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album // Last Of The Country Gentlemen
Last Of The Country Gentlemen,
Josh T. Pearson's much-anticipated début
album, has garnered all manner of positive reviews in the run up
to its release. In a climate where everyone seems to be focussed
on the retro punk stylings of The Vaccines, it is pleasing to see
that an album consisting mostly of heart-wrenching confessionals
delivered by a singer over simple accompaniment (mostly guitar,
some strings) can get so much positive praise. The album was preceded
by a piano version of the track 'Country Dumb', here resplendent
with guitars and violin instead of piano, a towering yet fragile
ballad that stirs something deep within.
On a personal level, Last Of The Country Gentlemen's
gentle, emotional grace is deeply affecting. I listened to this
over a weekend where we had sold or given away some clothes, toys
and other ephemera belonging to our two girls, in itself a moving
experience, and Pearson's songs of transition seemed to heighten
the fragile mood I was in over the weekend.
Pearson's voice is a beautiful thing to listen to.
Occasionally whispered, occasionally rising with clarion quality,
the consistent aspect is that he makes every single syllable, every
word and every line count; everything that comes from his mouth
is freighted with depth and sentiment. Though his Texan twang is
a million miles away from Antony Heggarty's vocal gymnastics, the
two singers share the same talent for soaking their most basic utterances
in something indefinable which can leave you feeling affirmed, tearful
and empty after listening to their music; you will need to invest
almost everything you have into listening to these songs, and you
will feel utterly spent at the conclusion. One song is hard enough;
eight songs is nigh on torturous.
Last Of The Country Gentlemen was, according
to The Times review, written during a period of heartbreak,
and there is a definite theme of separation running through the
eight songs here (three of which are well over ten minutes in length).
However, with the exception of the bitter (yet controlled) statement
of intent 'Woman, When I've Raised Hell', soaked in strings arranged
by Dirty Three and Bad Seeds /
Grinderman violinist Warren Ellis
that amplify the mood palpably, the theme does not appear to be
one of regret at his loss; more, there is a resigned air of Pearson
almost forcing a separation, for the benefit of his lover. The twelve
minute 'Sweeheart I Ain't Your Christ' is a case in point - throughout
this song, Pearson is effectively advising his lover that she'd
be better off without him. That sense of setting someone free, for
their benefit, especially if they don't realise it, is just about
the hardest damn thing to do, a selflessness that is gut-wrenchingly
moving.
That theme is somewhat at odds with the sleeve,
which appears to show Pearson trying to prevent his lover - whose
face is blank, emotionless, detached - from leaving. He is grasping
her legs, eyes closed, as if he would rather be dragged across the
gravel rather than let her go, but it fits with the heartbreak and
torment evident in the songs here. The track 'Honeymoon's Great!
Wish You Were Her', is a song about marrying someone but still being
in love with someone else; this is the closest Pearson gets to being
frustrated with his lot (albeit, it seems, of his own doing), and
there is a section where the strings come up in great big swells
that make you sympathetic toward his conflict, not angry at his
infidelity. 'Sorry With A Song' is Pearson's apology, of sorts.
Something about these songs encourage you to believe
that Pearson is telling you his story here; like a début
novel, the roman a clef tends to be written mostly from
personal experience and emotions, containing thinly-disguised autobiographical
aspirations more than pure fiction. These songs seem so honest,
so genuine, that you want to believe that this is Pearson's own
story being articulated across these eight songs in spite of the
desperation, frustration and sorrow contained here. We would be
faintly disappointed if this songwriting was found to be fictional.
Last Of The Country Gentlemen was recorded
in Berlin, and mixed in London by Gareth Jones
(although a couple of tracks were mixed by David 'Saxon'
Greenep). There is a sense of hands-off production on these
tracks, a sense of respect for the songs themselves and the outpourings
contained within them. Presenting the songs 'just so' is a brave,
yet powerful thing to do; the album thus has a stark innocence that
leaves me well and truly floored whenever I listen to it.
