Caring Is Sharing With Ears Of Friendship

Starring

Arve Henriksen, Trygve Sein, Anders Jormin, Markku Ounaskari, BC Camplight, James Taylor Quartet, Japanese Breakfast, Molchat Doma, Young Gun Silver Fox

The Front Runners

Hung Up On You : James Taylor Quartet

Back in 1986 when James Taylor’s previous band, The Prisoners, disbanded, he vowed to leave rock behind and move into the realms of jazz. Nearly 40 years later he’s found an exhilarating blend of the two.

This is a peculiarly British take on jazz and rock, rooted in the styles and influences of the sixties. The jazz comes mainly from the appearance of the Hammond organ on songs such as ‘Chicken Legs’. It’s not overdone, but as a shortcut signifier of the sixties sound of Georgie Fame, end of the pier shows and the world of the Mods it’s hard to beat.

It’s better to hear this as a fond and exuberant tribute to Mod culture than as a single stereotyped musical genre. This feels like a version of Quadrophenia if it had been populated with the songs that Mods actually listened to, rather than the songs that Pete Townshend wrote about them. There’s undeniably an early Who feel to ‘She Dreams In Crimson’, drawn from their mildly psychedelic phase, and the backing vocals on ‘Feet On The Ground’ add a softer more melodic feel, similar to Who songs such as ‘So Sad About Us’.

More than anything, this record is the sound of youth. It’s a shouty, aggressive sound that combines the power of pop punk with the arrogant peacock strut of gaggles of youths marauding through seaside towns. It’s the sounds of mods, hot city summers, Carnaby Street at its peak and colour, lots of vibrant colour. ‘Perche Non Vai da Lui’ is the kind of schoolboy Italian learned to attract girls.

Everything about this album is energetic. Tracks tumble from one track to the next. ‘Miss Your Life’ triggers movement, jerky and twitchy as if amphetamine fuelled. In the rush, some songs sound scuffed around the edges and they are all the better for it.

The James Taylor Quartet brings the authentic sound of the sixties into your living room. It’s a blast, and you’d better hold on.

Taster Track : Feet On The Ground

Belaya Polosa : Molchat Doma

The capacity music has to float across man made borders, share experiences and reach out to people around the world, should be one of our most valued human characteristics. So I make no apologies for including a record from Belarus, sung entirely in their language and more than a little dystopian.

It’s an east European country that has had more than its fair share of volatility, turmoil and unrest. This album may sound dark and pessimistic, but it’s also strange and intriguing as if beamed from another world. It’s categorised as ‘doomer’ but, fear not, it doesn’t tumble into ‘gloomer’. (That’s my word - forever chasing a contrived pun!)

I’m indebted to Lyricstranslate.com for enabling me to give you a flavour of the lyrics. These are from ‘Kolesom’ (‘Wheel’) 

“I am not well

No!

This world is unshaken by me.”

The language may be strange, but it’s also familiar. This is Belarusian post punk synth pop conjuring a feel for grey, smoke stained scenes that could tempt you into a miserabilist spirit, but the staccato beats of ‘ Ty Zhe Ne Znaesh Kto Ya’ provide an urgency that prevents you wallowing in depression. The influences on this may come from 1980s Russian electronica but it’s also the sound of early Ultravox, later Depeche Mode and The Cure at their sombre peak.

‘Son’ is the sound of breaking storms over burning cities, with a dash of the wild west thrown in for good measure. ‘Chernye Cvety’ has some of the melodic appeal of Kraftwerk in its clean sound. The sound throughout is pristine, approaching spectacular, and offsetting the alienating and grim tone. 

So, let's welcome this cultural exploration and celebrate the power of music to bond listeners together. Dzialicca — heta klapacicca pra vušy siabroŭstva. (And if you want to know what that means look no further than the title of this blog!)

Taster Track : Son

The Chasing Pack

Arcanum : Arve Henriksen, Trygve Sein, Anders Jormin, Markku Ounaskari

I remember listening to ‘Too Rye Ay’ in my student days and a jazzy bass run that introduces one of Kevin Rowland’s spoken pieces. I flagged it, defensively, to a friend as evidence that I could appreciate jazz. He just laughed. It was as far from purist jazz as ‘Jack and Jill’ is from poetry. 

No matter. This rectifies the situation. It feels like something mysterious and not fully understood. It may not be for beginners, but it does establish an eerie atmosphere. The musicians coax new, strange sounds and expressions from their instruments. For example, the wavering, squawking sax of ‘Folkesong’ is not quite how you expect it to sound. Trygve Sein’s percussion is clever but constantly disorienting, playing to a different time signature from the sax, trumpet and bass on ‘Old Dreams’.

I’m in the middle of a dark fairy tale, looking over my shoulder for signs of trolls, talking trees and magical forests. I’m lost in the woods of the music, shorn of familiar markers to help me navigate through. I’m grateful for occasional moments of beauty and impact, say where the sax and trumpet create a sense of playing, like a rare animal you can watch unobserved, or in the melody of ‘Trofast’ which remains hummable from start to finish. I enjoyed the tipsy slur of the opening track ‘Nokitpyrt’, wonkily unsteady on its feet. I admired the way the musicians collectively enable their instruments to talk and chatter, peaking with the whispered musings of Anders Jormin’s bass on ‘Armon Lapset’.

You’re in the presence of jazz elders with palpable mutual respect. If it’s an album that prioritises the instruments, performance and technical skill above melody, I’m happy with that. I’m willing to pay the price of reduced emotional engagement that flows from it.

Finally, I’m proud that were I to meet my student, jazz loving peers, I could look them in the eye and say “I, too, am a jazz connoisseur.” Now, where did I put that Dexy’s album?

