NORMAL SERVICE WILL RESUME....

The return to university is taking its toll on my free time, unfortunately.  As such, my Enraptured updates will be somewhat less frequent in the coming months, but this is not the end!  I'll still try to come out with dubious ramblings whenever I can, and normal service will be resumed once I am no longer slogging my guts out over piles of textbooks.  My thanks for your indulgence.

(I was going to add a humorous cartoon of a stressed-out student to this post, but the blogger platform is being....difficult.  That is all.)

THE REAL MCCOY by McCoy Tyner

It can easily be argued that the advent of punk in the late 1970s shifted the emphasis from what musicians were playing to how they were playing it.  An obsession with the former proved the artistic downfall of the so-called progressive rock movement, but it's also an accusation that can also be levelled at many jazz musicians of the '60s.  Endless bars of passionless, clinical playing were the bane of a musical form which had only recently received a much-needed injection of innovation and verve from the likes of Ornette Coleman, Miles Davis and John Coltrane.  Despite the intervention of these revolutionary godfathers, however, jazz was sometimes in danger of losing itself in the technical what of music, rather than the passionate how.  Not so McCoy Tyner, Coltrane's former pianist and an accomplished player, composer and performer in his own right.

Tyner never lost sight of the how, as evidenced by the track Contemplation, from his 1967 album The Real McCoy.  The track's brooding atmosphere and seductive groove immediately drag the listener into a private, ethereal world of Tyner's own creation. but the magic really happens at approximately 4 minutes and 46 seconds in, when Tyner spends 8 bars hammering a single piano chord in his inimitable, percussive style.  The effect is stunning; in the midst of his solo, Tyner breaks off from his dexterous yet melodic tinkling to create an almost unbearable tension which keeps the listener spellbound - all with a single chord!  This is a pure expression of the power of how in music, a whole decade before punk's seismic impact. 

The rest of the album is also a testament to music with feeling, with the appropriately named Passion Dance unleashing a joyous cascade of notes powered by sheer emotion, and the tranquil Search For Peace showcasing all the very best elements of jazz balladry.  It's also wonderful to hear Tyner reunited with virtuoso drummer Elvin Jones, after their long tenure together in Coltrane's legendary quartet.  Tyner's massive chords and Jones' percussive tapestry combine - as usual - to forge a titanic sound which seems too overpowering to be the work of a single rhythm section, and fortunately this would not be their last record together.  Tyner has recorded (and continues to record) many great albums over the course of his long career, but The Real McCoy is arguably his best. and a good starting place for non-jazzers, to boot.  This is music to move you, music with passion in its DNA.  Music which is less about the what than the how.    

GOOD DAYS AT SCHLOSS ELMAU by Gwilym Simcock

When I began writing this post, I had every intention of crafting a lengthy diatribe about the need of the Mercury Prize organisers to include one "token" jazz album every year in their shortlist of nominees.  I quickly realised that this would be nothing more than a futile rant, since it's an argument so old as to have been made by Alexis Petridis in an article for the Guardian way back in 2002.  Much as I'm usually riled by Petridis' indie-centric populism, I have to agree that it's pointless to bemoan the Mercury's tokenistic approach to the inclusion of one particular genre, when the very idea of comparing albums featuring wildly different styles and attempting to identify "the best" is inherently ridiculous.  What I really wanted to do was write about Gwilym Simcock's Good Days At Schloss Elmau, although to refer to it merely as this year's "token jazz entry" at the Mercurys does a great disservice to a wonderful record.

I don't like using other artists as reference points in my posts; it smacks of lazy music writing.  In the case of Good Days At Schloss Elmau, though, I'm going to have to make an exception, as this album reminds me so strongly of Keith Jarrett's solo work that it'd be remiss of me not to at least give him a mention.  In particular, Simcock's playing on this album is reminiscent of Jarrett's improvised piano pieces on records like Koln Concert and La Scala, which combine a jazz sensibility with fragments of lush romanticism.  Simcock's training as a classical pianist is evident on tracks like Mezzotint, where rolling waves of arpeggios disintegrate into quiet clusters of notes, drawing the listener in from start to finish.  But the versatility of his playing is also apparent in the bluesy rhythms and lurching solos of Gripper, as well as the dramatic cascade of melodies on meandering epic Can We Still Be Friends.  It's difficult to tell how much of the music here might be improvised, but every track seems to hang on a well-crafted structure; further evidence of Simcock's successful melding of jazz and classical romantic styles.  Perhaps the greatest testament to the performances on this album is that despite being recorded entirely by one man sitting at a piano, they seem to take the listener on a journey through vast, glittering soundscapes which bigger and louder groups of musicians would struggle to replicate with any amount of instrumentation.

