dali's car - ingladaloneness

The ‘new’ Dali’s Car ep InGladAloneness features Mick Karn’s last recordings before cancer took him from us. 

These songs were created by Karn and Peter Murphy back in 2010 and I don’t really know why it’s taken nearly 18 months for these five songs to be released. But was it worth the wait? Absolutely. It might seem odd to wait nearly thirty years before before crafting a follow up to the 1984 Karn / Murphy album The Waking Hour, but then little these two musicians have done has ever really followed a logical path.

The way the 20 minute ep is structured is very interesting, as it appears to feature Karn less and less, as if he’s gradually slipping from view as the songs progress.

We start with "King Cloud" and "Sound Cloud" which both feature some of that rubbery basswork that so dominated the first Dali’s Car album. But instead of the sparse synthetic percussion and warbly synths from The Waking Hour, the new tracks use Karn’s bass in a much more conventional manner. Most of the instrumentation was added later, under the supervision of Steve Jansen and Jakko Jakszyk. Jansen’s superb playing is a vast improvement over the clunky drum machines of 1984, but part of the wonky charm of the debut album was perhaps the ramshackle method of its construction.

This is perhaps InGladAloneness’s only weakness – that it sounds a little too accomplished.

Jakko adds all manner of guitars and strings and creates a beautiful soundworld not too far removed from that on A Scarcity Of Miracles (the brilliant album he did with Fripp and Mel Collins last year).

Murphy’s vocals are delightfully off beat. Whilst he doesn’t sound quite as loopy as on The Waking Hour, there’s still more than enough Murph idiosyncrasy to keep me happy.

Anyway, whilst the first two tracks are relatively conventional, well, as conventional as could be expected, the last three are more intriguing. "Artemis Rise" takes the original 1984 track "Artemis" as its basis and adds layers of vocals and guitars and Jansen. By contrast "Subhanallah" is pretty much only Murphy and Turkish singer Shengul (she also features on the Murph’s 1999 track "Surrendered") singing an Arabic chant – the title translates as ‘Praise be to Allah’ and it’s absolutely lovely. Gorgeous understated strings too.

The final track starts with some of Karn’s muted bass clarinet, layered and multi-tracked. Then, after a minute or so, a gentle guitar picks out the refrain of "If You Go Away" and Murphy sings the first verse (based very closely on Scott Walker’s interpretation of this Brel song). He sings it brilliantly (and PM has been singing this one in recent concerts too, which must be great to hear.) It’s also extremely emotional. Slightly strange that we only get the first verse, but it somehow works very well, leaving the song sounding half finished, which is very appropriate considering that Karn was taken so ill that he was unable to complete the sessions.

It’s a wonderful little ep. Unlike Murphy’s recent songs, unlike Karn’s left field avant garde jazzy albums, so very Dali’s Car, but with a modern, more grown up sheen. The title is slightly annoying, especially in the way it’s all run together but still capitalized weirdly – that sort of thing always annoys me slightly - but musically it is terrific. I wish more of this music existed, but this 20 minute fragment is all we shall be getting. But it’s well worth it, a fitting testament to Karn's talent.