| 
album // Stranger On The Sofa
Somewhat inexplicably, in the booklet
containing murky noir-ish photographs accompanying Stranger
On The Sofa, Barry Adamson thanks 'the Soccer
AM team'. I know very little about this programme, as I don't watch
football and my Saturday mornings are generally taken up by parenting
obligations, but I know it has a sofa, and therefore I sense that
this football magazine show may have somehow been responsible in
part for the title of Stranger On The Sofa, Adamson's first
album on his Central Control International label,
his home since leaving Mute.
To say this is a generic Adamson album would be
a little unfair, but it is undoubtedly entirely in keeping with
his earlier releases, featuring the usual styles and ideas - dark
spoken word pieces, wonky jazz, fried rock, electronic sound design
- and that sense of familiarity is welcome, actually. Stranger
On The Sofa was supported by a download-only single, 'The Long
Way Back Again', and the album was mixed by Victor van Vugt.
One thing that has characterised Adamson's development,
post-Magazine, has been the move to more song-based
structures, usually with vocals delivered in a half-sung, half-spoken
Americanised drawl by Adamson himself; his early work generally
was felt to be of the soundtrack genre, that soundtrack being for
the darkest black and white crime film, full of plot twists and
edgy shadows, and his vocal performances often evoke the idea of
a mac-and-trilby-hat-clad private detective observing someone he's
been asked to follow from a dark alleyway and singing what he sees.
That element of darkness is interwoven throughout Stranger On
The Sofa, but there are also moments of sheer unadulterated
pop abandon, such as on the lengthy 'Officer Bentley's Fairly Serious
Dilemma', which features rapturous vocals from Adamson, a chirpy
rhythm, some brain-melting psychedelic guitar from Adrian Owusu
and organ lines from Nick Plytas. There's also a nice touch of Suicide
in the 'Dream Baby Dream'-style chords. The bleak 'You Sold Your
Dreams' has similarly rocky leanings, lots of prowling guitars and
some huge piano notes - something of an Adamson trademark - at the
start. The only truly cinematic track comes in the form of the maudlin
'The Sorrow And The Pity', whose rolling snare drums make this suitable
for a Civil War epic; imagine fog drifting round a bleak, deserted
battlefield, haunted by ghosts of men guilty only of having chosen
a side to believe in.
Opener 'Here In The Hole' sound like an obscure
radio play backed by Adamson's adventurous sound design, with a
script read by Four Weddings And A Funeral's Anna 'Duckface'
Chancellor dealing with being hunted and regenerated. Her voice
is occasionally augmented by subtle effects, blending in with the
whining, threatening soundtrack Adamson provides. The same effect
is realised on the similarly spoken-word 'Deja Morte' (performed
by Pascal Fuillée-Kendall), where my rudimentary
French means I don't understand a word beyond the title; this has
a whiff of Massive Attack's downtempo trip-hop stasis mixed with
Moby's synth strings. At the other end of the spectrum,
'Who Killed Big Bird?' (surely the name of an underworld character,
not the beloved Sesame Street character) is maximalist
be-bop, with a hustling beat, stalking bass-line, rich sax and groovy
organ riffs. 'My Friend The Fly' starts with fractured electronic
beats and conspiratorial vocals before droning saxophone passages
and malevolent bass gradually dominate. It's like a more restrained
'Jazz Devil' from As Above So Below.
The melodic 'Theresa Green' is a gorgeous, Seventies,
'Je T'aime'-style ballad, recalling a time when producers knew how
to throw the kitchen sink at a song to give it a heightened emotional
- if somewhat cheesey - quality. 'Inside Of Your Head' begins with
some Satie-style piano before strummed guitar and vibraphone, and
a weary, end-of-days vocal from Adamson take this stately song forward.
And where else could you expect to hear the line 'the monkeys
have drunk all the gin' but a Barry Adamson song?
'Dissemble' sounds like Adamson deconstructing a
Nitzer Ebb track (something that he did twice),
but blends this industrial harshness with floating, Café
Del Mar-friendly melodies that sound suspiciously like 'Smokebelch'
by Sabres Of Paradise. Though its shifts into saxophone riffery
and other sonically diverse areas make this a little restless, this
is definitely one of the more resolutely original pieces here.
So, plus ça change in many senses,
but in all others another example of fine sonic alchemy by Barry
Adamson.
cd/dl:
1. Here In The Hole
2. The Long Way Back Again
3. Officer Bentley's Fairly Serious Dilemma
4. Who Killed Big Bird?
5. Theresa Green
6. The Sorrow And The Pity
7. My Friend The Fly
8. Inside Of Your Head
9. You Sold Your Dreams
10. Déjà Morte
11. Dissemble
12. Free Love
single // The Long Way Back Again
Review forthcoming.
7":
1. The Long Way Back Again (Single Edit)
2. Look No Further
cd:
1. The Long Way Back Again (Single Edit)
2 . Besides
dl:
1. The Long Way Back Again (Single Edit)
2. Look No Further
3. Besides
|
