Jess Williamson – ‘Goodbye to All That’
‘It is easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends’. Taking her title from the essay by Joan Didion which closed the author’s debut collection Slouching Towards Bethlehem, this week Jess Williamson introduces her new album A Mile South of Heaven by way of the single and record opener ‘Goodbye to All That’. The singer duly notes:
Didion’s essay is about leaving New York after eight years and how ‘it’s distinctly possible to stay too long at the fair’. In my eighth year of living in LA, I felt it was time to leave. I wrote this song as my farewell to LA, but songs are powerful in sneaky ways, and the song itself changed my mind. I realised I wasn’t finished with life in LA.
and indeed she commences her song with a retinue of goodbyes and a litany of regrets that mirror Didion’s own laments over New York City, the loneliness and strandedness and the sense of pinching familiarity where once she had seen only ‘new faces’, despite the possibilities and the enchantment and some of her own abiding affection for the place.
‘Goodbye to the blue nights and the holiday heat / Goodbye to sunshine and the friends I didn’t meet’ the singer begins, conjuring a vision of blistering sleeplessness, before striking a chord with any transient or outsider as she adds ‘Wasting my time tiling a rental / Wanna be on the inside but you’re stuck in the middle’ to complete the evocative first verse.
‘One of these days you wake up late / It’s so matter of fact / I love you and I’m leaving / Goodbye to all that’ goes the chorus. The words sound definitive and the rhythm tumbles and slaps in a way that reminds me of Bob Dylan on his fondly received comeback of sorts New Morning, which between tender loving sentiment and a bit of self-mythologising mixes together a kind of raggedy roots music with some euphoric gospel hues.
The turn in ‘Goodbye to All That’ comes in the final verse where Williamson delivers a tenuous ‘Goodbye to the dreamers, the poets and their songs’ and admits ‘I’m afraid there’s so much that I still haven’t done’. With a distinctive knack for putting together lines and images that seem to blur her own lived experience with the symbolic – suggesting messy rendezvous and defining moments beset by self-doubt while limning them with the noirish and cinematic and even celestial – she spotlights a moment of almost divine vacillation as she sings ‘But I found God with you in a church basement’ and amid all that loneliness and betrayal and moonlit pallor ‘Found real holiness, surrounded by Angels’ taking in all of its flaws and still choosing to view Los Angeles once over as a chaste queen, both of the blistering daytime and of the silvery-blue night.
Jess Williamson has a clarion voice and treats songwriting as real craft, with all of her literary references serving to evoke people and places while illuminating her own restlessness and curiosity of spirit. Her previous album Time Ain’t Accidental is quite simply one of my favourite records, a peppery yet swimmingly passionate country swoon. On the upcoming A Mile South of Heaven – which was produced by Shooter Jennings at Sunset Sound in Hollywood and is due out on 9 October via New West – she contends:
Depending on your outlook, a mile south of heaven may sound sad, or it may sound hopeful. We’re always a mile south of the impossible goals we set for ourselves, and my point is, maybe that’s ok, because a mile is pretty close. It’s about appreciating where we are now, because there is no finish line. There is always more work to be done.
Colin Stetson and Brìghde Chaimbeul – ‘Dirt Dance’
Colin Stetson and Brìghde Chaimbeul seem like a perfect coupling. Long based in Montreal, the Michigan native Stetson has become almost a byword for circular breathing and other muscular extended techniques, his defining sound a pulsating and oscillating rush of brass which in epic Odyssean fashion evokes at once the threshing and winnowing of wheat chaff and the inescapable propulsion of waves out at sea. Chaimbeul meanwhile who grew up on the sparsely populated Isle of Skye continues to elaborate a distinctive approach to the revived Scottish smallpipes, as she summons the centrality of their drones and conjures steep trance-like states amid short honks and blares or interweaving melodic lines which often seem to possess an old world, even diluvian character.
Stetson’s last album The love it took to leave you emphasised the industrial rawness of his sound which stretched from vengeful struts to stonking drum and bass as he recorded at the former metalworks facility Fonderie Darling in Montreal, while on Sunwise the smallpipes player Chaimbeul hunkered down for winter and the cèilidh as she incorporated words from her brother and father in addition to her own vaulting voice and drew upon aspects of Celtic mythology.
The two musicians have collaborated before, on Chaimbeul’s albums Sunwise and the earlier Carry Them With Us. Despite the precipitous nature of their sound and the robustness of their musicality, it tends to feel like an easy match as they share a penchant for sustained tones and more loping, brackish or pummelling rhythms and textures. It might be a surprise then that on the first single from their upcoming collaborative album All the light in the world they forego some of those steep drones or that open-ended atmosphere of moody and keening naturalism for something if not quite all buttoned up then certainly more present and dashing.
‘Dirt Dance’ opens through the swirls and eddies and brusque percussive fingerings of Stetson’s saxophone, of a piece with his work on the swashbuckling When we were that what wept for the sea. Yet all at once Chaimbeul sweeps in to obliterate any sense of solitariness or melancholy. She initiates the strident dance which has something of a martial or Highland quality.