Special
edition: Rough Trade Christmas Bonus
Mute released Last Of The Country
Gentlemen again in November 2011 with a second disc of Josh
T. Pearson performing a selection of Christmas songs, the
occasion being Rough Trade Shops placing his album at the top of
their 2011 album chart. The expanded version was only available
from Rough Trade. To celebrate the release of Pearson's Rough
Trade Christmas Bonus, Rough Trade East printed up a special
rubber curtain containing the picture from the Christmas EP's sleeve
to cover their front entrance.
The thing with Christmas carols is that they can
often have an air of sadness about them; few have an obvious joyousness,
though all have an inherent beauty. As such, Josh T. Pearson is
well-suited to delivering the five songs he intimately performs
here. Last Of The Country Gentlemen had few naturally uplifting
moments, though - as evidenced by the live LP (again, only released
through Rough Trade Shops) The King Is Dead - Pearson himself
is actually pretty light-hearted and self-deprecating. Here we find
him struggling while trying to pluck the notes to a lovely rendition
of 'Silent Night', unaware that his musings are being recorded,
cocking up the introduction to 'Angels We Have Heard On High' and
delivering a faultless accapella rendition of 'Away In A Manger',
which masterfully rescues the carol from thousands of painful school
nativities. Likewise, his bluesy rendition of 'O Little Town Of
Bethlehem' moves the song away from the tuneless butchering of this
carol by assembled toddlers and into masterful, graceful territory.
In defiance of his image as a humourless misanthrope, he even adds
a wee coda of 'Jingle Bells' at the very end.
'O Holy Night' is testament to how Pearson can take
a song that's not his own and add his own distinctive style to create
something utterly original. Here his reading sits somewhere between
the melancholy grandeur of Last Of The Country Gentlemen and the
more introspective aspects of the Rufus Wainwright back catalogue.
In a burst of seasonal goodwill, an alternative version of of 'O
Holy Night' was made available for free from Pearson's own website.
lp+cd/cd/i:
1. Thou Art Loosed
2. Sweetheart I Ain't Your Christ
3. Woman, When I've Raised Hell
4. Honeymoon's Great! Wish You Were Her
5. Sorry With A Song
6. Country Dumb
7. Last Of The Country Gentlemen (lp/i bonus track)
8. Drive Her Out
xcd:
1. Silent Night
2. Angels We Have Heard On High
3. Away In A Manger
4. O Holy Night
5. O Little Town Of Bethlehem
Note: this CD was packaged with the CD copy
of the album as a Rough Trade Shops exclusive
single // Country Dumb
A piano version of Josh T. Pearson's
'Country Dumb' was released officially on 21 February, with subscribers
to the mailing list receiving a free download a few weeks before.
This is the first time I'd ever heard Pearson's
voice, and to say it captivated me would be an understatement. There
have been a few times where an artist's voice has grabbed me from
the off and made me pay attention, and Pearson is one of those.
The last time a singer did this was Rufus Wainwright, and the time
before was Nick Cave, a fan of Pearson (it seems
that everyone is a fan of Pearson); for me, Cave is probably the
closest comparison I have in my music collection to Josh T. Pearson's
distinctive vocal, though whereas with Cave a snarl is never far
away, Pearson's style is much more innocent. There is a definite
country twang, but a clarity, warmth and introspection that I find
really appealing.
Featuring delicate piano accompaniment from multi-instrumentalist
Dustin O'Halloran, this is a gentle, beguiling
piece whose emotional rises and falls can genuinely bring tears
to the eyes. I don't know what I was expecting, but on this poignant,
sparse ballad – apparently an album standout, as if the song
itself doesn't tell you that – with sweet guitar plucking
and vocal harmonies alongside O'Halloran's piano, I have found myself
listening to this over and over and still feeling moved by the song.
'See I miss you baby, and you ain't even yet gone.' concludes the
track; perhaps through not wanting to believe the sadness and sentiment
embedded into that lyric I feel compelled to listen to it again.
For Record Store Day 2011, a limited edition 12"
of the piano version of 'Country Dumb' was released in an edition
of 250. The record came in a plain white sleeve and was backed by
a piano version of 'Sweetheart I Ain't Your Christ', again with
O'Halloran. When I last checked eBay copies were going for anywhere
between GBP18.00 and GBP35.00. For those not wishing to purchase
a copy of what will no doubt become a sought-after item as Pearson's
stock rises, the piano version of the B-side can be found at Soundcloud.
