Chap With the Wings, Five Rounds Rapid - Thumpermonkey Lives!

Track list:

5. Doughboy
6. Don't Wake Me
8. Melissa Leaves the Wrong Kind of Audit Trail
9. My Debt to Scientology

Running time: 12 minutes
Released: 2006

OK - random insert time. I picked up a few freebies from somewhere after noticing Thumpermonkey had covered Tam Lin, just around the time I was really getting into folk music. I suspect a trainwreck as far as my enjoyment goes, but one has to be sure... I do give them props for the album title though, and the art is interesting, stylistic and bold yet indistinct.

Doughboy is a rap tune, with an American accent. This is not what I was expecting at all. I sit here lost for words... is there some kind of mix up? The tune itself is pretty staid, a decent loop that supports the vocal well enough but its all a little bland. I am just suffering expectation dissonance rather than stunned by brilliance or awfulness. Then I look them up on Bandcamp, find this album and the samples. Track names match; times don't. Play one to check. Yup, something gone wrong here. The freebie songs I grabbed from wherever are decidedly not this album, so I delete them, and proceed to listen to what I can through Bandcamp - which seems happy to stream entire tunes.

Don't Wake me evokes Sweet Billy Pilgrim in places, which to be fair is much more what I was expecting to find. I get track 7, Memory Fat as a "bonus" for the change of approach. Call it a stand in for Doughboy, which I don't go back for. This is more experimental, noisy, growling and faux metal. I don't care for it.

I am left wondering if the error was on my side, did I mislabel something I downloaded, or was the file not what it claimed to be? I guess I'll never know. Anyhow - this will take more than 12 minutes now, as Melissa is almost 7 alone. It's a prog-y rock epic, then. There are some nice points in the guitar work, it reminds me some of And None Of Them Knew They Were Robots, only without the tightness and purpose or visceral appeal to back up an unexpectedly tuneful centre. (Grr. I keep having my browser suggest spellings for perfectly good English; I have never found a way to stop that happening reliably and constantly for non-US English). I have tuned out of Melissa - which whilst it has an amusing title (I wonder is it a euphemism?) has little else to recommend it. In places it sounds like they've recorded a lawnmower (or other small petrol) engine as a component.

The final step on this voyage of oddity is... a lonely piano melody. What? It's actually a rather nice one - not top tier composition or anything, but the way it is recorded evokes a piano alone in an empty auditorium, shadows cloaking around it. It goes a little spikey and high-pitch for my tastes after that, ruining the effect. The contrast between this tune and the prior one was an interesting one, but frankly that is all I have to note.

So, a cock-up of a post, an oddity of an album and a few minutes of my life I won't get back. A few MB cleared up, but an interesting interlude to an otherwise dull day.

Central Reservation - Beth Orton

Track list:

1. Stolen Car
2. Sweetest Decline
3. Couldn't Cause Me Harm
4. So Much More
5. Pass In Time
6. Central Reservation
7. Stars All Seem to Weep
8. Love Like Laughter
9. Blood Red River
10. Devil Song
11. Feel To Believe
12. Central Reservation (The Then Again Version)

Running time: 58 minutes
Released: 1999

I used to have a giant poster of this album cover - a freebie from a gig attended in Bristol whilst a student. I used to really, really like Beth Orton's music - hence being at the gig in the first place - but I found that affinity dwindling with each album after this one, and looking back before starting this playing, I think I probably wouldn't miss it if I were to cut all albums of hers except Trailer Park (which I definitely would still miss) from my collection. That said, I am sure there are tracks in here, and on her later works, that are worth my time, so lets spend some time with her now.

I remember the primary acoustic melody of Stolen Car, but not the more haunting elements of the intro and the lonely electric guitar. As I hear it now it all floods back, and I find I still really like the song. Form filling has been put off again today; painting instead. Tomorrow is the last day of the holiday, and I now have a fair chuck of things stacked up to do... how much like everyday life. Orton sings "don't you wish you knew better by now..." - yes, yes I do. I work better with deadlines though...

I have been in a strange mood today, spontaneously dancing to the shuffle earlier whilst doing other things - very unlike me. I am now into my second glass of white (my sop to New Year yesterday, left over to this evening) and forcing myself into the mindset for a post. The guitars on Stolen Car really do sound mournful, wistful, longing. I approve, as the acoustic line cycles a pleasant hook that contrasts nicely. There is a very distinct change of tone with the next track which is far more laid back. You wouldn't know from the playing alone, but I am reminded that the pianist on Sweetest Decline is Dr John. This is a world away from his New Orleans blues, a mellow jaunt. It sounds and feels a little overdone somehow - like that mellowness is being striven for slightly too hard rather than coming naturally. I think this sense comes from overproduction and slightly too much going on in the arrangement. Bongos, strings, piano almost competing. It would be better without the unnecessary percussion I think, but it could also happily lose the strings and pare down to Orton's slightly unusual voice and the melodic piano.

