Back again with an unusually broad sampling of new sounds, spanning the continents and hopping from genre to genre. As always, Rapid River Magazine readers are encouraged to support our local music shops. They are an integral part of Asheville’s vibrant music scene.
When Saints Go Machine
Infinity Pool
!K7 Records
Buoyed by the positive reviews for their second album, Konkylie, the pop art ensemble, When Saints Go Machine, might justifiably chose to repeat the pattern, further excavating similar structures and tone. But that would defy the very essence of the bands’ creative instincts and seemingly endless desire for reinvention. Thus, the marvelous Infinity Pool goes in other directions, stretching the bands’ inventive pulse while retaining what makes them such an interesting collective.
Infinity Pool manages to be at once both expansive and streamlined; the opener “Love and Respect” (featuring an appearance by rapper Killer Mike) is more hard edged than you might expect, while the clinically precise “Yard Heads” is more analytical than some might wish. Nikolaj Manuel Vonsild continues to be one of the more dexterous vocalists of our time, and whereas the overtly electronic slant of Pool occasionally seems at odds with his R&B influenced delivery, it merely demonstrates the fluidity of the band.
When Saints Go Machine display a remarkable knack for blending absurdly matched sounds and textures — witness the over the top theatrics of “Mental Shopping Spree” — but they somehow make it work in ways that suggest this Copenhagen based quartet has plenty of tricks up their sleeves, and a very bright future in which to explore them. ****
James McCartney
Me
Burnside/ECR Music Group
While being born into Beatle royalty is hardly something to pity, it is an undeniably mixed blessing. Julian and Sean Ono launched their careers at a time when the world was deeply mourning the loss of John — which may in part explain the initial success they had — while Dhani Harrison is cursed with sounding and looking way too much like George.
On the other hand, Zach Starkey has carved out a very comfortable career as the longtime drummer for The Who. While everyone should know whose son he is, does anyone really pay attention to the drummer?
Enter into the picture James McCartney, who has taken a decidedly different route. At age 37 he’s only now launching his career into full orbit (although he’s released a handful of internet-only tunes) with his first full effort. He’s not entirely avoided the limelight — he’s played guitar on a few of his dad’s albums — and like his mom, he’s branched into the visual arts, primarily as a photographer and printmaker. But his has been a calculated approach.
Me is a carefully constructed, beautifully made, but at times somewhat stilted effort. It’s heavy on ballads and introspective middle tempo pop, and while he doesn’t have Paul’s unerring knack for melody (and let’s face it, no one does,) he’s no slouch in the engaging hooks department. Certainly there’s a Beatle like sound to some of the songs, but that’s true of hundreds of bands and solo artists. In fact he’s just as likely to be influenced by The Cure or Nirvana, bands that resonate more fully with his generation.
What’s refreshing about James, and the album he’s made, is how he willingly acknowledges these similarities while refusing to be defined by them. The haunting “Wisteria” is a model of old school craftsmanship, while the bouncy “Thinking about Rock and Roll” should make you want to get up and shout a few yea, yea, yeas.
On the whole, the melodies are direct, the playing and singing are warmly assuring, and his band sympathetic to the tone. Sir Paul is on hand for a bit of assistance, but this is James’ record. He’s learned more than a few things about song craft from his father, and, while anyone hoping to get a taste of Beatle light may be disappointed, taken on its own modest terms, James McCartney’s debut stands quite nicely on its own. ***1/2
Patty Griffin
American Kid
New West Records
It’s been six years, one of the longest stretches of her career, since Patty Griffin has released an album of primarily new material. American Kid comes at a crossroads for her, a time in which she seems ready to reassess both her art and her life. Written during a period just before and after her father’s death, the songs are less about his life (that might have been the predictable response), and more focused on his absence, as Griffin reflects on a future bereft of his guiding force.
Accompanied by longtime collaborator Doug Lancio on guitar, along with Cody and Luther Dickinson, the album is largely acoustic, intentionally stripped down with an emphasis on Griffin’s reflective lyrics and taut arrangements. Robert Plant, who seems to have reinvented himself as a genuine roots artist, is on hand for a trio of songs, giving them a certain cache they might otherwise have missed.
Recorded in Memphis and Brooklyn, American Kid is steeped in the music Griffin grew up singing; early blues, rousing gospel, country, and American folk weave their way through every moment.
Luther’s National Steel guitar gives “Go Wherever You Wanna Go” an almost transcendent lift, with Griffin’s otherworldly vocals swaying between a whisper and a wail. The Memphis blues of the ethereal “Don’t Let Me Die in Florida” is similarly stunning, while “Ohio,” a duet with Plant, would have fit nicely on any of his recent country influenced outings.
There are plenty of other highlights — her interpretation of Lefty Frizzell’s “Mom & Dad’s Waltz being among them — that it seems futile to mention them all. On American Kid (and if ever an album were aptly named this is it), Griffin shows just how handily she has mastered idioms ranging from sultry pop to Delta blues. It’s amongst her strongest albums from an already stellar career, and one which, no doubt, would have made daddy proud. ****1/2
Camera Obscura
Desire Lines
4AD Music
The Scottish indie-pop band Camera Obscura has never hid their aversion to rapid change. While some bands revel in genre hopping and stylistic swerving, CO has preferred to take a measured route, staying in familiar territory and re-exploring the same themes time and again.
