Playlouder - Music is the Network

OMG. It’s like a banquet spread before me: James Joyce’s epic poetic work ‘Chamber Music’ set to music by no less than 36 (count them) acts. It’s such an huge task even to listen to this almost-two-hour-long extravaganza of spoken word, shoegaze and skewed folk/indie/country music that my brittle brain would snap if I did anything more than the five-year-old-friendly track-by-track rundown. It would be like reading Ulysses without a guide, climbing Everest without a sherpa, bogwallowing without a snorkel.

So sue me:

• 1. Monica Queen (of ‘Lazy Line Painter Jane’ fame) gives us a tortured wail over sublime Crazy Horse-esque guitars. Great.
• 2. Cathal Coughlan and Stephen Merritt-style uneasy piano ballad from War Against Sleep.
• 3. A brooding Ed Harcourt spoken word piece.
• 4. Very, very folky (reminiscent of In Gowan Ring) and thoroughly called-for piece by “slowcore” artiste Jessica Bailiff.
• 5. Venture Lift; Stuart Murdoch covering Shampoo prior to an overdose.
• 6. Virgin Passages; a haze of female voices, more wicker man than Mediaeval Baebes, but for fans of either.
• 7. A far-too-short slice of droning post-noise from antipodeans HTRK.
• 8. A dainty, dreary, and deep, post-rock-gone-country Americana from your friends and mine, Califone…
• 9. into the thick, dark country of Mike Watt,
• 10. and then the quintessentially English glory of where-have-you-been-all-my-life folk singer Owen Tromans.
• 11. Next comes the fuzzy, befuddled lo-fi ramble of Airport Studies,
• 12. and Text of Light’s classroom reading interspersed with noisy, stuttering feedback and jazzy psychedelic brass screeching. Moody stuff.
• 13. Swirling spooky keyboard sounds and the sweet melodic voice of ex-Madder Rose singer, Mary Lorson lead us on to
• 14. wise-beyond-years or old-before-time, unremarkable-but-decent Uncut-fare from Willy Mason.
• 15. Bonnie “Prince” Billy-esque, skewed country: it’s Noah John – is this the same “Noahjohn” who bridged the gaps between Lou Reed, Steve Earle and Dave Pajo in the early 2000s? Self-confessed “post-modern hillbillies”? Long thought dead? I’m still not sure – either way this is a lovely interlude before
• 16. Ian Kearey’s fraut folk-country fingerpicking and foreboding tones – he founded Oysterband when they were The Oyster Band. Now I’m getting really confused. Somebody’s playing language games with me. Well – this is James Joyce, sort of. He (Kearey) sounds a bit neofolk for the Oysterband’s ilk. And you won’t hear me complaining. This is a definite HIGHLIGHT. (Sort of Of The Wand and the Moon-ish, for you Danes.)
• 17. David Hurn & Abigail Hopkins – wait, was that an instrumental poem?
• 18. And some lilting electronic folk is over too soon, thanks to Coldharbourstores.

That took a while, eh? What a load of goodness though! By now I will have realised even if you haven’t (but you have, right?) that I’ve never actually read ‘Chamber Music’, but I’ve already

a) heard plenty of brilliant artists well worth exploring further, and
b) decided to buy a copy of ‘Chamber Music’ at the first opportunity.

Side two, eh? Right, let’s go:

• 1. The Minus Five – for people who find Wilco a bit much.
• 2. Lori Scacco – minimalist, twinkling, ethereal folk. Well nice.
• 3. The Great Depression do exactly what they says on the tin. Sort of Bright Eyes, having had an Earl of Gloucester Vs Duke of Cornwall experience.
• 4. Puerto Muerto bring some relatively upbeat indie folk – the sort of band you’d quite enjoy at a festival but forget the name of, then we have
• 5. an unexpectedly straight reading from Mercury Rev over a low drone and some clicking sounds. A bit lame, to be honest.
• 6. Flying Saucer Attack are a bit more ‘new weird america’: odd, given they’re from Bristol. This works, actually: they’ve pulled out all the stops and sunk into a murky lake of dreamy folk musing. They’ve split up too. Oh. Apparently their usual shoegazing ways recall The Jesus and Mary Chain. Shame – they split up at the wrooooong time. It’s all about The Mary Chain now, eh?
• 7. Sweet Trip are (conveniently) a bit trip hop – what is it about adapting poetry to trip hop that seems to make trip hop more excusable? Not sure, but this zapped out chillaxathon hits my spot. They’re from San Francisco, not Bristol. I’m shit at this geographical music identification.
• 8. Gerry Mitchell and Little Sparta’s stab at spoken word is infinitely better than Mercury Rev’s, mainly because of… everything about it – sweet, quietly violent strumming and woozy violins, and a strong, warm Scottish accent. Mmmm.
• 9. I’ve been looking forward to Bardo Pond all album and when it comes it’s an understated stumble through aural cobwebs and perfectly at home, but nothing monumental.
• 10. Much more exciting is Canadian post-rockers Sphyr’s brief and beautiful contribution,
• 11. and that of sadly-departed Mountain Men Anonymous’ drum machines and pianos, a slow-building affecting journey with quivering vocals layered over the top like visions distorted through water.
• 12. The Tenebrous Liar spends a long time doing very little – it sounds like a submarine towing a bus across a coral reef, and somebody moaning about how the submarine’s doing it wrong.
• 13. The Green Pajamas are a bit trad. by comparison but bring in a bit of welcome upbeat Copperhead Road era Steve Earle-style country rock.
• 14. On to Gravenhurst – I’ve heard them described as“Simon and Garfunkel meets My Bloody Valentine” and wouldn’t get into a fist-fight over that description.
• 15. Christian Kiefer’s indie folk poetry is very M Ward and patrols the border between a beautiful and fruitful land and its dreary parched desert neighbour. This is safely returning to the former for its supper.
• 16. A-ha: Duke Garwood – goodbye melody, hello skiffle.
• 17. Here we have an Arabstrap-style beat and McCarthyish shoegaze sounding vocal and music. Lovetones are coming with me. Another good Australian band. How unexpected!
• 18. Kinski ends it all for us with zipped-out drones and miserable muttering. Not with a bang, but a whimper, then.

Seems a fitting end to a tanker-sized trawl through the ‘Songs of Innocence and Expereience’ of one of modernism’s big daddies. This is a vast ocean of experimental (often successful) musical collaboration and should be heralded as one of the great interpretative works. James Joyce is tough to tackle but they’ve really pushed the boat out on this one. That’s enough crap boat/water-metaphors from me – I’m off to read the poems and listen back to this rather fantastic album.

More/less here.