39th... The return

Fashionably Late.

Among the practitioners of folk music, there were few 70s acts who were as dark and challenging as the music of Richard and Linda Thompson. When that partnership dissolved in the early 80s, Linda, who was beginning to suffer from hysterical dysphonia, retreated from the scene. After her solo debut in 1985, there was silence.

In 2002, to the delight of the folk community, she returned with album Fashionably Late, an ironic but positive title for a collection of songs that capture the great singer in the same territory she'd previously mapped out - there's a hearkening to the themes of the old English ballads that is, if anything, more pronounced than it was back in the 70s, as if the more time passes, the further back she reaches for inspiration. The mood of the album is therefore antiquated and gloomy, the latter enhanced by the subtle touch of frailty in Linda's voice.

Despite her long absence, no one had forgotten her and the guest list for Fashionably Late is stunning. The greatest presence is her son Teddy Thompson, who co-wrote several of the songs, sang backups and played acoustic guitar. Daughter Kamila also contributed backing vocals. Folk singer-songwriter Kate Rusby, Rufus Wainwright and sister Martha, Richard Thompson, Dave Pegg from Fairport Convention, Danny Thompson (no relation) contributing his fabulous double bass.... Even Philip Pickett of the New London Consort gets in on this act! Linda got the red carpet for this one. When a legend returns, this kind of turnout should always result.

Dear Mary is one of those "you'll get your comeuppance" songs. Its great comfort is in the gentle harmonising - the whole Thompson family is here and they blend beautifully. Richard even contributes some lovely electric guitar to the piece. With some tasteful percussion, it starts the record off properly.

Miss Murray takes for its subject the death of a lonely woman and is properly a dirge. Kate Rusby contributes childlike backups that provide a deep poignancy concurrent with the sorrows the lyric tells of. Linda's voice gathers strength and clarity as the song progresses; the end result is exquisitely moving.

All I See comes close to folk-rock. It's got drums and keyboard and electric guitar to sport a much fuller sound. Teddy wrote the piece, which might explain it. With the Wainwright siblings backing her, this dirge manages to be exquisite as well, taking that cliched old chestnut about pining away despite the crowd and making it sincere once more.

Nine Stone Rig is based on an old (and faked) Scottish ballad. It's got all the prerequisites: rivalry, murder, dying for love... It's extremely spare, just some great acoustic guitar from John Doyle, and Danny Thompson's basswork. With its stormy swiftness it forms an excellent change of pace.

Happy songs are few and far between on Fashionably Late. Actually, No Telling is the only one that qualifies. An old beggar at the end of the line is saved by hearing a love song. If that sounds corny as hell, believe me, it's not. It's actually an exceptional moment of deliverance amid the scattered stories of failed human lives.

Evona Darling is an adaptation of a Lal Waterson tune called Yvonne Ah Darling. It's a duet with Teddy and the opposite of Dear Mary. This cold young woman is predicted a future of redemption.

That's it; now pleasantries are cast aside and it's back to sorrow and misfortune.The Banks of the Clyde features Northumbrian small-pipes. A woman reminisces about going astray in London and how much she longs for Scotland and her mother's arms. But there will be no fresh start in this song, merely a cold, dismal, aching retreat from a life which has failed her. Singularly depressing song.

Weary Life picks up the pace with crumhorns, mandolin and drums. The last woman longed for family ties, and this song cruelly slaps down that wish with a pessimistic view of married life. Nobody's happy, though this one does have a bleak humour.

The most amazing song is Paint and Powder Beauty, a humane and tragic account of a lady of the night. Linda's best singing is on this one. She never falters, it's a time capsule to Linda as she was and is absolutely breathtaking. But better still is the string arranger: Robert Kirby, returning to the field "for the first time in 25 years." He once arranged the strings for Nick Drake, and has lost none of his talents. These twin facts make Paint and Powder Beauty the most stunning song herein.

It ends with Dear Old Man of Mine, an empty room kind of song. She sings; Teddy plays guitar; Kamila backs her voice. It was hearing this one song on internet radio that made me buy this CD. It is a haunting piece of work.

