peter chilvers / sandra o'neill

One of my most played albums of the past year or so has been Far Off Country.

Credited to Letka, this is basically the duo of Peter Chilvers and Sandra O'Neill, who've worked together for some years. Quite why the duo decided on the name Letka is something of a mystery, as it makes them sound as if they are an Eastern European pop star. They’ve previously collaborated on a couple of albums under the name of Alias Grace (which sounds like it ought to be a quietly pretentious 4AD band).

 

This stuff is sadly hard to find – and only seems to be available via the Burning Shed mail order company set up by Tim Bowness, Pete Morgan and Peter Chilvers - 

https://www.burningshed.com/ 

This is definitely the best label / record company in the world. Everything they release is well worth a listen.

 

Anyway, Far Off Country is just wonderful.

The whole album has a vaguely This Mortal Coil air about it – the fact that most of the songs are covers adds to this feeling - think of “My Father” or “Tarantula” from Filigree and Shadow and you’re sort of getting there. It's melancholy, but never sad, wistful not depressing. Country music classics like "Banks Of The Ohio" and "Country Roads" are stripped back to delicate keyboards and bare bones arrangements, but it's Sandra O'Neill's gorgeous voice that dominates. The purity and beauty of her vocals are simply stop-you-in-your-tracks astonishing. Interestingly, despite these classic American songs, the album really doesn't sound American at all. Yet somehow it still conjures up images of wide open plains, mountains, streams and deserts, but seen though a haze, half remembered, it has an almost dreamlike quality – it does indeed inhabit a Far Off Country – the title is absolutely apt. 

 

Letka's cover of "Not A Job" (originally by the resolutely un-American Elbow) is breathtaking. Chilvers' gently pulsing keyboards and O'Neill's stunning overlapping vocals make this arguably the highlight of the album.

The final track is a blissed out take on Gillian Welch’s “I Dream A Highway” which is astoundingly good. Long, dreamy, full of regret and longing. Brian Eno loved it so much that he suggested a whole new genre needed to be invented for it - Future Country. And Eno himself was involved on the gorgeous opening song “Beyond The Fold”. The lulling sway of the melody is very Enoid, the backing vocals are a gentle choir of multiple Brians and the mood is a bit like very relaxed “Spinning Away”. A truly brilliant song.

 

This is an album that has been played and replayed over and over and I love it more each time.

 

 

Alias Grace, Peter and Sandra's earlier collaboration, created two albums.

 

The first was Embers in 1998 and while it's simpler and less expansive than Far Off Country it is no less delightful. It's about as gentle an album as it's possible to be. Vaguely folky, sort of ambient pop, lovely piano work, gorgeously pure vocals, bitter sweet lyrics. It's a very pretty album, and I mean this in the most appreciative way.

 

I love all sorts of music - yesterday I listened to a cracking 1981 gig by Bauhaus which was harsh, snotty and angry - and I loved it. But I find an awful lot of modern music to be coarse and ugly. Most modern pop chunders along on a bed of lumpen beats and unimaginative synths; it's all the same, nothing terribly innovative, and it sounds just thrown together.

 

But this, Embers, by Alias Grace, has a genuine beauty about it. It's been carefully hand crafted and it's lovely, delicate, and very very pretty. And I love it. Clearly a lot of care has been taken in creating this music. The opening "Talk Simple" is a reworking of no-man's "Tulip" and it's wonderful. Over an insistent pulse Sandra O'Neill's vocals just soar. "I need somebody to hold my hand, I need somebody who understands" - can't argue with that! Other highlights include the terribly sad "Cry Sweet Child" which seems to outline the breakdown of a relationship in a manner that hits home in a very subtle way, there's a loneliness at the heart of this song which is terribly affecting. "Counting The Stars" is another favourite of mine, more upbeat with a lovely tumbling chorus. Chilvers piano playing, on this song, and on the whole album, is exemplary, perfectly framing the songs.