The album was recorded at the eponymous "cultural hideaway" of Schloss Elmau in the Bavarian alps, and the cold beauty of the landscape seems to have infused the music.  Across the eight tracks collected here, Simcock paints pictures of love, loss and overwhelming longing using nothing more than his piano keys.  Decent jazz pianists may be ten-a-penny these days, but it's rare to find one whose playing is so evocative.  That said, Good Days... still won't win the Mercury Prize.  It won't win, but I really hope it does.

KEYS by Not A Teepee

If I could play anything other than just bass guitar, I'd be strongly tempted to submit a track for the Not A Teepee collective.  Using a one-word concept to determine the direction of each compilation leaves artists with a lot of room for interpretation, whilst ensuring a measure of uniformity among the tracks on every release.  It's a brilliant idea, and one which has served the collective well since its inception almost a year ago.  The title of this latest collection - Keys - seems to have inspired almost all the participants in exactly the same way, as each track is centred on a theme or chord progression hammered out on the proverbial ivories.  There are a few other instruments thrown into the mix as always, but for this release the humble keyboard (with its myriad permutations) takes centre stage.

Les Pelicans get things off to a frenetic start with the punked-up, lo-fi bossa nova of Paint, which is followed by grandiose waves of Klaus Schulze-esque synthesiser on Detail's Bring Your Cat To Work Day.  Sarah J Stanley complements her keys with some nicely delayed guitar and a haunting vocal line on All My Heroes Are Homegrown, while a maelstrom of synthesised sound envelops the celestial rock-out of It Is A New Day's astronomical hymn, Hey Big Dipper!.  A beautifully wistful piano takes centre stage on Key Note Speaking, a rare instrumental from Tim Courtney, and John Hekert's Green Pony persona marries his ominous organ tones to menacing vocal fragments on the fantastically-named Pussybreaker.  Fiona Keenan's take on the Keys concept results in a decidedly retro piece of electro-pop, which works as a pleasingly jarring counterpoint to her typically down-to-earth lyrics.  The album is thus brought to a close by a synth bossa nova beat not dissimilar to the one which started it.  Maybe the style's making a comeback....

Obviously, "keyboard" is no more an instrument than "strings" or "buttons" are.  It's an interface which can control instruments capable of producing a whole range of sounds, meaning that although the theme of this album is Keys, the seven tracks here gathered showcase a huge amount of variety over the duration of the recording.  There is one sound, however, that seems to come up again and again; that of the organ.  The instrument's ecclesiastical heritage may lend it some inherent gravitas, or perhaps people just think it always sounds cool, but for some reason its warm tones never seem to go out of style.  One thing's for sure, though, and that is that Keys is yet another quality collection of material from a project which never seems to run out of steam.

Available for streaming and free download here.

WAITING FOR ATONESJKA by Krister Jonsson Trio & Svante Henryson

 

The jazz guitarist John Etheridge is fond of saying that the guitar is the most versatile and expressive of all instruments.  I can think of quite a few violinists who'd take issue with that, but he's right in thinking that the versatility of the guitar, in particular the electric guitar, is often undervalued.  Steve Hackett (another underappreciated wizard of the fretboard) echoed this sentiment when he said that there's a whole orchestra in a guitar; it just needs to be unleashed.  Unfortunately, there aren't many musicians who even attempt to utilise this most ubiquitous of instruments to its fullest potential.  There are too many tired, generic riffs and solos polluting the studios and the airwaves, and too many musicians content to regurgitate the techniques they've heard a thousand times before.  In such a climate, it's easy to forget the truth behind Etheridge and Hackett's assertions, that the humble guitar can do so much more than is often required of it.  But this only makes it more of a joy when a guitarist who really does know how to play their instrument appears, and makes an album which showcases the full range of the guitar's capabilities.  One such guitarist is Krister Jonsson, and one such album is Waiting For Atonesjka.

Jonsson is a rather mysterious figure whose official website seems to consist of a succession of blank pages, and if he is known at all in the UK it's most likely for his guitar work with progressive rock supergroups like Karmakanic and The Tangent.  Back home in the Swedish town of Malmo, however, he has his own jazz trio, who in 2004 got together with acclaimed cellist Svante Henryson to record Waiting For Atonesjka.  It's a great album generally, and special mention should go to Henryson for his inventive contributions, but the record is of particular interest as a showcase for the sheer versatility of the electric guitar in the hands of a player like Jonsson.  The group's musical style can roughly be described as jazz-rock, but the incorporation of myriad other influences creates a fluid sound which is ripe for improvisation.  The serpentine melodies and jazzy chords of opener Voices and urgent rocker Shotma sit alongside the stately strumming of Insomniac and the gorgeous, delicate arpeggios of Om Kor and closing track Varsagod.  Along the way the listener is also treated to oriental scales, ethereal drones, full-on rock riffs and even the slow-burning funk licks of Henryson compostion Jog.  Only the Swedish could come up with so delightfully demented a notion as cello-funk!  Through the course of the album, Jonsson lets his instrument breathe in the spaces between and in front of both the rhythm section and Henryson's complementary cello work.  His contributions are never overtly flashy, nor are they generic or conventional.  Everything he plays - whether lead or accompaniment - sounds tailor-made to enhance the piece of music as a whole, whilst still showcasing the uniquely beautiful potential of the electric guitar, as he does in the soaring, emotional majesty of tracks like Confession.  It's a difficult balancing act to maintain, and a rare thing to find in any genre of music.

It's easy to get sick of hearing the guitar, I think.  It's everywhere; it dominates popular music right across the spectrum.  Many of the melodic and rhythmic conventions of modern music have been shaped by its use over the last century, and now to a large extent a lethargy has set in amongst its exponents which can inhibit musical creativity.  This is why albums like Waiting For Atonesjka are important, because they are a reminder that guitarists don't have to pick a style and stick with it, or keep using the same lumpen chords and predictable scales again and again, but can instead unlock the potential of what can be an extremely versatile and beautiful instrument.

In the end, all this waffling only leaves us with one question:  who or what is Atonesjka?  My internet searches have yielded only results connected to this album, and there seems to be nothing else.  Is it a made-up word, or some archaic Swedish cultural reference?  It seems to be, like Krister Jonsson himself, something of a mystery.

HANNA (OST) by The Chemical Brothers

We seem to be living in a new golden age for film soundtracks, or at least film soundtracks which stand up as albums on their own merits, independent of visual accompaniment.  Popular musicians like Trent Reznor (The Social Network), Daft Punk (Tron Legacy) and Alex Turner (Submarine) have all recently recorded film scores which have received much critical acclaim not just as soundtracks, but also as original musical works.  Along with the consistently captivating work of Clint Mansell (Requiem For A Dream, The Fountain, Moon etc) and Hans Zimmer's increasingly experimental post-Batman renaissance, these recordings seem to form the vanguard of a new generation of film soundtracks which hark back to impact-making '70s classics such as Saturday Night Fever and The Taking of Pelham 123, albeit with a fresh, post-millennial aesthetic.  The latest addition to this canon of new and exciting film scoring is the Chemical Brothers' sublime soundtrack to the 2011 UK/US/German film Hanna. 

Despite being known primarily for their pounding electronic beats and funky synth work, the sound of this recording by the Chemical Brothers is a remarkably varied one, and very much inkeeping with the themes of the film itself.  The soothing chimes and vocal samples of opener Hanna's Theme give way to the ominous, bassy pulse and oriental melodies of Escape 700, nicely capturing the idea of lost innocence which is central to the movie's plot.  The closest the soundtrack comes to having a recurring leitmotif is the charming, playful whistling of The Devil Is In The Details, which as well as being an infectious melody is symbolic of the corrupted fairytale to which it forms an accompaniment.  The tune turns up again in the churning Euro-funk of The Devil Is In The Beats, which if ever released as a single would justly be a massive hit.  Spacey electronics abound on tracks like The Forest and Marissa Flashback, and the Brothers are in more familiar territory with the myriad samples and majestic keyboards of Quayside Synthesis, Bahnhof Rumble and Car Chase (Arp worship).  Light and dark are effectively contrasted on Interrogation/Lonesome Subway/Grimm's House, which captures the Lynchian chill of the movie's darker moments, before the climactic tension of the album's penultimate tracks gives way to an upbeat variation of the opening theme.

The listener is taken on a journey through skittering beats, exotic melodies and ethereal soundscapes which mirror the lonely deserts, dark highways and abandoned playgrounds of the film itself.  This dreamlike vibe is shared by both the music and its cinematic counterpart, but while the soundtrack would be worthy of considerable acclaim if released as just a standalone Chemical Brothers album, the movie would be stripped of its all-important atmosphere by the exclusion of this haunting score.  The record has previously only been available in the UK through the iTunes store, but other versions become available as of 4th July and I urge you all to lay your hands on one if you can.  See the film, too!  As with the soundtrack, it's not quite like anything else I've experienced this year.   

SPARROWS by Not A Teepee

It might be thought that a record cobbled together from the recordings of far-flung muscians who rarely meet in person would be a rather piecemeal affair, lacking musical cohesion and feeling more like a compilation than an album.  Each such release from the multinational collective Not A Teepee manages to avoid this trap however, perhaps because each album is based around a unifying theme which has the potential to be at once mundane and profound, and so can be twisted to suit the interpretation of each artist while at the same time lending a cohesion to the project.  Sparrows, their latest album, is no exception.

Musically, it's a typically diverse affair.  Paris-based singer/songwriter Mark McCabe starts proceedings with a gorgeously bittersweet acoustic lament called Fall From The Sky, which features a heartrending vocal melody; Aberdeen band Seas, Starry contribute Dans Les Prisons De Nantes, a collaged soundscape of textured drones and sparse melodic fragments which gives the listener the impression of flying or floating; Fiona Keenan doesn't let her quality control slip one bit with This Is What Writers Do To Each Other, a mournful tune featuring intertwining lines of guitar and vocals; and Kitchen Cynics gives us Sparrow Scratchboard, which is a miniature carnival of ethereal melody bringing a sense of hope and brightness to the album.  Elsewhere, collective leader John Hekert layers warm guitar parts to create short-but-sweet folk song Sparrows (for Mike) and Les Pelicans have some fun on a sample-laden slice of psych-inflected rock 'n' roll entitled Who's Scruffy Lookin'?.  The album concludes with two suitably epic pieces, the first of which is The Vanishing from London artist It Is A New Day.  A haunting chant combined with waves of synth organ give this song the feeling of a requiem, while the distorted birdsong of the electric guitar leads to a wailing crescendo.  Bringing the whole thing to a close is Sparrows Will Sing To Your Beautiful Heart by Tim Courtney, who also contributed the arresting cover art for this album.  It's a lush ballad underpinned by a sparse and glacial guitar part, building slowly to an anguished chorus of countermelodies which goes right up to point of losing control, before disintegrating into silence.

The quality of songwriting and performance on this Teepee release remains consistently high throughout, and it's clear that Hekert has brought together a very talented group of people with whom to collaborate.  What really interests me, though, is the apparent thematic unity of the album.  As can be seen from the song titles, the individual interpretations of the Sparrows theme range from the very literal to the more abstract, but nonetheless a sense of cohesion is maintained throughout.  Is this a psychological trick?  The listener might perceive a united whole emerging from these disparate elements because they are aware that the album is based around a single theme.  Perhaps, but the undeniable feeling of melancholy which suffuses this album makes me think that there's a more interesting explanation to be found, probably in the shared cultural consciousness associated with the sparrow in all its guises.  It's a bird which, for one reason or another, seems to evoke images of loss and sadness, albeit often with the frail promise of hope.  And that's what this album sounds like.

Available for streaming and free download here.