album // I Will Set You Free
Barry Adamson released the confidently-titled
I Will Set You Free, his ninth solo album, on his own Central
Control International label at the tail end of January
2012. The release followed an intense three years of shifting directions
for Adamson, including writing his first piece of fiction (Maida
Hell, included in the London Noir collection, for
which he won the Best Short Story prize at Italy's Piemonte Noir
festival), releasing the highly lauded Back To The Cat
album, returning to the stage with his first band, Howard
Devoto's Magazine and releasing his first
short film, the disturbing Therapist. During the interview
accompanying Therapist, Adamson described feeling like
he was treading water in the studio ahead of shifting his attention
to the film project, creating music that was more or less Barry
Adamson-by-numbers, inadvertently leading to a sense of nervousness
about his latest album.
While it would actually be quite nice to hear a
cinematic Adamson on record again, it's evident from I Will
Set You Free that recreating the dark mood of his earlier solo
self is just not where his head is right now. The album only contains
one piece that remotely evokes that forgotten vibe in the clever
sound design of 'The Trigger City Blues', which includes sampled
rainfall and gunshots interspersed with electronic pulses and squirming
synth tones. Those poignant, dark alley whispered vocals of yesteryear
Adamson usher in bluesy guitar riffs and opening-credit-sequence
industrial hip hop beats. 'The Trigger City Blues' makes you think
of the music to the scene in a heist movie where the bad guys and
getting prepped for the big bank job, donning masks and sticking
the guns in the unmarked van.
I Will Set You Free was crafted by Adamson
(bass, vocals, programming) with Ian Ross (drums), long-standing
collaborator Nick Plytas (organ) and Bobby Williams (guitar). Horns
come from Sid George (trumpet), Steve Hamilton (tenor sax) and Harry
Brown (trombone), a trio capable of turning out pretty much any
jazz mood required by their band leader. In the main, I Will
Set You Free continues the mood of albums such as Stranger
On The Sofa, where Adamson as a front man and vocalist really
came to fruition, here striking a balance between the outright acid
rock of tracks like 'Destination' (released ahead of the album as
a free download) with more emotionally sentimental pieces like 'If
You Love Her'. The contrast between the stately croon of the latter
with the motorik-meets-white-hot punk of 'Destination' provides
a neat overview of an album that finds Adamson operating at both
extremes, between the loverman and the serpentine voodoo priest
perched atop the dangerous, nihilistic bloodymindedness that characterises
'Destination'.
Further explorations into dark rock come with the
opener, 'Get Your Mind Right', which finds Adamson pitching in with
a vocal somewhere between David Bowie's archness and the stream-of-consciousness
lurching of Shaun Ryder, augmented by typically frazzled organ from
Plytas and glam drumming from Ross. In a nice stylistic shift, 'Stand
In' is a wide-eyed Eighties-referencing towering pop track, replete
with a nice elongated synth section that feels like Yazoo
covering Kraftwerk; okay, so it feels nearly twenty
years too late for a John Hughes movie, but it has a big sound and
a catchy chorus that will stick in your head long after the track
has finished its emotional motions.
Of the ballads, 'Turnaround' is probably the highlight,
being an ephemeral, lysergic ballad shimmering with emotional outpourings.
Adamson as a crooner is one of the most surprisingly confident aspects
to his still comparatively recent development as a singer, finding
his honey vocal enveloped with serene acoustic guitar and washes
of dreamy synth strings.
Some of I Will Set You Free's best moments
come in the form of two downright fonky tracks, 'Black Holes In
My Brain' and 'The Power Of Suggestion'. The former is delivered
in a relaxed, jazzy vibe that for some reason reminds me of George
Michael (don't ask why, but for once it's not a bad association)
and a stretched-out bassline which could have been lifted wholesale
from Marvin Gaye's 'Inner-City Blues'. 'Black Holes In My Brain'
feels like a more organic Soul II Soul or another of those eclectic
soul-jazz-hip-hop collectives from around the same time, all lumpy
beats and soulful breeziness. 'The Power Of Suggestion', meanwhile,
is sexy and upbeat, imbued with a summery warmth and sublime jazz
piano lines. The track shuffles out over thick, chunky beats and
and contains a theatrical swing that feels like it would suit a
remake of Bugsy Malone.
I Will Set You Free has an embedded self-assuredness
that suggests Adamson can turn out a leftfield rock album pretty
much in his sleep these days. Whilst irritating reviewers like this
one may well pine for those noir days of cinematic classics like
Moss Side Story, there's no denying that the path that
Barry Adamson is singularly marking out for himself right now will
continue to be littered with obfuscations, contradictions and further
questing within his future projects, whatever they may prove to
be. The press release talks of Adamson being released from shackles,
and that is exactly how this album sounds; free, effortless and
typically idiosyncratic.
lp/cd/dl:
1. Get Your Mind Right
2. Black Holes In My Brain
3. Turnaround
4. The Power Of Suggestion
5. Destination
6. The Trigger City Blues
7. Looking To Love Somebody
8. The Sun And The Sea
9. If You Love Her
10. Stand In
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