ‘Still Some Light’. It’s a sincere and earnest collection of songs searching for the spiritual or the numinous in a troubled world. To many people, this may come across as idealistic, spiritual dreaming - to others, the sincere sense of peace, contemplation and devotion may strike a real, personal chord. It’s tempting to suggest, however, that Fay has already written a couple of definitive examples of this kind of spiritual-inspirational song with ‘Methane River’ and ‘Be Not So Fearful’. In those songs, the sentiments were mysterious and eccentric – here, they are sometimes transparently platitudinous. The nadir is probably ‘Hello Old Tree’, a mercifully brief and very whimsical track in which a tired sounding Bill takes a brief pause to commune with nature.
It’s also a challenge to adapt to Fay’s changed singing voice, which may have been diminished by his years of smoking. It’s a weaker instrument now, although much of its conversational, intimate character is retained. Whether Fay’s tepid attempts at vocal treatment – double tracking and reverb particularly – serve to improve the sound of the vocals is a matter for personal taste. I find myself frequently wishing he’d left them dry. Perhaps the biggest obstacle of all is the gentle, hushed dynamic, languid pace and consistent muted tone. Over twenty six tracks, it begins to become more oppressive than it is dreamy or peaceful. A little more rhythm would have been appreciated.
Yet, even though the production values are modest, perhaps even bizarre, there are still flashes of inspiration that remind us of Fay’s dignity, compassion and melodic invention. If we try and imagine these songs as home recorded prototypes for a studio recording that might never be, it starts to make a little more sense. Imagine the mysterious ‘City of Dreams’ with a real vibraphone and some dusty, brushed snare drum and it might sound a whole lot more evocative. There’s a humane soul in ‘There is a Valley’ and ‘Road of Hope’, in the frailty of Fay’s voice in the latter and in the expansive narrative of the former. One can’t help but wonder if the Willie who has a dream in the forest in ‘All Must Have a Dream’ is the same Willie of ‘Gentle Willie’ from the debut album. There’s a sense that the benign feeling at the heart of these songs might be a genuine inner peace and tranquillity from which a conscious rejection of conflict and intensity results.
In his sleevenotes, essentially a history of his career in the form of an embellished acknowledgements list, Fay comes across as a gentle, calm, very dignified human being. It might therefore be unfair to expect any grandstanding musical statements from him now. For all its pleading for hope and peace, ‘Still Some Light’ still seems like an insular and hermetic work. Perhaps it’s all the more interesting for that. Those who have not heard those two incredible Decca albums should certainly start there rather than here – they are wonderful recordings and, honestly, contain some of my favourite music of all time.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Fun with Fangs
Vampire Weekend – Contra (XL)
Pretty much every review and feature I’ve read on Vampire Weekend in the past couple of months starts in the same way – with a lengthy examination of supposed critiques of the band as inauthentic ‘cultural tourists’. I’m still wondering precisely who these detractors are. Every review of ‘Contra’ so far has been at least positive, and it seems as if every journalist is trying to position themselves as valiant defenders of this band against a constant stream of invective that doesn’t really seem to exist. Most of us seem to accept that they are privileged and educated New Yorkers – but this doesn’t stop us from enjoying either their witty lyrics or their enthusiasm for African rhythm and harmony. If this music opens doors to Congolese soukous music or the rich contemporary sounds of Mali, this surely cannot be a bad thing.
‘Contra’ is a typical second album in that it consists in part of laudable attempts to develop and diversify alongside a handful of tracks that could have sat comfortably on their debut. ‘Cousins’, somewhat impressively, is an even spikier and more insistent rewrite of ‘A-Punk’ and ‘Holiday’ is a ska-tinged piece of angular post-punk. There’s nothing remotely surprising on either track, including their inherent infectiousness that borders on irritating.
Late last year, the band already gave clues that the full album wouldn’t be quite that simple by posting opening track ‘Horchata’ as a free download. This track amplifies the African influences to almost dizzying and saccharine levels, with its percussion and thumb pianos. It’s also a brilliant song, with Ezra Koenig’s near-nonsense wordplay operating in excelsis.
Much of the rest of the album downplays the familiar strafing and staccato guitar lines in favour of a lush texture dominated by synths and keyboards. It is, on the whole, a less taut and more expansive proposition. Rostam Batmanglij never seemed like a particularly skilled keyboardist, and many of the parts here are quite minimal. Yet the arrangements and overall sound, in which Batmanglij plays the pivotal role, add up to something invigorating and intriguing. There’s a deceptive simplicity to many of these tracks – the detail often matters more than the fundamental elements.
Initially I wasn’t sure about the excess treatment on ‘California English’ – all vocoder gloss – but the track somehow ends up sounding effortless and fluid. Similarly, whilst on first listen to the epic ‘Diplomat’s Son’, the slightly cloying plinky-plonk piano stands out, repeated listens reveal a plethora of riches, from its unpredictable shifting rhythms to its wonderful vocal arrangement. The most impressionistic moment comes with ‘I Think Ur A Contra’, on which the band manage to craft something emotionally affecting beneath their characteristic archness. Perhaps best of all is ‘Taxi Cab’, an almost-ballad that comes across like a brilliantly imagined hybrid of Salif Keita and early Depeche Mode. On these tracks, not only as the musical context been refined, but Koenig has ironed out some of his more provocative vocal quirks in favour of a more understated and subtle delivery. This is no bad thing – and it helps make the band sound less in thrall to the likes of Talking Heads.
