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 -
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.
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