Blue for the Most - Abraham

Track list:

1. Magpie
2. Stay Here
3. What Gives With You
4. City For Us
5. Start The Song Backwards
6. Blue For The Most
7. For All The Times
8. Heather
9. Freedom's When
10. On A Plane
11. Ever So Slowly

Running time: 39 minutes
Released: 2002

So there was a point I bought up a lot of downtempo electronica. I think I was inspired by how much I loved Bonobo's Animal Magic (that may well end up the most linked post in the blog) and just made purchases of fancy in that general direction. I am pretty sure that is how I happened upon Abraham. I recall really liking this album - particularly the title track and the opener, Magpie. However I don't think that I have once thought of it or played it in the last couple of years (Last FM confirms no scrobbles since 2013). I really don't expect it to stand up, thinking instead that I will see it for the faddish purchase it was, but we'll see.

The early strains sound dated. The vocal is still pretty but - and I'm going to run into this again when I unearth my Zero 7 albums, I'm sure - it just feels... old, tired. Early noughties chill, no place in the modern world. Yet I have need of open lazy time more than ever of late. Despite really appreciating the target goal of the track, I am just not seeing how it engenders it. It's a little too empty, and that was one of the songs I remembered fondly.

Stay Here is familiar once the lyric gets moving and suffers from the same problem. There is sod all of any interest going on in the composition. Boring rhythm that is just a little too persistent, lack of any melody worth the name. The voice doesn't hold the same lustre as it did on Magpie either. It has some kind of dirty effect applied, making it breathier, grubbier; duller. The next track is worse - it adds more variation in the arrangement but that is achieved by cheesy synth sounds that make my toes curl. I don't know if I am just in the wrong mindset for this or whether I somehow blinded myself to tracks full of faults in search of a sound that others did better. What really astounds me sitting here in 2015 is that I bought another Abraham record after this one. The one thing I will say in its favour - the songs are shortish and so it won't keep me too long. Somewhere along the line they might just manage a decent blend of interesting patterns to go with the singing which is, at least, consistently pleasant. Its problem is that pleasant is certainly not enough - not any more.

I wrote the intro, that describes this as faddish, a few days ago. I have only just re-read the sentence. Sometimes one has a sense for these things. In fairness, I think the particular style of music that this espouses is a really hard one to do with any kind of longevity. This would have only worked because there were a hundred and one different groups churning out "chillout" music with ethereal vocals and plenty of space to relax into; it was everywhere, you couldn't escape it and frankly it was a darn site less annoying than Nu-Metal.

Hmm - the title track just started. Here the organ line lends it a freshness, supporting the singer a little more. There is still a lot of blandness in the rest of the piece but it is a very noticeable jump in interest. I was all set to be sceptical of it given how little Magpie still appealed, but this? Its alright. Not stellar, but it actually has enough to it to work and hit the target it was shooting for. You have three or four things happening throughout the track which helps stop any of them from becoming too dominant or repetitive and it allows her voice to soar and engage. My listen seems to be blighted by odd jumps - a bad rip, perhaps? - but that is a big step up from boredom. The next track even threatens to pick up the baton and keep the level at an acceptable level for a while, but then just fails to build on a start that had enough in terms of rhythm and synth strings to build false promise. It quickly settles into a rhythm which is disappointing. It is still miles more interesting than the first 5 tracks though.

I have had a strange few days, to the point I am finding that I need every second I can to try to de-clutter my mind. I am just constantly mentally switched on at the moment and it means that I am not finding time for active participation in fun. Weirdly I find this sort of stream-of-consciousness effort conducive to that mental decompression. I switch off the parts of my brain that are chewing over things and just let surface thoughts run wild. That's probably why the opening is quite so negative. I don't like ragging on things really - I would far rather say something is not for me than that it is bad, and be on far more safe ground if I did. That said, I don't think the "one in a crowd of many" spirit of the comments is particularly unfair or unkind. Abraham certainly were not the most celebrated of the downtempo clones that appeared with the new millenium, they are also probably far from the worst. They just happen to be the lacklustre one that I have the misfortune to be spending my Thursday evening with!

The digression of the previous paragraph signifies a return to the flatness I felt listening to the first half of the disc. There just isn't quite enough happening here to switch on and tune my ears in to, and neither is it having a soothing, relaxing effect. There is something a little... awkward about some of the rhythms employed, exacerbated by the odd skip or jump in the playback which has persisted past the one song, which prevents me from finding the pieces as placating as I am sure they were intended to be. I am into the last couple now, and the vocal performance on On a Plane is more daring, stretching and soaring like the subject of the title (I have not picked out the lyrics enough to say whether it fits the subject of the song). Alas whilst that is interesting and a welcome stretching of the safety the other tracks have been mired in, it is paired with a particularly dull backing and so on balance the tune is no more appealing to me than any of the rest. A shame really.