Koenig’s lyrics might well be meaningless, but he certainly delights in the way language can trip off the tongue. On ‘Cousins’, he’s particularly exuberant: ‘Dad was a risk-taker/His was a shoemaker/You, greatest hits 2006 little list-maker’ - it sounds like he’s, ahem, gently parodying nerdy music bloggers. Sometimes the lyrics are just joyfully ridiculous (‘In December, drinking Horchata/I look psychotic in a balaclava’). Yet even on a song where political metaphors abound (‘I Think Ur A Contra’), Koenig is capable of isolated moments of disarming directness (‘Never pick sides, never choose between two, well I just wanted you…’).
Amidst all the cleverness, what really comes across is Vampire Weekend’s mastery of the simple pop song. For all its drive to be more adventurous and sonically diverse, ‘Contra’ is still an album full of memorable hooks. It’s hard to know how many albums of this nature a band can produce before their ideas become formulaic – but, for now, it works just fine. ‘Contra’ is short, but very, very sweet.
Pretty much every review and feature I’ve read on Vampire Weekend in the past couple of months starts in the same way – with a lengthy examination of supposed critiques of the band as inauthentic ‘cultural tourists’. I’m still wondering precisely who these detractors are. Every review of ‘Contra’ so far has been at least positive, and it seems as if every journalist is trying to position themselves as valiant defenders of this band against a constant stream of invective that doesn’t really seem to exist. Most of us seem to accept that they are privileged and educated New Yorkers – but this doesn’t stop us from enjoying either their witty lyrics or their enthusiasm for African rhythm and harmony. If this music opens doors to Congolese soukous music or the rich contemporary sounds of Mali, this surely cannot be a bad thing.
‘Contra’ is a typical second album in that it consists in part of laudable attempts to develop and diversify alongside a handful of tracks that could have sat comfortably on their debut. ‘Cousins’, somewhat impressively, is an even spikier and more insistent rewrite of ‘A-Punk’ and ‘Holiday’ is a ska-tinged piece of angular post-punk. There’s nothing remotely surprising on either track, including their inherent infectiousness that borders on irritating.
Late last year, the band already gave clues that the full album wouldn’t be quite that simple by posting opening track ‘Horchata’ as a free download. This track amplifies the African influences to almost dizzying and saccharine levels, with its percussion and thumb pianos. It’s also a brilliant song, with Ezra Koenig’s near-nonsense wordplay operating in excelsis.
Much of the rest of the album downplays the familiar strafing and staccato guitar lines in favour of a lush texture dominated by synths and keyboards. It is, on the whole, a less taut and more expansive proposition. Rostam Batmanglij never seemed like a particularly skilled keyboardist, and many of the parts here are quite minimal. Yet the arrangements and overall sound, in which Batmanglij plays the pivotal role, add up to something invigorating and intriguing. There’s a deceptive simplicity to many of these tracks – the detail often matters more than the fundamental elements.
Initially I wasn’t sure about the excess treatment on ‘California English’ – all vocoder gloss – but the track somehow ends up sounding effortless and fluid. Similarly, whilst on first listen to the epic ‘Diplomat’s Son’, the slightly cloying plinky-plonk piano stands out, repeated listens reveal a plethora of riches, from its unpredictable shifting rhythms to its wonderful vocal arrangement. The most impressionistic moment comes with ‘I Think Ur A Contra’, on which the band manage to craft something emotionally affecting beneath their characteristic archness. Perhaps best of all is ‘Taxi Cab’, an almost-ballad that comes across like a brilliantly imagined hybrid of Salif Keita and early Depeche Mode. On these tracks, not only as the musical context been refined, but Koenig has ironed out some of his more provocative vocal quirks in favour of a more understated and subtle delivery. This is no bad thing – and it helps make the band sound less in thrall to the likes of Talking Heads.
Koenig’s lyrics might well be meaningless, but he certainly delights in the way language can trip off the tongue. On ‘Cousins’, he’s particularly exuberant: ‘Dad was a risk-taker/His was a shoemaker/You, greatest hits 2006 little list-maker’ - it sounds like he’s, ahem, gently parodying nerdy music bloggers. Sometimes the lyrics are just joyfully ridiculous (‘In December, drinking Horchata/I look psychotic in a balaclava’). Yet even on a song where political metaphors abound (‘I Think Ur A Contra’), Koenig is capable of isolated moments of disarming directness (‘Never pick sides, never choose between two, well I just wanted you…’).
Amidst all the cleverness, what really comes across is Vampire Weekend’s mastery of the simple pop song. For all its drive to be more adventurous and sonically diverse, ‘Contra’ is still an album full of memorable hooks. It’s hard to know how many albums of this nature a band can produce before their ideas become formulaic – but, for now, it works just fine. ‘Contra’ is short, but very, very sweet.
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