1998's Peloton shows a further rapid development, and it's a much more laid-back, restrained record, with the focus much more solidly on the songwriting. There's some lovely gentle stuff on Peloton and I think it's a fine record. I suspect some people were disappointed that the Delgados didn't carry on the fizzing US indie path, but to my mind Peloton is where they developed a sound of their own. 'Don't Stop', for example is a wonderful, swooning tune which has a beautiful flute part holding down the angry guitars in the middle eight. There is one absolute disaster on Peloton, namely the scratching and sampling experiment of 'Blackpool', which is little short of an embarassment and sticks out like a sore thumb, but otherwise everything else on the album is really good.
Perhaps the most consistent of the Delgados records was the next, The Great Eastern (2000). I think this is a wonderful album. It's stately, it's controlled and it's superbly written. The songs, particularly Pollock's, are absolutely lovely. In fact her development as a songwriter beggars belief, because her stuff by this point is poignant, wistful, incredibly tight and deftly complex and just four years before you wouldn't believe these were the sorts of songs that the band would be writing at all. Pollock and Alun Woodward take turns on most of The Great Eastern, and it's an idea that works extremely well as each songwriter contrasts back and forth across the record. Woodward's songs are generally more straightforward both musically and lyrically and are more immediate but less compelling on repeated listens. There's charm, there's grace and there's a profound sense of expressing something valuable about The Great Eastern. There's certainly none of Domestiques' lacklustre, heads-down approach, but The Great Eastern more than makes up for its lack with songs that are smart and moving. It's complicated stuff to pull off, and I think the Delgados managed it with apparent ease.
2002's Hate album is another fabulous piece of work, extending the range of The Great Eastern. Hate has some truly excellent songs on it but it feels less cohesive, more like a collection of songs. Where the previous album sounded as if Woodward and Pollock were exchanging ideas through their songs, on Hate it sounds as if each was working in isolation and simply brought their songs to the table. Nonetheless, Hate is a superb album with some cracking, big, rolling, rumbling songs. The thing is, even amongst the increasingly complicated arrangements, the lilting melodies remain central to all the songs. It's very clever and very effective. Once again though, it's down to Pollock to provide the most arresting and the most melodically engaging stuff.
Sadly things didn't really work out for the self-described "pop" album Universal Audio (2004). The idea I guess was to make a record that sold as well as got good reviews. It was an oversight not to consider that what might happen was that you still didn't sell but got bad reviews. In any event, expectations were fairly high following Hate and the idea of a relatively light high melody album wasn't what anybody expected or wanted. In truth Universal Audio just sounds like the other Delgados albums, but stripped of the big ideas and the grand ambition. As an album in its own right, listening to it now it's surprisingly enjoyable. It's certainly not a patch on any of the others but it's absolutely not the disaster that it seemed at the time. The shame isn't so much the lightness of Universal Audio but that this was where the story ended.
Next up is the one-off collaboration between lo-fi idiots Deluxx and Lou Barlow's Folk Implosion. A 5-song 7" released in 1996, ostensibly to coincide with the soundtrack to Larry Clark's despairing Kids movie, it's a mega lo-fi mess, but weirdly the songs are really good. 'Daddy Never Understood' gets two outings and the soundtrack version has a fantastic sampled string section covering the middle eight. 'Oven Mitt' is a good bit of ramshackle crap and 'Liquid Bread' is a total waste of time, but it sounds cool. You couldn't put up with a lot more of this self-satisfied arsing around, but seven minutes of smart alecks pretending to be stupid is OK.
And so on to something so perfect it's heartbreaking. After Sandy Denny left Fairport Convention she busied herself helping out other folk acts here and there and made an album with that dolt husband of hers, Trevor Lucas, and some other mates as Fotheringay. But it wasn't until she released her first proper solo album, The North Star Grassman and the Ravens (1971), that she fufilled everything that her already utterly exceptional work in Fairport had promised. There aren't many albums that create such a warm and compassionate atmosphere of melancholy as this. Denny's songwriting is in itself something to stand in awe of, it's absolutely unique. Nobody else has been able to take traditional English folk as a template and create something that sounds not modern, not ancient, not cool, not corny, but simply timeless. It's astonishing. And then, of course, we have to mention the voice. The purest, clearest, most honest and open English singing voice in the history of popular music. There's no question about it. It's possessed entirely of the singular personality of its owner, a rough, amusingly crude woman with the deepest and most profound sense of emotional discomfort, yet it sounds like a glass bell. There are some minor problems with The North Star Grassman but I think they stem from an uncertainty about maintaining the tone of melancholy throughout, so it's leavened by the presence of rollicking knockabout versions of Dylan's 'Down in the Flood' and Brenda Lee's 'Let's Jump the Broomstick' (they are placed exactly at thirds in the tracklisting). To me, these don't really work and break the flow of an otherwise faultless album. Richard Thompson's guitar work is flawless, as ever, and he and Denny clearly had an uncommon rapport. Denny's songs are simply lovely, 'Late November', 'The Sea Captain' and 'Crazy Lady Blues' particularly so, and there's a beautiful version of the traditional 'Blackwaterside' which frees it entirely from its "finger-in-the-ear" folk history.
It would seem that it was a disappointment to Sandy and particularly to her husband Trevor Lucas that she wasn't making the charts and as a result, from this point on, Sandy's albums suffered from an awful tendency to be blousily overblown in terms of their production. The rock element is played up and the folk toned down and as a result there is an uneven and somewhat naff feel to them which really is tragic because Sandy's songwriting and voice are scarcely less than perfect. Not even the attempts of Lucas and various unsympathetic engineers can ruin these glorious records though. Sandy (1972) features some of her finest and most moving songs ('It'll Take a Long Time' is a truly stunning, but turned into something of a blaster by the production, and 'Sweet Rosemary' is quite beautiful). The first side does have a couple of low moments (another inappropriate Dylan cover - a countrified 'Tomorrow Is a Long Time' for instance) but the second side is glorious throughout and ends with a stunning three song run in 'Bushes and Briars', 'It Suits Me Well' and 'The Music Weaver'. Most people regard Sandy as her best solo album but I prefer The North Star Grassman and despite the presence of a handful of terrible songs, the next one, Like An Old Fashioned Waltz, which we'll do tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment