A Spanner & Their Works

You're not really supposed to read these bits, this isn't actually a blog, by any meaningful definition.  Good, that's that sorted, then.

ANOHNI & THE JOHNSONS – MY BACK WAS A BRIDGE FOR YOU TO CROSS (Rough Trade)  

The highlight of Julian Schnabel’s film of Lou Reed performing the entirety of his classic album Berlin is the luminous vocal on 'Candy Says' by Antony (as ANOHNI was known at the time). At the end of a light and quavering but surprisingly sinewy reading, Reed holds ANOHNI with a long appreciative gaze, allowing a fraction of a smile to brush his lips - which for that uneffusive old boulder was the equivalent of a 21-gun salute. The respect between the two musicians is highlighted by 'Sliver Of Ice', which is based on one of the last conversation Reed had with ANOHNI, in which he told her of the beautiful intensity of elementary experiences at life’s end. As ANOHNI puts it, “the simplest sensations had begun to feel almost rapturous; a carer had placed a shard of ice on his tongue one day and it was such a sweet and unbelievable feeling that it caused him to weep with gratitude”.  Over the sort of warm jazzy haze, you might find in the Elysian Fields Holiday Inn, ANOHNI’s delicate croon captures the experience with Hemingway bluntness: “A taste of water on my tongue, it was cool, it was good”. 'Go Ahead', the track immediately preceding this, makes a sonic nod to Lou Reed, visceral squeals of guitar noise threatening to engulf a sparse stately clutch of chords. The vocals, a parody of rock which would feel far more at home over a NWOBHM canter than this NYC noise edifice, scamper with deliberate awkwardness across the top. No wonder the track lasts only 90 seconds, any longer and the tensions in the song might yank it apart.  

Despite this pairing, Lou Reed is far from this album’s primary reference point. Instead, ANOHNI’s strong but spindly voice, and many of the lush arrangements, will recall that breed of vintage soul vocalists who balance suave sophistication with gut-wrenching emotion: think Smokey Robinson, Al Gren and, especially Marvin Gaye. 'Why Am I Alive Now' captures the essence of Gaye’s classic, What’s Going On, the gorgeous syrupy vocals, the shimmering strings and the hazy vibraphone managing to communicate cosy safety and self-critical uncertainty at once. 

ANOHNI’s voice has always been a glorious thing, with the lopsided, stumbling beauty of an hours-old foal or a butterfly slowly unfurling from the cocoon, but My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross is filled with lovely complementary arrangements, like the tiny flute phrases in 'Can’t' that melt away like ice on the tongue. The track has flavours of the well-bred soul of the 90s, urbane if not quite urban, and one might draw a line to Erykah Badu, D’Angelo, and even McAlmont & Butler...if you really get creative, 'Can’t' sounds like a slowed down and hollowed out version of Hue & Cry’s burnished yuppie pop. And just to prove that her voice is not just very pretty but also malleable, on 'Scapegoat' ANOHNI’s lines fracture as they drift into the distance like Horace Andy’s, and two registers appear to be in conversation on 'It’s My Fault', as on Cat Stevens’s 'Father & Son' (and the opening line “I didn’t do it, but I know that I did something wrong” seems to paint ANOHNI as the direct inverse of Shaggy). 

Divas and talent show judges spend whole careers selling the concept of “good” singing, a dead-eyed and lead-footed virtuosity which flattens all compositions and makes a mockery of interpreting a lyric. Although there are a couple of songs on this album which don’t set up camp in your memory, the vocals always astonish, from the sound of Jeff Buckley floating on a soul bisque on 'It Must Change' to the greasy gospel crescendo of 'Rest'. There’s one moment in this track where ANOHNI phrases the word “stone” in the zen-like line “Rest like a stone waits for the sun” with a micro-melisma, slingshotting swiftly across three notes: the phrasing is gorgeous, but it’s neither self-conscious nor showy, just a tiny perfect moment.  Lou Reed would doubtless give it a barely perceptible but heartfelt nod. 