12" [limited 250 copies for Record Store
Day 2011] :
A. Country Dumb (Piano Version)
B. Sweetheart I Ain't Your Christ (Piano Version)
i:
1. Country Dumb (Piano Version)
single // Woman, When I've Raised Hell
'Woman, When I've Raised Hell' was one of the most
curiously infectious songs on Last Of The Country Gentlemen,
and I often find myself humming its gentle melody for no other reason
than it's outwardly very pretty, while Warren Ellis's
viola section is a welcome addition of (admittedly maudlin) colour
in an otherwise sad song. That said, the lyrics to 'Woman, When
I've Raised Hell' are anything but pleasant, filled with notions
of domestic violence and Josh T. Pearson issuing
all sorts of threats and angry sentiment in order to pursue his
troubled introspection. There is a controlled rage to his delivery,
tempered by Ellis's strings and his own guitar, which rises to a
tragic crescendo. The theme is depression manifesting itself as
violence, one of the more moving passages finding Pearson urging
the female subject of the song to leave, presumably for her own
safety and; whether that excuses the threats toward her that he
issues throughout the rest of the song is debatable. One could never
really imagine the dour Pearson really letting rip in anger on a
song, but there's enough of a snarl to make you think 'Yep, I'd
let him have some time alone with his thoughts if I was you...'
particularly as drinking heavily is implied. The track is here presented
as a much-edited single version, roughly half the length of the
album mix; while that means some of the drama inevitably gets lost,
it's also nice to hear Pearson in short-hand for a change.
The 'B-side' (as this is a digital-only release
I'm still not sure whether that antediluvian concept applies any
longer) is the track 'Singer To The Crowd' which was previously
available only on the Vorwärts compilation issued
initially for 2011's Record Store Day. Something of a departure
from the mostly long-form tracks on Last Of The Country Gentlemen,
this is not about love / loss / infidelity (or whatever the album
is about; I thought I knew but now I'm not so sure). Instead it
appears to be a tale of a singer dejectedly accepting his fate as
a perpetual entertainer for his audience. Like most Pearson tracks
it has a maudlin edge, even though the guitar is almost upbeat.
I can't help but be reminded of Jeff Bridges' performance in Crazy
Heart, doing a circuit of backwater towns to make ends meet,
though it seems premature for the hardly-proflific Pearson to be
experiencing such world-weariness already.
i:
1. Woman, When I've Raised Hell (Single Version)
2. Singer To The Crowd
single // Sorry With A Song
Hearing Josh T. Pearson in short-form
is an unusual listening experience. Normally his songs are lengthy,
slowly-developing affairs and so to hear the usually-expansive 'Sorry
With A Song' hacked down from its album-length ten minute duration
to an acceptable single-length three-odd minutes is initially quite
strange. However, this fast-paced 'apology in a song' seems to work
equally well as a shortened piece. There's also something quietly
moving about the guitar playing on 'Sorry With A Song'; as I'm no
guitar expert, I'm not sure what it is, whether it's the chord structure
or the tone, but something about this song - in fact, it's a mood
shared right across Last Of The Country Gentlemen - that
makes you want to forgive Pearson yourself, despite never having
been wronged by him personally at all. The track was mixed by long-term
Mute associate Gareth Jones.
'Sorry With A Song' is backed with what's described
as an unedited version of 'Country Dumb' recorded live at the Union
Chapel, Islington in May of this year, augmented by Dustin O'Halloran's
piano and strings from Mike Siddell. A shorter version of this appeared
on The
King Is Dead, the Rough Trade Shops-exclusive 'live bootleg'
which is reviewed here.
This recording, whilst minimal by pretty much any other artists'
definition, is frankly maximalist compared to pretty much every
other performance on The King Is Dead because of O'Halloran
and Siddell. That aside, once again it highlights the carefully-wrought
emotional heights that Pearson and his trusty guitar can take an
audience to.
i:
1. Sorry With A Song
2. Country Dumb (Live, Union Chapel, Islington, London 11/05/2011)
(Extended Version)
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