On his solo albums Ferry has pretty much mixed up in equal measure original material and covers, but 1977's In Your Mind is all new stuff and it's a curiously mixed bag. Although it sounds like a lost Roxy album the songs just aren't as strong as those on the band albums. Opener 'This is Tomorrow' is fantastic and 'Tokyo Joe' is amusing, and it's true that the sound (most of Roxy guest, as usual) is really good, but there's just not enough character to the songs to really pull the album through. It's a good effort, slightly seedy (and the cover of a sweaty Ferry in shades is a good indicator of the feel of the record) and it's a shame it falls short because it feels as if it could easily have been that little bit better than it is.
Next up is the lead single from Ferry's next album, 'Sign of the Times'. Now, this is the real deal, 'Sign of the Times' is one of those definitive Ferry tracks, propulsive, sleazy, and charged with a fantastic melody. It's not a surprise that it's become a mainstay of the Roxy story and is often assumed to be a Roxy track not a Ferry solo effort. B-side 'Four Letter Love' is a fairly throwaway bit of brass-led fun, and while it's the kind of bright, cheerful stuff that Ferry could do in his sleep, it's hardly essential.
Next up should have been Italian mega-composer Nico Fidenco's soundtrack to grubbily mucky 70's exploitation flick Emmanuelle Nera (or Black Emmanuelle's Groove for us in the UK), but as I only have it on the superb DagoRed vinyl reissue and the only way to find any of it on the internet is via youtube, accompanied by clips from the film (which I am certainly not going to be playing at work), we'll have to skip it.
And move on instead to the whimsical indie-pop of the greatest of the Sarah Records label bands, the Field Mice. It's interesting that both Sarah and the Field Mice have a reputation that casts them as purveyors of the wettest indie ever made, because although both were pretty seriously wet a large proportion of the time, they each also were far more adventurous than their reputations suggest. Having released a heavy number of singles, EP's and mini-LP's, the first Field Mice full-lengther was a compilation called Coastal (1991) which collated a wealth of material from 1988-1991. The majority of it is, admittedly, full of ringing acoustic guitars, jangling electrics and sappy, bloodless vocals. But there's the thing of it you see, this stuff is brilliant. While Felt were knocking out the definitive upbeat jangle pop, it was down to the Field Mice to pretty much create the elegaic, nostalgic version and it's all absolutely lovely stuff, with some truly top-notch indie songwriting ('September's Not So Far Away', 'Sensitive' and 'Couldn't Feel Safer' are gorgeous) and there is plenty of evidence that they weren't tied to the formula - one of their most popular songs (and covered delightfully by St Etienne) is 'Let's Kiss and Make Up' which is much closer to a kind of indie-electro than the whimsical acoustic soppiness they are often accused of, and brings to light the New Order influence which is actually surprisingly detectable in all of their work.
The only proper full-length studio album the Field Mice released was 1991's For Keeps. In many ways For Keeps, while not the definitive Field Mice record, is the one which best surveys their various approaches to indie songwriting. It has the requisite jangle guitars and flowing basslines ('Of the Perfect Kind', a song which has a strangely Stone Roses feel about it, and the perfect pop of 'Coach Station Reunion'), but it also has some funny drone stuff ('Tilting at Windmills' is pretty early shoegaze style) and jaunty noise experimentation (closer 'Freezing Point'). Although there is a certain unevenness of tone, it's one of those great lost indie albums of the 90's, of which there are just so many...
According to everybody everywhere who fancies themselves a musicologist, Field Music are a blend of Beach Boys and XTC in a clever-clever post-punk world. OK, fair enough, I get those two (to a degree XTC, I suspect the Beach Boys reference is simply because of bouncy multi-tracked vocal harmonies) but I think it does a disservice to the strangeness of the arrangements and the wilfully ragged foundations of Field Music's songs. They twitch about in a way that's far more to do with abstraction than kineticism and as such are not really like XTC either. I think they've taken their cues from a much broader array of sources, and I can hear bits of Robert Wyatt, bits of Talking Heads, and, like the Dirty Projectors, I think the unpredictablity of the vocal melodies is as much to do with modern classical composition as it is rock bands from the 60's and 70's (mind you, having been po-faced I also think there's some 10cc here too - the chorus of 'Got To Write a Letter' sounds like unadultered 10cc). The first, self-titled album released in 2005 was a low-key breath of fresh air, taking the piano, drums and bass (and occasional guitar) set-up away from the cloying sanctimony of Ben Folds Five and the anaemic insipid earnestness of Keane and creating instead a bright, angular and extremely clever (rather than smart-arse) set of songs filled with hooks coupled with melodic disjunctions which is a joy to listen to.
Possibly rather arrogantly, the next album Field Music released was a compilation of B-sides and early songs by pre-Field Music bands. Write Your Own History (2006) covers songs recorded between 2000-2006 but the title is telling in that it sites the band as something of a post-modern operation, deliberately obfuscating their own history as a way of implying that the listener's job is to take an active rather than a passive role. Anyway, the 9 songs on Write Your Own History are similar to the content of the debut (and I'll admit that opener 'You're Not Supposed To' starts with a glaringly obvious tribute to the Beach Boys and their harmonies), the only differences being an occasional fluctuation in production quality depending on the age of the recording and a slightly less frenetic air to the songs. Otherwise it's all the same jumpy, jerky, massively melodic indie-pop, and it's all quality stuff, and on top of which it's all over in 25 minutes.
Second studio album, Tones of Town (2007), slows things down a little but adds even greater sophistication to the already dense and complex arrangements. There are some lovely songs on Tones of Town and the introduction of elements that could never have fitted in previously, such as an unshowy string arrangements on 'Kingston' and the superb 'In Context', add to the sense that Field Music have grown more confident than ever. The idea that the first two albums are relatively short makes sense bearing in mind how much is going on in the songs, it can be a bit exhausting to listen to the endlessing shifting sands of the vocal arrangements, tempos and melodic phrasing, but it's exhausting because it's exhilirating, not because it's a chore. Personally I prefer the urgency of the debut album but while there's no massive difference between the two there's no denying that Tones of Town is the more mature and musically sophisticated of the two.
More instruments, more songs, denser arrangements than ever and an almost unimaginable self-assurance are the order of the day on third album Measure (2009). There's a bit of a classic rock tinge to the glitchy indie-rock this time around and although it's another step away from the super-twitchy style of the debut it's another step into almost astonishing skill and invention. The only downside, and it seems absurd to say it, that because Measure is a double album there's almost too much of a good thing. Although there's scarcely a wasted moment, it does get to the point where you're craving a reason to be jolted back into listening to the album, because by about the two-thirds mark it's hard to stay entirely focussed. Silly, minor carping though, because rare indeed is the album this smart, this assured and this unconcerned with expectation or fashion and it's really something of a triumph. So why haven't I got the new album? No idea. I probably will at some point. See you next week!
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