 

 

 

 

Grotesque (After The Grim)

I sometimes wonder whether I subconsciously give a slightly lower rating to records where I don't even get a download for my troubles.  Was this album a zip file of MP3s away from 4 stars?

SLEAFORD MODS – UK GRIM (Rough Trade)

Ten years ago, when Sleaford Mods first came to the public eye with Austerity Dogs, few people would have banked on them still delivering the goods six albums later – partly because maintaining that bile-spitting intensity seemed unrealistic, and partly because those pallid early press shots made it look as though at least one of them would have succumbed to scurvy before now. But those who knew that there had already been five albums under the Mods’ name before 2013 will have been less pessimistic. Impressively, this latest album channels as much dyspeptic rage as any previous release, and showcases some interesting developments.

UK Grim harbours some fantastic writing. There’s the unvarnished poetry of lines like “When your heart hangs like a loose stool that won’t drop”, but there are also surreal and mystifying barked pronouncements, as if righteous ire and deep sadness are bursting from Jason Williamson in every possible direction: is 'I Claudius' about dysfunctional families, half-remembered 70s telly, nationalism, and off-duty Santas scoffing chips? Or all, or none, of the above? The outstanding 'Force 10 From Navarone', featuring the current titan of sardonically allusive pop, Dry Cleaning’s Florence Shaw, captures all that’s best about Williamson’s current writing, laying down a carpet of potty-mouthed non-sequiturs which are almost hilarious but ultimately hauntingly melancholy, including the syntactically fractured dream-state cracker joke refrain, “Jason, why does the darkness elope? Cross-sectioned; it’s not a drink, and I don’t fucking smoke”. 

Despite this, some of the lyrical targets feel obvious. The last few governments might be the worst in the post-war period, but simply saying so doesn’t make for interesting art. Lines like “In England nobody can hear you scream, you’re just fucked, lads” aren’t hugely satisfying, and Williamson’s often preaching to the choir (or at least screaming back towards the rabble). It’s fitting that satirical collagist Cold War Steve created a video for the title track, when 'Tory Kong' stretches the conceit of a tired broadsheet political cartoon over three minutes. Moments like this proves that barn-door targets are disappointingly easy to hit, even when you’re pissing at them. 

Whilst the linguistic half of Sleaford Mods is developing in two very different directions, Andrew Fearn has turned in his most musically satisfying set of tracks to date. The Fallesque watchwords are still simplicity and repetition, but there is an attention to detail that gives many of these tracks real quality, from the distorted Blade Runner ostinasty of the title track, to the chunky muscular beat of 'D.I.Why' which could almost have been lifted from a vintage Run DMC track (the song’s observation that hipster musicians dress like avuncular TV steeplejack Fred Dibnah provides the album’s first laugh-out-loud moment). 'Tilldipper' is a roiling rant with a bassline like rubble doing the conga, but this is balanced by the crepuscular wistfulness of 'Force 10 From Navarone', complete with a cheap Casio Spanish guitar line that could bring tears to your eyes, or the organic squelch of 'So Trendy' which resembles the Teutonic coolness of To Rococo Rot more than it does the punk and hip hop to which Fearn’s productions are usually likened. Incidentally, 'So Trendy' features the album’s other excellent guest vocal, with Jane’s Addiction/Porno For Pyros’ perv-in-chief Perry Farrell intomning like a googly-eyed modern prophet (“Check out all my squiggly veins. I got 57 screenshots in one hour just in case”). 

It’s unclear whether future Mods releases will lean more towards literary invention or blunt tirades, but by this point, nobody should be surprised if they’re still spitting and firing in another ten years. Perhaps they’re already beaming back messages from the future: in the 'Force 10 From Navarone' video, where the performers appear as glitchy holograms of the sort R2-D2 might project – “Fuck me, Obi Wank Kinobe, there is no hope”.