The second record, 2001's Storm Blue Evening, is basically more of the same, but with a few more instruments, and what sounds like a bigger production budget. It sounds like it might have been recorded in a studio rather than someone's house. These are albums made for the sheer love of it, not because they were going to have a hit or anything (though many of the songs are distinctly catchy and in a fairer world they really ought to be huge successes). One such is Storm Blue Evening's "Nightshift" which is a terrific piece, or perhaps the opening "Feel The Hush". 

 

But in reality I suppose these records are too good for the charts, too delightful, too delicate - simply beautiful songs, beautifully played and sung.

 

There is one more track that I need to mention - on a Burning Shed sampler you can find Alias Grace's cover of Kate Bush’s “Under The Ivy” which is just stunning and achieves the very rare feat of beating Kate Bush at her own game. This has always been one of my favourite Kate tracks, but hearing Sandra O'Neill sing it is actually even better. Heartbreakingly good.

 

I simply can't recommend this music highly enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

rambling thoughts - weird music

When I was 15 / 16 I had quite a collection of albums that were, for want of a better word, really weird.

How about Fripp and Eno's (No Pussyfooting)? Two long pieces of guitar drones and synth noises. I loved it.

 

I recently dug out another Eno related album - After The Heat, the second album he recorded with the German duo Cluster, and the one with three of Eno’s best (and oddest) songs.

As good as the instrumentals are, and they are all very lovely indeed (tracks like “The Shade” or the very pretty “Old Land” are truly excellent), it’s the three songs that dominate this record.

“The Belldog” is as lush and as rounded as an Eno song ever was. The delightfully burbling synths really compliment Eno’s excellent vocals and the ever so pretty descending piano lines are wonderful.

On the other hand, “Broken Head” is weird and dark and foreboding, and is equally as good as “The Belldog” but just in an entirely different way. In a way it almost prefigures the dark and squelchy sound of records like Nerve Net.

Then we have the sheer oddness of “Tzima N’Arki” – adding all those backwards lines from “Kings Lead Hat” to an extremely jerky rhythm track (with the King of German weirdoes Holger Czukay on bass) and the end result is one of the strangest tracks to close an album ever.

But it’s all rather marvelous - totally unlike anything else. I first heard this record in my mid teens and although it partly baffled me, it intrigued and fascinated me too. It would be nice to think that other 16 year olds might discover this album, but these days I wonder if many would listen to something so leftfield…

rambling thoughts - bryan ferry can't dance

BBC4 showed the classic Roxy Music at Frejus Arena gig a while back and I recently got around to watching it. I've seen this August 1982 show many times before but it's always worth another look.

 

It was recorded at a beautiful Roman amphitheatre in the south of France, a terrific venue for the louche cool of Roxy (and King Crimson was the support act that night!). This is Roxy Music on the Avalon tour and what a darned fine show it is.

 

Excellent musicianship, cracking performances, and loads of Bryan Ferry lolloping across the stage in a weird attempt to dance. His singing was spot on, but the man simply cannot dance. He hasn't got a funky bone in his body. Every movement is jerky, out of time and supremely awkward. He's always been like it, but the gently insistent funkiness of the Avalon era band seems to inspire him to attempt to dance more than usual at this show.

 

The result is the King Of Cool basically doing embarrassing Dad dancing.

 

nico - live 1979 and more

I've been playing a lot of Nico's music recently. Can't explain why, really.

I listened to the marvellously icy wastelands of The Marble Index and Desertshore the other week - it's not really music in the commonly accepted sense. And the songs are only songs in a fairly loose sense. I don't know what it is really. But I genuinely do actually like it. So many of the lyrics are just that little bit skewed. As English wasn't her first language you get disconcertingly odd phrases, like in "Lawns Of Dawns": 'having thrown a joke on you and me' - throwing a joke? For that matter, I wonder what Lawns Of Dawns actually are?