Folk is a niche market and, sadly, it's only those who are already invested in it who will pay this sort of album any attention. What a comeback. Now I need to find a copy of her follow-up, Versatile Heart.

38th... Autumn's music

O Seasons O Castles.

This will be short: If you track down only one of my blogged CDs, make it this one. This was Katell Keineg's debut, way back in 1994. It is ambitious and admirably fulfills that ambition. Attributes include her smokey, powerful Irish voice; lyrics as vivid and dense as good poetry; her musical style being folk rock, but with no fear of grappling with other styles, from punkish outbursts to spoken word; a deft handling of complicated, ambiguous emotions; and to cap it, a raw emotive honesty that leaves you believing she's baring her soul. There are few enough who can do that, and fewer still with Katell's consistency.

And yet...have YOU heard of this woman?

Hestia starts in a difficult vein, brimming with symbols; an acoustic track with spare and eloquent backing. Having been "hiding from a world I could no longer proceed in" Katell's fractured narrative takes in moods of defiance, desire, aversion and pity, leaving a distinct emotional footprint despite the confusion of the lyric. Hestia, for example, is the Greek goddess of the hearth, perhaps the most humble and benevolent of that arrogant and bloodthirsty pantheon - traditionally paid little attention, though Katell invokes her here.

Partisan is pure pop, one of those hip, swinging, joyous numbers that cram lyrics into tiny spaces - just over three minutes! Even better, the song is about connection; speed sung so you have to pay attention to try and catch the words, which are all about wanting to know you. "Place myself behind your eyes and watch you watch me looking in." If that phrase made your head spin in a good way, you'll be sure to like this song.

Cut is another about human connection; a cooler outing, taking in possibility at the same time as frailty. The old question - engage with the world or retreat from it?

Then there's Bop, a title which seems ironic at first, as it starts slowly and wearily, building to frenzy in such a way that it doesn't seem like a cliche. She sounds like she means all of it, looking into a bleak future with what becomes a post-punk defiance. It should sound out of place on the record, but it builds so naturally that it just seems appropriate.

Burden is likely to alienate people - her voice as she shouts the chorus is hard for me to take. On the other hand, the song itself is a morose, atmospheric dedication to beauty and the price put on it that obscures one person from another. Suffer the chorus; you might get used to it and the rest is an amazing song.

Things lighten up with Franklin, about a woman who's stepping out of a useless relationship and is on her way to freedom. It's another standout for the emotion expressed, becoming one of the most straightforward and instantly likable songs of her repertoire.

Conch Shell is just plain weird, a one minute WTF moment, a spoken word poem comparing the narrator's (dare I say unfortunate?) lover to an insect she wants to pull all the legs off of. Seriously?

Returning to music, there's Coolea, O Seasons' most beautiful song, with it's combination of her slow, swooping voice, an ensemble of violins providing a gorgeous interlude and a very sweet sadness.

Problems with pacing arise hereabouts, as the next thing you know, Destiny's Darling kicks off, a jaunty and very Irish pop tune. The lyric is saved from its almost cloying good cheer by the passage which goes "I love you/don't know what it means but I mean it... I love you/don't know what it says but it's said now," giving back the emotional complexity which defines this record.

Next is another, more successful spoken word entry, Waiting for You to Smile. This time the lover is deeply depressed and there's enough going on in the piece that it's worth re-listening to. Also, her recitation is in the deeply mannered style of some of Donovan's sung-spoke outings, and there's also some background textures to add interest.

Paris is the fractured account of the final hour of a suicidal woman and Katell sings every line as if it's being pulled from her heart. The opening guitar passage and her hushed introduction gives me chills every time. Harrowing.

O Seasons is next. The title was coined by French poet Arthur Rimbaud: "O Saisons, O Chateaux." It's a refutation of the hopelessness of Paris, a swift ode to autumn, to the eccentrics she's known, to folly and to life itself. "Preach, preacher, preach/do you want to be/in the warm fields of fall/where the everyday awaits?/I've laid out the table/washed the fruit in the sink/with the fox and the fool/I am cartwheeling on the brink."

O Iesu Mawr is an astonishing work in Welsh. Overlaid vocals become polyphony. It turns these final segments of the album into a spiritual work.

The Gulf of Araby, which Natalie Merchant covered, is the seven minute finale, wherein Katell sits down alone with her guitar and delivers perhaps the most delicate and moving of all O Seasons' songs. I can't pretend to know what it's all about, though regret hangs over every line of it and passages linger like poetry.

What it comes down to is 55 minutes of some of the best folk-rock to grace the 90s. When it does falter, it's perfectly forgivable considering the successes this CD contains. Try it. She's worth looking for.

37th... Bayou rock

Dixie Chicken. Four and a half stars.

It has taken me upwards of two years to be able to appreciate Little Feat, and I'll tell you why: When I first heard Dixie Chicken, I'd never even heard of the Allman Brothers Band. My tastes needed that sophisticated European touch you'd find on things like Country Life, The Idiot and Station to Station. I'd never heard ZZ Top or Lynyrd Skynyrd or even Neil Young. I'd also had no exposure to R&B or soul, so I thought Lowell George had an ugly voice. Nonplussed, I shelved it.

Recently, I revisited this CD and was astounded by how good it actually was. It's as though my brain has been rewired and of course, this time I was prepared - two years had allowed the strains of country rock to filter down into my subconscious.

The first rule to keep in mind is that, despite the band name, the album's title, the wacky cover art and the dry humour of the first track, this is a dark record, evoking a world of predatory women out looking for the next poor sap to suck dry, of sad young men, of desperation and unease and (in the real world) drugs everywhere.

A little history: prior to this release from 1973, the band had come into being partly as driftwood from the Mothers of Invention. Guitarist Lowell George and bassist Roy Estrada left in 1969 and put together a rock quartet, also featuring drummer Richard Hayward and classically-trained keyboardist Bill Payne. Well, they never were as popular as the Allman's, but the critics liked them.

By the time of Dixie Chicken (apparently their highest watermark), Estrada had rejoined the Mothers and been replaced by Ken Gradney, a New Orleans man. They also picked up another guitarist, Paul Barrere, freeing Lowell to focus solely on his slide guitar skills; and in a stroke of genius, they got another New Orleans man, Sam Clayton, on congas. Suddenly there was a fully-integrated six piece ensemble where a traditional band had once stood - and man, could they cook.

Appropriately, the title track is got out of the way first - it is hard to describe how swampgrass music sounds, but the words muddy, slippery and claustrophobic all come to mind. It's an odd little tune about a hell of a woman; at times the piano plays twice the speed of the other instruments, at times there's a neat little riff and there is a somewhat rueful humour to proceedings.

Did I mention the soul singers? There's a slew of them, including Bonnie Raitt, and they pack out Two Trains, an uptempo rocker comparing a love triangle to an approaching train crash. That squelchy musical tone is still in play, though I hasten to add that the production is clean and clear. Homegrown recording, this is not. Also, this song proves how great an R&B singer Lowell George actually was.

Roll Um Easy is the sole acoustic track, and judging by it, they should have done more. Centered on a world-weary, sad-eyed lyric, it makes a fine interlude.

On Your Way Down is a cover of Allen Toussaint, an influential New Orleans artist. It's no wonder Louisiana permeates the sound of the album. Morose, as any blues track should be, it's spared the usual sound by the swamp qualities of congas and soul. Nothing flashy about it, even during the bridge, but it's a standout all the same.

Kiss It Off is one of the most ominous tracks, despite the presence of a rather corny synthesizer flourish. Lowell keeps to the higher register as he sings about some sort of tyrannical "milquetoast Hitler." Somehow, it's not a joke; in fact, it sounds like nothing so much as a poor young man who's been pushed to the wall.

Fred Tackett (who later joined the band) wrote Fool Yourself, one of the least adventurous, but nicest, lyrical outings. Instead of the positive dragons to be seen elsewhere, this song focuses on a confused young woman. As such, it's compassionate, but alas, it's not quite as memorable as it should be.

Walkin' All Night is sung Bill Payne the keyboardist (correct me if I'm wrong); he cowrote it with Barrere and it's one of the grooviest tracks. Quite infectious. Nice change of pace.

Fat Man in the Bathtub is apparently some kind of Little Feat classic, but I've yet to figure out the appeal. What on earth is it about? The herky-jerky rhythm and randomness of the imagery does make it better for re-listening than some of the clearer songs, but my usual reaction to it is bafflement.

Juliette starts almost as if it's going to be a Nick Drake circa Bryter Layter type of tune, with the flute and shadowy, pastoral feel. Sadly, it segues into a more conventional rock song; the moments when it slows down are where it really shines.

Winding up, it's Lafayette Railroad. No more singing, but if you're a fan of Lowell's slide guitar this is the track for you. Cowrote with Payne, so it's pretty much all guitar and keyboards, with Clayton on percussion. Drowsy and laidback; guaranteed to lull you to sleep.

In the end, I am very glad to have persevered in learning the appeal of Dixie Chicken. The Fat Man may elude me, but I've come to greatly appreciate the sound and style of this peculiar branch of southern rock...

In other news, it's come to my attention that The Benefits of Cold Coffee is essentially a running list of my favorite CDs - even the subpar efforts such as Harvest are so fully enjoyed that the ratings up top are useless. If it's on the blog, it's because it was good enough to stand the multiple listens necessary to any of my reviews. In other words, this is the last of my "CD Name. Four to Five Stars," layout.

Until next week...

36th... Loaded with hits

Loaded. Four and a half.

When thinking of Lou Reed, it is important to remember that his musical apprenticeship did not come, as John Cale's did, at the foot of avant-garde activists, but in working as a pop songwriter in the great American tradition of writing songs for other people. That is the key to this album, the strangest chapter in Velvet Underground history.

In 1970, Lou Reed was getting justifiably sick of releasing albums to be ignored and touring ever summer to little acclaim. Loaded was an attempt to make an album so friendly and direct that it would have to be a success.

If the world was a fair place, Loaded would have topped the charts, Rock and Roll would have been on the radio and all their earlier works would have been re-released and newly evaluated. Of course, if the world was fair, The Zombies would never have broken up, Katell Keineg would be routinely mentioned alongside Merchant, Amos, Bjork and Harvey and Nick Drake would have gotten some recognition in his lifetime, but those are other stories.

The Velvet Underground at this point consisted of Reed, Morrison, Yule and a bunch of session drummers. They had indeed lost ANOTHER member; Maureen Tucker was absent from proceedings due to pregnancy and doing Loaded without her was in some ways the first mistake - on the other hand, the innocuous drum techniques used instead helped lend the album its distinctly commercial sound. That sound is the reason why beginners ought not to start their V.U. foray here - the impression would be completely at odds with their reputation.

I would recommend getting the "Fully Loaded" edition, by the way (if anyone buys CDs anymore), just on the strength of the accompanying booklet which tells you everything you need to know better than I can.

For instance: "On the original Dutch issue of Loaded, the pink smoke was inexplicably changed to green. Maybe that made all the difference. According to Sterling Morrison, Loaded received an Edison award in Holland for the best rock album of 1971...In America, Loaded never even charted on Billboard."

By the time Loaded came out, the Velvet Underground were finished, Max's Kansas City had come and gone and the band had nothing more to say.

Keep in mind that each song is a straight homage to a different kind of musical style. Who Loves the Sun is a straight slice of Beach Boys/Beatles pop, sung sweetly by Doug Yule, and what makes it so astonishing is that, while you may have thought Lou would give it a twist of sarcasm to wink/nudge the audience, it is instead a perfect homage, albeit with a cool musical non-sequiter when it starts getting a mite predictable...

One burst of overlapping psychedelic guitars later, Sweet Jane starts up, a lovable mess of a rock song. Reasons include the riff, obviously, and the terrible harmonies, not to mention the "heavenly wine and roses" interlude. But chiefly, I would say its appeal is the good cheer of it. It's positive. Jack and Jane are the usual brand of weirdos, but hell, they've got steady jobs, they're in love and they're happy. Even the narrator seems uncharacteristically content: "me I'm in a rock and roll band."

Rock and Roll continues the infectious vein, being a toe-tapper with cool keyboard interludes. The lyric takes on the classic story of the kid liberated from banality by the sounds of popular music; Lou dredged this one up from his own experience and the result is just plain fun...and you get to hear more of Lou's great higher register.

Cool it Down is a daft, country-fied little ditty which manages to marry a corny lyric to a lovely melodic structure. Despite the absence of Maureen, not to mention the friction among the leftovers, the band still cooks. It's a pleasure to listen to.

New Age begins strongly reminiscent of some of Jefferson Airplane's spare, psychedelic ballads while lyrically more along the lines of Sunset Boulevard. Doug Yule's fragile singing reminds me of Space Oddity era Bowie. There's a romantic splendour to the track and it never puts a foot wrong. It's the highlight of Loaded.

Head Held High tips over into a pastiche of heavy rock, and is one of the lesser moments just for that. Mind, it is pretty funny the first time through, but Lou's voice grates and the lyric has no merit.

I'm not sure what to make of Lonesome Cowboy Bill; as the title implies, it's a collection of country cliches. It's also repetitive to a fault - Yule's slur is just plain weird. A joke of some kind.

Things slow down for the doo-wop number. I Found a Reason manages the impossible - it is both a hammy, straight faced spoof and a lilting, bittersweet ballad. There is real pathos and beauty in the construction, yet there's also Lou's monologue... Whatever you want to make of it, it is undeniably both beautiful and silly.

Train Round the Bend makes a hilarious attack on Neil Young's ideology, if you want to look at it that way (I do; his star was on the rise back then). It's got a hard edged blues vibe but it doesn't tend to linger, so I'll come right out and say side two is weaker than side one. It's still fun, though.

The coda is seven and a half minutes, but no avant-garde excursion. Oh! Sweet Nuthin' is a gentle homage to country rock and a moving look at the unfortunates at the bottom of society. Musically, it is sung by Yule and builds to a quiet frenzy of guitar and drums before the end. Beautiful, entirely different to anything else the band had done and if you listened to the records in order as I just did, it makes a fitting end not only to Loaded, but to the overarching story.

My favorite Velvet Underground is still their debut, though if not for The Murder Mystery, their eponymous CD may have won. That leaves Loaded to come in a pleasant third. It may well stand as the Velvet Underground album you give to people who say they don't like the group.

35th... Welcome back

The Velvet Underground. Five stars.

The above is a reference not merely to the Velvet Underground's return to making vaguely listenable music, but also to my unpardonably long retreat from the field, which has probably lost me what following I had.

That old line from Oscar Wilde "we are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars" applies itself very well to this record; it marks an astonishing change in direction. After their music-as-reportage debut and '68's twisted slag heap White Light/White Heat (I'm NOT an admirer of that one), Lou Reed takes a new approach so completely it appears as if he had found God. I don't mean literally, a la Bob Dylan, I mean it as a metaphorical gesture, the light which comes on the heels of exorcism. Perhaps the band realised they'd gone too far, or perhaps they simply needed to change their artistic direction before it was too late. This same musical story played out again in the 90s, when Nick Cave followed up his dubious "joke" record Murder Ballads with the thoughtful and serious Boatman's Call.

Anyway, back in 1969 came the carelessly titles The Velvet Underground, a delicate affair, as pale and laid back as the cover art; the morning after the drugged, decadent trip to hell. Shadows remain - this is Lou Reed, after all, but it marks a laudatory change in direction and is also a return to disciplined endeavour.

Each album found the band losing members - first it had been Nico, then John Cale and his satanic feedback. This was doubtless to the good, as it freed the band from the trappings of noise-rock and left Cale and Nico free to collaborate on her solo albums (I've already documented my love for Desertshore). Cale was replaced with Doug Yule, who already knew the band and could play bass. Perhaps in honour of his admission, he was given the opening track to sing....

Candy Says is actually a rather unsettling song. Over gentle drums and guitar, a sparse and lilting backdrop, Yule croons the first line "Candy says/I've come to hate my body/and all that it requires/in this world." The vibe is mournful, and yet it is performed without the remotest grandeur. As an opener it feels like a mistake, yet subsequent listens reveal it to have a haunting dignity.

The pace picks up sharply when Lou takes the mike for What Goes On. A rocker? Not exactly. Noodling guitars backed by Maureen's dependable beat, it has the quality of being unhurried, again lacking theatrical intensity. It simply is. It's almost zen.

Some Kinda Love is a good-natured take on sexual deviancy, making it very different in tone from their last few songs on the subject. Based on the bare bones instrumentation you think it's going to be ominous, but Lou's breathy/muttered yet overemphasized vocal and inability to actually say anything makes it the first humourous track the Velvet's spawned.

Pale Blue Eyes runs in the opposite direction. Emotionally, this song is heartwrending. Again, that terrible and stately dignity. Lou Reed's fragile singing, as even he sounds choked up. The story recounted is of an extramarital affair, how much it drains the emotions and yet how vital it is to the narrator's life. All of this is implied more than stated outright and it proves the utter magic of this form - music will give you emotion in the palm of your hand.

Next is the two line mantra Jesus. Is it a joke? you think. Regardless of intention, it does make for a lovely musical interlude, and the fact the Lou sings it so calmly and gives it three minutes of airplay without once savaging it leads me to believe it IS a serious song. Possibly even sincere. It has the simple beauty inherent of the album. Only think of how, in a few years time, prog rock would arise, with King Crimson and ELP. Then think of this record.

Beginning to See the Light mixes rock and roll with humour and makes an effective return to earth from the mantra. The verses are absurd and Lou cracks up like he's having a private joke on his listeners, yet the bridge features that softness which ties it back into the album as a whole. The coda is "how does it feel to be loved?" which, depending on my mood can be an uplifting and generous thought or a pitiful cry. Lastly: keep an ear out for Lou's falsetto - it'll blow your mind.

If I were to choose the three greatest songs the Velvet Underground ever did, they would probably be:
1. I'm Set Free
2. Venus in Furs
3. Pale Blue Eyes
I'm Set Free is their best song, a work of the sublime. It alone on the record operates on crescendos, and is breathtaking in the power of its emotions. Sorrow and joy co mingle, exactly as would be the case with someone who has just been delivered from the darkness. Musically, everything is just right - the backups chanting "maybe," the guitar solo, the crescendos...

That's the Story of My Life is a jaunty way to draw breath and again return to earth. Only two minutes long, it feels like an author's note. Flimsy as it is, it works as a summing up and as an ushering in of the final stretch. It forms a divider... as what has come before bears no relation to what follows...

Without Cale, the avant-garde nature of the band pretty much subsided, yet there's still time for a nine minute out-there opus. The Murder Mystery. As the music revves up you think it has a cool, jazzy feel. Then the robotic vocals kick in, one for each ear, intercut with Yule and Maureen singing. The lyrics are fascinating and sometimes gory, though quite impossible to make sense of. You may laugh at first, but it will become tedious at about five minutes. Quiz: should it have been
A. More coherent
B. Shorter
C. More musically varied
D. All of the above
I'll go for C myself.

With that comes the finale, a surreal inclusion called After Hours. Maureen sings an acoustic demo, predating by years the indie eccentrics like Joanna Newsom. It is stilted, deeply odd, yet warm. In keeping with the tradition of unlovely voices, it may be the strangest song the band ever recorded. Interestingly, the album starts and ends without Lou Reed's singing to guide it.

The band's obscurity was always inevitable and always unwarranted. Next year, as a final act, they attempted to create a friendly album, one that would sell. It didn't, of course, and Lou's next move was out of the show altogether - on to a solo career and pastures greener. He left behind a resume I would argue as 3/4 percent genius, which is more than most bands manage. I would recommend this CD highly; the great glory of such quiet discs is that they grow and give more over time. I had to hear this one many times over before its many shades sunk in.