Not many bands could build a devoted following by following such a singular niche, but not many bands have a singer like Tracyanne Campbell, whose distinctive and stunningly beautiful voice is enough to carry the day.
Her style is rarely matched, a delivery that pauses, swoons, explodes, and penetrates deeply into your psyche, often in the same song, or even verse. It does lean towards the saccharine, but the band’s songwriting — a collective approach in which all members are listed as equal partners — has a dark enough side to balance out the sweet.
As such, Desire Lines doesn’t attempt to expand the band’s trademark sound but rather to refine it; a continuing exploration towards some goal only they fully understand.
For some bands that might be a dilemma, but it’s hard to complain when you’re enraptured by such infectious melodies as the deliriously joyful “I Missed Your Party,” or the magnificent balladry of “Cri De Coeur.” Guests, Neko Case and Jim James, add some lovely but hardly needed vocal harmonies to several tracks, while the subtle stroke of Kenny McKeeve’s guitar livens things up a bit.
Most of the songs revolve around the classic questions of heartache, wrong choices, and the messes we get ourselves into, and while the lyrics can be a bit murky, there’s also a poetic nature to them. When Campbell sings about wanting to “write something of value,” you get the sense she’s doing a bit of self reflection.
It’s hard to imagine Desire Lines broadening the bands fan base — Camera Obscura are a group you either get or you don’t — but for my money, they remain one of the most invigorating low-key pop bands out there. At some point their deliberately narrow focus might wear thin, but that time seems more than a few albums away. ***1/2
Slaid Cleaves
Still Fighting the War
Music Road Records
Mention songs about boarded up factories, repossessed farms, hard luck ex-cons, and other down on their luck types, and most people will think of Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, and perhaps James McMurtry. But Slaid Cleaves has been mining that same turf for two decades, and he’s done so with a clarity and empathy that few songwriters can match, let alone surpass.
Shamefully underrated, the New England born and Austin-based Cleaves is among our most articulate and concise observers of the human condition. His best songs are populated with characters so well developed, and scenarios so richly detailed, you would think they stepped directly out of a Raymond Carver tale. Still Fighting the War is ample evidence of this.
The title track, which also opens the album, is a penetrating account of one vet’s struggles. When Cleaves sings how “men go off to war for a hundred reasons, but they all come home with the same demons,” he speaks as if he’d been there. In “Go for the Gold” (previously released as a live track), Cleaves’ interjects a bit of Woody Guthrie-like portraiture of the everyman: a struggle that is at once both deeply personal and universal.
“Rust Belt Fields” is another highlight, the sort of tale Springsteen can write with deft skill, but, given his enormous wealth and fame, perhaps not with the type of sincerity Cleaves so readily musters.
Not all of Cleaves’ songs dissolve into regret as he’s too smart a writer to not explore the full range of the human condition. “Hometown USA” has a surprisingly happy ending while “Texas Love Song” is a sardonic tip of the cowboy hat to his adopted state.
Yet for all its strengths, Still Fighting the War comes up as less than the sum of its parts. Some of that lies in having three producers, resulting in a record that never achieves a real identity. Much like his friend James McMurtry, Slaid Cleaves tends to write great songs while making somewhat indifferent albums. Having said that, there’s still plenty here to recommend: I’m still waiting on that “one great statement” I am certain Cleaves is capable of. Until that time Still Fighting the War will do just fine. ***1/2
Vondelpark
Seabed
R&S Records
The UK based trio Vondelpark has had a career best described as nears hits and misses. In 2009 they emerged as leaders in the London based subset of theatrically gloomy pop, even as they were not yet twenty years of age. Within weeks they were the subject of wildly exaggerated press and a widely seen documentary detailing the pitfalls of being in an emerging rock group.
But in a universe of rapidly changes tastes the band just as quickly fell out of fashion and seemingly disappeared from the scene. A few internet streamed songs showed up here and there but they were leftovers from previous sessions. For all purposes Vondelpark were kaput. So it’s with no small surprise that Seabed arrives.
Still comprised of singer, multi-instrumentalist/producer Lewis Rainsbury, guitarist/bassist Alex Bailey, and keyboardist Matt Law, they’ve found a home on the Belgian based label R&S. It’s a label generally associated with electronica, so at first glimpse the pairing seems a bit odd, especially given the rhythm-and-blues tinged, late night jazz feel of the album.
Seabed is a languorous journey through subtle texture, laid back bass beats, and Rainsbury’s low key to the point of distraction vocals. It’s an interesting collection, but one that frequently leaves the listener in limbo.
Rainsbury mumbles his way through the wraithlike opener “Quest,” while on the title track he repeatedly drones “I won’t say it, if you won’t say it … You will realize,” to a synthesized funk laden beat.
The rather toneless “Closer,” in which Rainsbury promises he’s “never getting off this rollercoaster,” threatens to fall off the rails but never quite does, which pretty much sums up most of Seabed.
It’s hard not to admire the band’s intent, and as mood music it’s more than adequate. But it’s a very difficult album to penetrate, and one that works best in short doses. I’d suggest streaming a few tracks to decide if this is an album to your liking. I found it more admirable than enjoyable, with Vondelpark remaining a band worth watching out for. ***