Drones pulse away imperviously or almost impertinently with melodic accents offered up by the duo as fine examples of showmanship: high cuts and springing steps and maybe even the odd pirouette as Stetson and Chaimbeul compel each other on in a whirl of motion and harmony that makes it increasingly difficult to discern where one begins and the other ends. Then just when there seems to be nothing but pulse in the manner of motorik krautrock or Reichian minimalism, the chanter of the smallpipes soars and everything beneath scrambles over rocky terrain in a bid to keep up with that exalted sentiment.
The duo note that Stetson played the rare mezzo-soprano saxophone alongside Chaimbeul’s smallpipes on the recording, which they describe as a ‘a joyous mathy weaving of melody and modulation, rooted in pulse yet free and floating as it builds to its liftoff’. All the light in the world then promises to flash with moments of levity and commonality beyond more murky entanglements with the record due out on 11 September on Envision and Invada Records.
Sarah Davachi – ‘Interlude V: Harmonic, for Woodwinds’
Sarah Davachi conveys the first of three interludes from her upcoming album The Will of Tongues, this one entitled ‘Interlude V: Harmonic, for Woodwinds’ and performed by Phaedrus, the Switzerland-based Renaissance traverso consort. Here their layered flute drones seem to blend impishness, piety and a kind of furtive or remote quality, as though we we being watched obliquely down a maze of corridors or looped cloisters or by something which gazes back at us from between the stars. In a lengthy note Davachi expounds the process, writing:
Each Interlude corresponds to a particular system of just intonation alongside a specific sequence of pitches, and each may be articulated in one of three different ways: in either unison, harmonic, or polyphonic relation. The unison articulation begins with all players sounding the first pitch of the series in unison (or octaves); after some time, one player moves to the next pitch in the series and holds until all have moved to that same pitch in their own time. After continuing this second pitch as a unison for some time, the process moves similarly through the rest of the sequence. Once all players hold the final unison for some time, they end together.
The harmonic articulation unfolds in the same way but with several players offset by one note ahead of the others, creating a variable delay in the ensemble. Thus the unison articulation emphasizes only unisons and dyads (when players are in between alignment), while the harmonic articulation expands its possible harmonies into unisons, dyads, and even triads depending on where players are in the pitch series. Finally, the polyphonic articulation allows players to choose the order of pitches independent of the given sequence, resulting in incidental complex chords and harmonies that constantly shift within the performance and that change with each iteration of the Interlude.
Daivichi adds that the instrumentation of the interludes ‘remains flexible so long as it stays among similar instruments, resulting a homogenized “consort” sound’. Phaedrus here is comprised of Liane Sadler, Charlotte Schneider and Mara Winter on tenor flutes and Luis Martínez Pueyo on bass flute, with each of the instruments built out of boxwood by Giovanni Tardino based on a sixteenth-century set stored in the Accademia Filarmonica di Verona.
frances chang – ‘Auratones of Desire’
frances chang’s upcoming album been thinking bout confession is described as a ‘synth-tinged experimental pop excavation of the self’. But amid those emotionally laden keys, on the single ‘Auratones of Desire’ a string quartet does as much to define the prevailing atmosphere of pensiveness and lurking danger and sentimental drift.
There are almost fowl-like honks and a whirring low end that amplifies the queasiness of the lyrics, as chang expounds on those ‘Auratones of Desire’ as a transfiguration of the mundane, singing of a close encounter in an incantatory whisper as she recounts ‘At the university I thought I saw / The back of your head / I prayed it wasn’t you / It wasn’t you / And when it wasn’t, I was sad / Really really sad / Like a part of me had died, or disappeared’.
The clapping chug of the drums maintains a burbling, restless momentum as chang stretches out in search of some kind of interstellar release. After a series of bedroom recordings been thinking bout confession will be the third studio album by the Brooklyn-based artist, who has also contributed to several film scores and says that she often dreams about movie theatres.
She directed the music video for ‘Auratones of Desire’ alongside Annie Horner and cites the influence of the psychological drama Persona on their short film. Yet beyond the shifting sands of selfhood and the stark, sometimes almost bleached-out black and white of the Ingmar Bergman classic, the video for ‘Auratones of Desire’ suggests everything from found footage to Paris, Texas while together with chang’s music it conjures the work of Michelangelo Antonioni and his enigmatic mysteries or sense of lives sundered or out at sea.
Wiki – ‘Something New’ (feat. SALIMATA)
Rap boasts a rich and perhaps unusually complicated catalogue of love songs but for every earnest reflection and playful entreaty like ‘I Need Love’ or ‘Bonita Applebum’ there might seem a dozen songs of painful rejection (‘Passin’ Me By’) or stuttering dysfunction (‘Runaway’) or premature discharge (‘Let Me Watch’). That’s not to mention testosterone-filled boasts and more distant obsessions, the odd revenge fantasy or those songs that lay bare love’s bruises and scars.