The other day I dug out a couple of excellent gigs from CBGB's in 1979.

These represented Nico's first shows in the USA for about 8 years, and her first anywhere since about 1975. The period between 1974's The End… and this reappearance wasn't a good one for Nico. Lost in a deepening narcotic fog there's precious little information about her life for about five years of the 1970s. No gigs, no records, nothing. She even sold her harmonium in order to fuel her habit. She was living in Paris in 1978 and met Patti Smith at a concert. Patti was stunned to discover that Nico had no money, no home, nothing at all. Upon her return to New York Patti spoke to John Cale who was similarly shocked that Nico's life had sunk so low, and both agreed that the CBGB's crowd would be a good audience for Nico. So she was brought to New York and in early 1979 Nico played a series of shows at the famously scuzzy club. And, as Cale and Patti had predicted, went down a storm. 

I have two, very well recorded, audience recordings, two sets from one night in February, and Cale and guitarist Lutz Ulbrich accompany Nico on a number of songs. At later New York gigs the Dead Boys' Cheetah Chrome would sometimes play guitar, and at a couple of shows Roland Young, the saxophonist from the Sun Ra Arkestra, apparently accompanied Nico. Goodness knows what that sounded like!

Anyway, back to February - Cale adds viola to songs like "No-One Is There" and Lutz and Cale try to Velvet up "Femme Fatale" a bit. But mostly it was simply Nico and a harmonium, a new one bought for her by Patti Smith. Interestingly at least half the set is previously unrecorded songs, tracks that would later be recorded in radically different form on Drama Of Exile. Songs like "Genghis Khan" and "Henry Hudson" are simple harmonium pieces here, and never sounded sadder. "Purple Lips" had actually been debuted on French tv far back in 1975, but was still new to the Bowery audience. Nico sounds pleasantly surprised by the response of the crowd, and she delivers a cracking performance. During the second show she gets stuck during "Frozen Warnings" and plays the same part over and over whilst clearly rummaging around in her mind for the next verse, then some kind soul shouts it out for her, and she thanks him and continues with the song. But it's the only blip in an otherwise excellent gig. 

After she'd recorded Drama Of Exile in the UK in 1981 Nico went out on the road in earnest. Between 1981 and 1984 she was often supported by various combinations of Manchester musicians. Then, after the recording of Camera Obscura in 1985 the band was pared down to percussion and keyboards, as heard on Live In Tokyo, Behind the Iron Curtain and loads of other semi legit albums.

I recently got hold of a Nico gig from Basel in December 1986. Here the band is Eric Random's Bedlamites. I was surprised when I first heard this recording as I'd been under the impression that the Bedlamites were a percussion ensemble, frequently playing found instruments, banging bin lids and iron bars etc. Almost like a Mancunian pound shop version of Einstürzende Neubauten (and yes I did have to look up how to spell that!). This could have made for a fascinating experience. Well, maybe the Bedlamites did do that sometimes, but when backing Nico they're far more like a slick lounge band. Which is very, very odd. So tracks like "Purple Lips" are graced with a smoochy saxophone and a polite shuffle, more suited to a Sinatra type late night bar. "I'll Be Your Mirror" starts with a gently swinging beat and bouncy bass, then utterly falls apart when Nico starts singing and is totally at odds with the band. Different speed, timing, phrasing, everything! They do rally and try their best to match the rhythm section to Nico's own peculiar idea of rhythm but it never quite recovers to be honest. Which is a shame as "Mirror" was very rarely played live by Nico. 

Another rarity from this show is the "Eulogy To Lenny Bruce" ('I've lost a friend, and I don't know why…') which, as far as I can tell, was only ever played live during this short European run of shows in late 1986. This is far better than "I'll Be Your Mirror" as Nico sings her sad song accompanied only by some appropriately sparse guitar notes. Unsurprisingly the best part of the show is the middle section when the band leave the stage entirely and Nico mournfully plays "Frozen Warnings" and "The Falconer" all alone.  