I think this vocalist could have been wonderful with a more inspired tune to back her up, but alas what she seems to hve been working with is distinctly middle of the road, uninspired, even phoned-in arrangement. There are warbles and tinkles on the final track that remind me of some of the sounds used on Premieres Symptomes by Air... but where there they are (from memory) used as part of a sonic construction to build interest, here they are left isolated. The difference in impact is therefore immense and ultimately I find my prediction confirmed. Only the title track really stood out; only the title track survives the swing of the axe.

10000 Hz Legend - Air

Track List:

1. Electronic Performers
2. How Does It Make You Feel?
3. Radio #1
4. The Vagabond
5. Radian
6. Lucky and Unhappy
7. Sex Born Poison
8. People in the City
9. Wonder Milky Bitch
10. Don't Be Light
11. Caramel Prisoner

Running time: 60 minutes
Released: 2001

Is this really 13 years old, predating the death of Brian Clough? One seems a lot longer ago, the other seems more recent (they've just had a 10 year memorial article on the BBC for Clough). It is funny how we see time, and different events on different timelines. Anyway, this is the last album before I start on A. It's only taken a month to get through numbers and punctuation!

10000 Hz Legend is a more muted affair than Moon Safari in some respects. Air crashed into the public consciousness with the latter in the late 90s and suddenly being French was slightly less uncool (I jest!). I remember being hyped to pick this up, especially as Beck was guest vocals on The Vagabond (and I want to say Don't Be Light too, without looking it up; I went off him soon after). And then not being blown away by the whole. Actually in that sense I think this album is pretty much classic Air - fantastic high points, meaning that the whole work is disappointing in comparison.

They veer from quite loud and brash to soft and gentle, and at either end of that scale they have both interest and boredom - sometimes within the same track. How Does It Make You Feel? is a great example of this: the tracks soft acoustic back and raspy whispered vocal are interesting, but the chorus is as dull as anything and leaves me with the feeling the track is not really very well conceived/put together. It is an Air album in microcosm.

Would I call this dated? Not sure. I think there is a case that it is but something like Radio #1 sounds, to me, like the wall of radio-supplied music that I only ever encounter walking around shops. I have never listened to radio much, instead picking up music from associations/recommendations, blind purchases, gigs and latterly LastFM. I suspect the effect is more down to me not really listening in the "out and about" circumstance, and so yes, it is dated. That said, unlike Vangelis' synths from a decade before, to my ears Air's sounds do not have the same artificial, tinny edge. I think there are some noticeably poor sounds in there but in general the age of the album does not seem to account for a loss of sound quality.

I still quite like The Vagabond. Its rhythm is just above soporific, the guitar is plenty engaging and the build is nice. I am, I find, less enamoured of the vocal these days and the ending sucks balls, but the other 5 minutes are pleasant. Radian is, I have a feeling, my favourite track from those presented here. It has a slow burn of an opening that flares into some more life about 3 minutes in. I can forgive the length of the track because that opening does feel like a build, and then when it does flower and open into the light, airy, musical melodies you want them to last a while. It keeps building too; there is still a relatively dark bass and melancholy strains to what is (to me) generally a light, hopeful piece. The comedown on the end is possibly a little longer than I would like but that is a small quibble. It is a definite high point.

I used to think the same of Lucky and Unhappy. Pretty sure I liked this track a lot in times past. Now, though it just feels dull. The constituent parts are all there to make a pretty decent tune and yet I am bored. This is definitely a more dated track; some of the sci-fi electronic whizzes and beeps serve that purpose, along with what feels like a 90s vision of an edgy futuristic beat. I am glad when it gives way to the soft acoustic base of Sex Born Poison, for all of 2 seconds before I hear the "spacy" sounds atop the plucked melody. When the vocal comes in it harks back to Moon Safari in effect but the track takes a nosedive in interest. Later in the piece it picks up again, but for me the damage is already done. I have tuned out. I can see why people might like this track, but it is not for me.

It gives way to a tune that I feel would be much better without a vocal. Musically speaking I like People in the City, lyrically and vocally it is a mess. The distorted vocal simply obscures a nice (and I hesitate to use that word lest it damn with faint praise) structured track that goes through more melodic and darker points but holds together well until the klaxons heralding the end. When I was younger I used to approve of injudicious swearing/bad language more as it was "edgy"; now creative and appropriate use of expletives can still raise a smile (and I acknowledge I swear too much in person; actively avoiding it in shared postings is a nice thing to do) but throwing terms like "bitch" around in titles seems trite and unnecessarily and casually misogynistic. That definitely dates it for me. I find the tune quite boring, too.

Don't Be Light is Beck. It is also one of the better tracks on this album, at least until it slows down for him to read out a monologue. I like the faster pace and driving distortion so when that drops out it is a little disappointing, and the tune never really recovers, but the hard start leaves an impression that I am happy to have last. I will be glad when the album is done though as to be honest the second half is less than impressive. Some of the tunes are not up to snuff, others are just a little weak. I am tempted to cull the electronic versions of several tracks but not ditch the disc. Whilst I am looking to clean out my library I am not necessarily looking to lose access to things that I keep part of.

I have some time to decide on that though, and at least Caramel Prisoner is better than I remember. This listen definitely bolstered my opinion of Air as creators of some great tracks, but ones who generate a lot of chaff too.