Snacking on flapjacks at this time of the evening probably isn't wise; they don't go that well with the wine for a start.

There are some nice elements here, but since Stolen Car finished it has never been more than "nice" - which is to damn with faint praise. I wonder if, perhaps, in another mood I would more easily overlook things that currently are slapping me around the face. The depth of production is a mile away from the last thing I listened too with its multiple layers and rich sounds and I find myself pining for the simple and genuine sounds of James Yorkston's record. Whilst Beth Orton has worked with some electronic music folks over the years, I am moved to suggest her solo material benefits most from a more minimalist approach. She has an interesting voice, one with an edge to it and a hint of dis-tunefulness and real emotion, pairing that with a simple guitar melody offers the chance to show it off more. 

I start suddenly; I am feeling cold though the room is at temperature (I've upped the thermostat now though) and it has not been that cold outside over the new year. Maybe there is a draught. I need to fashion an early night tonight and... oh carp; just remembered what I have forgotten to do today. Time for a brief interlude.

Fault corrected I resume with Pass in Time - which runs 7 minutes in length. This album is made up of longer than average tunes, there's only one below 4 minutes and the average is almost five. I think that is counting against it a little in this listen. I am not convinced these songs need to be drawn out as much as they are - and it is the first half that are longer. Ooh! Hey, that is the late lamented Terry Callier on backing, with his utterly brilliant and soulful voice. He can lift this track just by humming at the right points. That I love how he and Orton synergise (remember Best Bit) can't disguise that it is stretched past the necessary though. After the song finally closes, we hit the title track, and this does give Orton's voice the room to be the star. Soft programming and sparse bass create a crucible for a rather fragile-sounding song and I find myself smiling, enjoying it again. It suffers a bit more from the over-tinkering with arrangements as it progresses but it never gets too busy to detract from the central song.

I remember being young and angry and stupid and penning a diatribe to a radio station for playing some horrid electro-mix of this song instead of the album version once. The mix concerned was tripe, stripped out all the space that is what makes this work. Fragility needs the right support, and here the vocal really needs that openness. I am still angry and stupid, but far less young these days; I don't write to radio stations because I don't listen to them (except for sports) and I refuse to engage with Twitter or Facebook which seem to be the only modes of feedback these days. Ugh - try making a really cogent argument in 140 characters. That said, this long form pretty much debunks my ability to make cogent arguments in any medium. Oh well. I have been enjoying some good criticism of late - catching up on Errant Signal, which dissects videogames nicely in ways that I find fascinating. YouTube is becoming a more regular form of entertainment than TV for me now, even though I am pretty set in my ways and not one to over-subscribe or jump on bandwagons.

Back to the music. A series of tracks that flood back into my memory as they play have come and largely gone. I like the familiarity, but I am not over-sold on the specifics. I don't find any of them hard to listen to, or actively distasteful, but equally I do not find myself moved to comment on anything about the tunes either. I close my eyes and try to immerse myself in Blood Red River to form a more communicable opinion but it sort of slides off around me. I don't know if that says more about me or the music. I am slightly more taken with the opening of Devil Song where primacy is given to a simple voice/guitar combination. The form of the guitar work here appeals to me far more than the song itself. I like the crucible it creates, the timbre and the framing.

Feel to Believe is a pleasant surprise. I recognise it once it starts, but the name meant nothing. It has a more upbeat tone to it and that feels a little overdue somehow. There is a touch of awkwardness between one of the choruses and the next verse - the tune loses its structure and tempo and falls into limbo a bit before pulling it around by returning to the tone that was set at the start. Orton's voice sounds strained and emotional here - it adds an undercurrent to the piece that I appreciate even as it sounds less tuneful than on many of the other tracks.  I think I have a thing for unorthodox voices.

We end with a mix of Central Reservation which starts to fill in the spaces around the vocal more - electric pacing elements are introduced as percussion, the beat is rather annoying and distracting, but the song actually works with the higher pace. I prefer the more sparse version earlier on the disc by far, but the verses and choruses do actually fit well enough in the busier environment created for them here. I actually find myself more attracted to the words in this context, but the voice in the previous one. Odd dichotomy that. The disc ends horribly with a fade out rather than a proper ending, leaving me to consider the whole. There is no doubt that for me it doesn't stand up to the love I once had for it, that in places it is over-produced, over-long or otherwise disappointing. But there is also magic buried in here - a couple of complete tracks, or just moments or movements within others. I could axe it and not miss much, but I really wouldn't mind hearing just about any of these tunes again.