Taster Track : Trofast

A Sober Conversation : BC Camplight

BC Camplight (aka Brian Christinzio) treads a wobbly line between genius and musical fool. He’s a man who provides ample evidence of a pop sensitivity that could blow you away, while struggling to demonstrate that he is no mere minstrel, but an underappreciated auteur and artist.

It’s admirable, but simultaneously maddening. He’s a man I want to love, but also a man who seems wilfully determined to make it hard to do so. He has no filter. If he thinks it, it’s in. His songs are often soaring and defiant. Take the opening track here - ‘The Tent’ - as item of evidence No. 1. He can’t resist the temptation, the need, to make the song weirdly complicated. A listenable song is interrupted by harsh, ugly grinding. Or take a prettier example. The momentum of ‘Two Legged Dog’, a single, is disrupted by a holding chorale. It’s not unpleasant but it feels unnecessary. It’s moments such as these that weigh a song down as they are to take it to another level.

On the plus side, and the reason I persevere in listening to him, you can’t fault his ambition. His songs are crammed with goodies, more than it seems possible to hold. They can build to thrilling climaxes, as on ‘A Sober Conversation’. ‘When I Make My First Million’ is laced with sad and desperate humour. You’re silently pleading for him to come through.

It’s undeniable that he puts on a performance. He’s a potential pop genius striving to be a great, impoverished artist. Just as Stephen Sondheim transformed the American musical, but could never write ‘Oliver’, Christinzio has selected his particular bed and laid on it. Nilsson, Father John Misty and even 10CC have made the same choices.

Rarely do you encounter someone who is admirable and so infuriating at the same time. I wish he would borrow from Dean Wareham’s songbook and consider that it’s not a sell out to recognise the right time for cashing in.

Taster Track : A Sober Conversation

For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women) : Japanese Breakfast

This is a strange confection. On the surface it’s full of intricate and delicate sweetness, but scratch it and you’ll quickly reveal a Shakespearean, putrefying heart of darkness. Taking centre stage is Japanese Breakfast’s Ophelia as she grapples with her demons but before she has been brought down into full blown madness.

The opening ‘Here Is Someone’ feels like music from the Garden of Eden. Gentle woodwind creates a pastoral feel. All seems well. ‘Orlando In Love’ introduces the sad and melancholy women for whom he writes his cantos. So far so good, but you’ll return to this song later and wonder if there’s actually something quite predatory about it.

By the time you reach ‘Honey Water’ you’ll be aware that these songs are filtered through strangeness. Wayward lovers flock to new temptations and temptresses dressed in lyrics straight from an intense and lush technicolour dream. ‘Mega Circuit  is really quite unpleasant, the maggot at the core of this particular apple. ‘Leda’ uses the image of Zeus seducing the Spartan Queen, Leda, while disguised as a swan. Perhaps that’s how Harvey Weinstein saw it. I doubt the Leda felt the same way.

With this highly theatrical atmosphere, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the issues in these songs are hers. She captures the mingled panic, self loathing and lingering melancholy that they leave in her thoughts and dreams disturbingly well.

It comes as a jolt to reach ‘Men In Bars’ with its country infused guitars. It’s not that the content is very 21st Century, it’s the fact that the song is a genuine duet between Japanese Breakfast and, unexpectedly, veteran actor Jeff Bridges.

Musically the songs are triumphs of delicate songwriting, a masterclass in the use of blossoming sweetness to slip through unacceptable thoughts. The sweet melody and chorus of ‘Little Girl’ is balm to cling to in the face of so much darker material.

Japanese Breakfast has created an uncomfortable album of modern feelings with 21st  century themes and music wrapped in Shakespearean garb. If music be the food of love, play on. But as Japanese Breakfast makes clear, be prepared for the occasional outbreak of food poisoning along the way.

Taster Track : Little Girl

Pleasure : Young Gun Silver Fox

Young Gun, Silver Fox are a London based duo who have brought the sound of the USA West Coast into our inner cities. In that respect they are missionaries, and history tells us that missionaries have not always been a blessing. Their manifesto is clear, and set out in ‘Stevie and Sly’. They’re gonna take you back to 1975.

Let’s be clear from the start. This is a highly polished and flawless homage to white soul yacht rock. Of its type, its unimprovable. Fifty years ago they would have been headlining Earls Court or selling out Wembley Stadium. The harmonies and backing vocals are spot on. Bass lines ooze soft funk and no opportunity for soaring guitar solo lies untaken. This is the sound of Chicago, Hall and Oates before they broke through to chart success, Steely Dan at their most accessible and the Doobie Brothers with high end stereo production. It’s seductively enjoyable with its nostalgic melodies, effortless falsetto and undemanding listening, and safe to take in small doses. It’s hard to pick out a single song because they all deliver the same aim - pleasure realisation - to the same high standard.

This is an album that will leave you wanting more. The trouble is, you won’t be wanting more of the same but more passion, more feeling, more real life and emotion. This is music for the heir / heiress living in a Barbie and Ken worl who has everything and hasn’t had to work for it. It’s also the reason that John Peel was so necessary at the end of the seventies.

If you had the chance to live a life free from grit, hassle, worry and disappointment would you choose it? And if you did, would you love it, or would you still feel something was missing? Either way, this could be your soundtrack.

Taster Track : Stevie and Sly

As ever this week's Taster Track playlists can be accessed at https://open.spotify.com/playlist/42qDXrw3nLMlCSg45kCnRy?si=4499207642034207 or via the Spotify link on the Home Page.

The link to the Youtube playlist is https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwV-OogHy7EjHZr5_M3m0Zn5LEu_F3fMm&si=OhQF-ZPaBjUn4VMT