No matter how they tried to dress up Nico's stage shows, with whatever musicians and instruments, she was always at her most compelling and commanding when sat at the harmonium, alone in the candlelight.   

suede - bloodsports

After a chance encounter with "For The Strangers" from Suede's 2013 album Bloodsports, I was reminded that I'd not played this record all that much, as it was unfortunately issued around the same time as Bowie's The Next Day and then somehow got a bit overlooked last year.  

Bloodsports (and the 8 extra tracks that were issued as b-sides or whatever they are called in these digital times) basically give us enough songs for a double album. And generally it's darned fine stuff.

 

It's Suede, sounding just like Suede. Nothing terribly new, or experimental, just big riffs, big choruses, lotsa swagger and fire and pouting and whooo-hooooing. The intention for the album was to create a record chock full of potential Suede singles. This is achieved admirably, but perhaps this is also the only real downside to the album too - as it ends up being perhaps a little bit much. After side one (and it's definitely an album with two sides) I can't help wishing that they'd dialled it back just a touch - the songs are terrific, the passion is there, everyone's having a great time but it's perhaps a little too frantic, too busy. Some of the tracks might have worked better if they'd left off that extra guitar overdub, if they'd calmed down the drumming, if Brett had reigned himself in a tad.

This may seem a little odd, as the last thing you'd want is Suede phoning in their performances, but in trying to recreate the power of the debut album or the pop/rock sensibility of Coming Up, it seems that Suede are trying a little too hard. This would be a better album with everything turned up to just 9, not 11 - same songs, same performances even, but just a little more restraint. 

Interestingly the b-sides are generally calmer, more reflective and more varied in their approach - with less pressure on the band to recreate that Suede sound after ten years away, they've come up with, arguably, better songs than those that were chosen for the album.  

A new album is being worked on at the moment and early indications are that, with Bloodsports having re-established Suede as ongoing band, this time the songs are more experimental, longer, and more far-reaching. This, in my mind anyway, has got to be a good thing.  

I love Suede, always have, and probably always will, and regardless of my comments above, Bloodsports is a very worthy addition to their catalogue. Arguably their best album since Bernard Butler left. Really.

 

it's kraftwerk jim, but not as we know it...

I recently came across a Kraftwerk gig from nearly 41 years ago, 25/01/74 - a long lost concert, never bootlegged before, that was recently rebroadcast in spiffing quality on German radio.

It was originally recorded for a radio show called "Avantgarde Und Pop", which I think pretty much sums up Kraftwerk. It pre-dates the recording of Autobahn by some months and finds Kraftwerk playing tracks from their first three albums but with an increasingly mechanical beat. This is primarily due to recent recruit Wolfgang Flur and the knitting needle / metal plate electronic percussion that he and Florian had developed in late 1973.

Also in the band - Klaus Roeder on guitar and violin, which gives some of the tracks a weirdly dreamy quality. Florian is still breathily playing his electrified flute and Ralf is in charge of the electronics.  

The first three Kraftwerk albums rarely sound like the band we know from Autobahn onwards. The massive leap in tech, in sound, in compositional approach, between Ralf Und Florian in 1973 and Autobahn in 1974 is almost inexplicable based solely on the records. But this gig sort of shows the band in transition. Whilst they are still playing the older, more freeform pieces there is a new, more regimented approach. No longer are Kraftwerk really improvising, instead they are nailing down the melodies, the rhythms, the essence of the band, and gently hammering it into a form that would, just a few months later, create the mechanised, factory-honed "Autobahn". 

For a long time I've had a gig from the summer of 1974, after the Autobahn album has been finished (and they play a version of the title track that runs for over 40 minutes!) - it's primitive for sure, but allowing for the valves and chunky wires and knitting needles and everything, it's still recognisable as the Kraftwerk that's touring today. But this gig is something else. And it's brilliant to have it in such wonderful quality.