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album // Union Street
Review forthcoming.
ep // Boy
Taken from the new acoustic re-recordings album
Union Street, 'Boy' sees Erasure revisiting one of
Cowboy's most fragile ballads. Vince doesn't play,
adopting the role of producer alongside Steve Walsh (who plays guitars
on the song). Vocally, the new version is barely different, perhaps
a bit more impassioned and strident in places, but in general Andy's
very poignant lyrics about painfully accepting a partner's infidelity
still tred that emotionally fraught fine line between bitter disappointment
and adoration - the line 'The way you stir your coffee like an
angel in the morning' is one of the cleverest, most evocative
lyrics by any standards, let alone Clarke / Bell's. Musically, the
new arrangement is appropriately tender and sparse, the addition
of subtle slide guitar adding emotional depth. And, oddly enough,
the little guitar strums and flourishes, albeit on very different
instruments, aren't that dissimilar from Vince's staple synth squiggles.
It's nice to see Erasure returning to 'Cry So Easy',
a song from Wonderland that's now 20 years old, and the only
Andy Bell solo composition the duo ever recorded. Despite the passage
of time, Andy sings with the same youthful, wide-eyed naïvete
that made tracks like this, in their original guise, slightly maudlin.
The addition of a pretty 'Don't Suppose'-esque banjo middle eight
is a quirky addition, and the overall arrangement gives new life
to a track that can't help being representative of its 1980s vintage.
An acoustic BBC session recording of Nightbird's 'I Bet You're Mad
At Me' sees Vince strumming away with Nic Johnston, a guitarist
Erasure have worked with on and off since 1995's 'Stay With Me'.
Even isolated from it's normal setting, this still retains an 'end
of the album' feel - Erasure have always (with few exceptions) tended
to close an album with a slightly pessimistic tune, and this still
has that feel, despite the deft soulful uplifting harmonies provided
by Ann-Marie Gilkes and Valerie Chalmers.
The new instrumental ("Vince-strumental"
as the EIS email said) B-side 'Jacques Cousteau' (mis-spelt on the
rear sleeve) is fully electronic, something of a pleasant treat
after guitars. As its name suggests, this has an immersive, fluid
tone evoking memories of the beautiful ambient sections from Erasure.
It also has a drama to it, almost as if being the soundtrack to
a short film, finally ending with waves of Moby-esque piano.
Apparently, despite clocking in at 14 minutes and
being a single-disc EP, this falls foul of the BPI's rules on chart
eligibility. What nonsense.
CD:
1. Boy
2. Cry So Easy
3. I Bet You're Mad At Me (Live at the BBC)
4. Jacques Cousteau
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