Album reviews of Gabriel Kahane, Other Lives and Tori Amos. Review of End of the Road Festival, Sept 2011. Plus of course more filling in the gaps of the baroque pop archive.
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Tori delves into the classical world in this concept album. Satie, Chopin, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Bach, Debussy, Granados, and Schumann are credited on various tracks. Some tunes will be familiar to even a casual classical fan.
1 Shattering Sea 5:38
2 SnowBlind 3:14
3 Battle of Trees 8:42
4 Fearlessness 6:31
5 Cactus Practice 4:27
6 Star Whisperer 9:53
7 Job’s Coffin 3:32
8 Nautical Twilight 3:16
9 Your Ghost 5:38
10 Edge of the Moon 4:51
11 The Chase 3:02
12 Night of Hunters 5:32
13 Seven Sisters 2:44
14 Carry 4:07
1 Dark Horse 2:39 |
Tamer Animals is the second album from Other Lives, a band from Stillwater, Oklahoma. Despite the usual ‘indie-rock’ label, their sound and style stretches well beyond the usual areas. Cinematic is a word commonly used by critics, more specifically some tracks bring to mind the Ennio Morricone western soundtracks, particularly on tracks like For 12 and Old Statues. Tempi is not a word usual associated with pop music, but closer scrutiny reveals it is a primary factor in much of this work. For example the 12/8 time of the Philip Glass influenced Dark Horse or the bossa nova rhythm of Desert.Curiously, the singer Jesse Tabish sounds more like John Lennon than someone from the Deep South. Listen for the word ‘air’ pronounced ‘err’.Instrumentation: piano, harmonium, organ, cello, trumpet, clarinet, french horn, bassoon.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED “the most uniquely sublime, meticulous and heroic 40 minutes of 2011″ BBC
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Two years after Here’s The Tender Coming, The Unthanks return with more of the same musical formula: Reworkings of traditional and more recent folk songs, a couple of originals and a couple of surprising cover versions. All getting the distinctive Unthanks treatment of piano, strings and horns on top of a light bass and drums rhythm section. Vocal duties are shared as usual between Rachel’s beautifully accented and feminine voice and Rebecca’s plaintive tone.
The usual Unthanks pacing is here, with tracks sometimes unfolding over 6 or 7 minutes, such as the self-penned title track which is arguably the highlight here.
Covers of Tom Waits’ No One Knows I’m Gone and King Crimson’s(!) Starless are successful. All adding up to a solid but not spectacular album.
1 Call Me a Rainbow
2 Fade Away
3 Driving Home
4 Cherry Heart
5 Your Voice
6 Stuck in the Middle
Sufjan Steven’s bestrides the world of baroque pop like a colossus! Ok, hyperbole aside, over last decade he has become an influential figure and a touchstone for many musicians, and built up a growing fan base which seems to straddle age ranges and genders.
It’s easy to think of this as Sufjan’s pop album, that’s the way he’d like us to think of it, but it’s more than that. This time it’s personal and current (no songs about the Columbia Fair or his stepmother), nearly every song in the first person addressing his current state of mind in ways that many of us can relate to. He even namechecks himself in one song. One of the most deliberate of artists, I can detect a narrative arc to the song order.
Futile Devices is a trademark short acoustic number that Sufjan does so well. Pity the unwary listener who doesn’t realise the electric mayhem that awaits. It’s a good opener but it’s not quite Concerning the UFO (a track that still mesmerises five years later.)
I’m not sure that Too Much is the best introduction to this electro-classical pop album. The leading melodic motif is a little banal and I feel the tune outstays itself at six minutes plus. Never mind, it’s mainly glory from here.
The Age of Adz is a stunning and sophisticated track, rightfully taking its place as the title track. The portentous triplet of tuba-style notes giving the song a booming gravitas onto which the random army of synthesized noises are unleashed, and just beneath it all is a plucked guitar that gradually emerges. The moment at 6:20 which the choir chimes in is like a Sibelius orchestral climax. And the words in context are quite moving…
And when I die, when I die
I’ll rot
But when I live, when I live
I’ll give it all I’ve got
I Walked is a nice pop song, which succeeds where Too Much fails. Who knows, this could even be a pop radio hit.
Now That I’m Older stands apart with its swirling array of treated voices backed by little more that some tickling keyboards. This song is so mature it should carry a “not for teenagers” warning. The background voices remind me a lot of Kate and Anna McGarrigle’s angelic tones. It feels like one of those Sufjan slow burners that gradually become a fan favourite.
Get Real Get Right is a great pop tune with a scintillating background of Sufjan’s trademark fluttering woodwinds and emphasising female choir. It works in the same way as I Walked, which similarly hits the five minute mark.
Bad Communication is more of a declamatory interlude. For me the least convincing track here, it’s been cut from my mp3 player.
Vesuvius feels like a welcome breather being lighter on the electronic. It’s a very Sufjan song… in many respects, he even namechecks himself. I love the flutes/recorders/panpipes at the end, which makes me nostalgic for his first album, A Sun Came. Classic Sufjan. If you like how Sufjan makes you feel, this is your track. And if you love this, you should check out A Sun Came.
All For Myself‘s time signature seems to be derived from a 33rpm record stuck in a groove, perhaps while going backwards. In old language it would be regarded as a typical Sufjan off-kilter ballad.
I’ve worn out my fingertips on the desk trying get the time signatures for I Want To Be Well and in those terms, this fascinating uptempo song in firstly in 7/8, briefly flirting with 4/4 in the transition before settling into a very raucous 5/4 for one of the album’s most notable sections, which includes the repeated declaration that “I’m not fucking around”, his voice, and the treatment thereof is fantastic. There’s a real edge to it. Six minutes of top notch Sufjan.
Which leads us to the 25 minutes of Impossible Soul. Having experienced the 17 minute jam of Djorariah just a few weeks before, I bet I wasn’t the only one expecting a similar long jam with an even longer fade out. Sufjan confounds again! It’s easier to think of this as a five song suite:
Part one is a great ‘classic rock’ mid-paced tune with Sufjan’s anguished voice over a slow pulse keyboard, you’ll hear frantic snare-drums playing independently in each speaker. Then the concept of an electric guitar solo is re-invented. Guitar notes are chopped up, treated and put back together again. Sonically, the effect is stunning, particularly when a calming female chorus overlays it. This is glorious music making, I wish it went on longer, but…
part two, “don’t be destracted” interrupts, led by a female voice which gives way to a multitude of horns, sounding something like the Blood Sweat and Tears of old. After 10 minutes we’re into…
part three “Stupid Man”, the notorious Autotune section. I like the music, a dreamlike tape loop, but I guess I’m one of many that is conditioned against Autotune, so it’s hard, but really it’s well done I guess and pretty brief, and soon transitions into…
part four “We Can Do Much More Together”, a cheesy cheerleader chant. I could really see the media picking up on this, TV sports highlight packages and the like. Lyrically this track feels like a breath of fresh air as if Sufjan has finally managed to cast aside his various neuroses and insecurities. It winds down with a beautiful usage of electronic noises as it runs through some key changes, until…
part five “I Never Meant To Cause You Pain”, an acoustic segment that perfectly mirrors the opener, Futile Devices, some 70 minutes earlier.
What a journey!