Yet when Wiki says ‘I just wanna know ’bout you’ over a skittering drum pattern and glinting synths which summon a burgeoning warmth, we are inclined to believe him and not just because a certain bleary-eyed earnestness is one of his fortes. His first verse on ‘Something New’ is filled with canny wordplay that seems fuelled by genuine intimacy and a keen but duly checked desire. ‘I just wanna hold on to / Hope you wanna hold on too / I just wanna hold’ he sings with an emphasis less on the having than on the holding and when he suggests ‘We could go slow / You could blow up my phone / Whatever you wanna do / We could go home’ that final word feels not only low-key or steady but the proper terminus of all life’s stresses and charms. As produced by MIKE, the little tings of something like a triangle suggest bicycle bells or shop entryways and seem to ring out with a hopeful charge.
Then when SALIMATA enters as the object of his affections, she appears all but ready to chew him up and spit him back out. She’s certainly not for waiting around as through susurrations with just the hint of a feline growl, she announces ‘I’m feral, I don’t think you get it, I think I’m in love / I think I could cuff you, really wanna fuck / Tell me how do you do it ’cause I can’t get enough’. Whether love’s the drug or she requires some extra stimulation, she certainly seems smitten. But as Wiki returns to that longing and probing hook, we might ask ourselves is she really right for our boy?
The music video directed by Julia Sub and Temi Okotieuro emphasises some of these contradictions. For all of its yearning warmth, the chugging rhythms and smeared low end of the song seem to find a parallel in the depiction of Wiki as a playboy stuck on a treadmill of easy dalliances. Maybe he just loves the chase or maybe he’s just too much of a flirt, but if he keeps twisting and can’t stick or park himself with one woman it seems like he’ll keep on sputtering out.
Haru Nemuri – ‘祈りだけがある’ (live)
I’ve been loving the tremulous clarity and sheer passionate ferocity of these live renditions of songs by Haru Nemuri. They follow the release of ekkolaptómenos from last August, a self-produced record which was her first since going independent and came with the following as a mission statement of sorts:
Our souls don’t fit a single mold, yet the world often forces us to erase our differences to survive. Systems built for efficiency ignore individuality and quietly reinforce power. Drawing from Walter Benjamin’s idea of ‘divine violence’, the force that breaks laws rather than maintains them, this album is my attempt to fracture what feels unchangeable. The self, the now, the here: these aren’t fixed, but constantly transforming, hatching and being hatched, destroying and creating. If we accept that, then freer, more fluid ways of living together become possible.
That dynamic conflux or strident clash, where creation not only flows out from but seems native to the moment of destruction, certainly goes a long way towards describing Nemuri’s music. But in all honesty I found myself drawn to her previous album Shunka Ryougen more than ekkolaptómenos at the time of its rollout and release last summer, finding in the former a cleaving gesture and some sharper contrasts whereas the eleven songs of ekkolaptómenos at least to my ears sometimes began to bleed as one.
Haru Nemuri however is one of my favourite artists. You could describe her or she might describe herself using all sorts of genre descriptors and monickers from J-pop to noise or from cold wave to riot grrrl or from art rock and post-rock to post-hardcore and hip hop. At root though it’s just great rock and roll with a punk ethos, more electronics and a contemporary stylistic sheen. A self-styled poet rapper, you could pick any number of apparent opposites but in this case let’s define her sound as Iggy Pop at his most convulsive meeting the glacial grandeur of the cinematic instrumental ensemble Anoice.
She has now released five videos from a performance captured in the Tokyo ward of Shibuya last December, the final solo stop of her ekkolaptómenos tour. Each has been stunning from the interlocking ritual of the album opener ‘anointment’ to the rap contortions and clubby breakdowns of ‘symposium’ or ‘angelus novus’ with its determined spirit, pounding kicks and squealing bass. Some records just seem destined for live performance, but collectively these songs and their live renditions promise to send you back to ekkolaptómenos with your all of your senses whetted, ready to listen afresh and be startled anew.
The live date in Shibuya also featured songs from her back catalogue including Shunka Ryougen, as Nemuri was joined in the compact space of WWW by her live band Sleep Over Gangsta for an evening which she dubbed Incubation Process. We’ve seen and heard the cherubic vocals and indie churn of the record standout ‘Seventh Heaven’. And her live performance of ‘祈りだけがある’ or ‘Inori Dake Ga Aru’ gives you everything you could ever ask for as the glitching electronics, plosive beats and limpid music box melodies gather to produce an incandescent swirl. On this song some of Nemuri’s most frequent sites of comparison do come to the fore, like the pellucid musicality of Björk or Tujiko Noriko and the incantatory rhythmic energy of Boredoms. Yet the combination of disparate elements sounds totally her own, as ‘Inoku Dake Ga Aru’ winds up like a crank organ or mechanically powered light source before reaching a truly scorching climax.
Kelela – ‘the bridge’ (feat. PinkPantheress)
The penultimate track from Kelela’s stunning and reeling new avatar is sleek and night-clad with a bit of wooze and ooze. The percussion is clopping and plosive, offering untrammelled propulsion while the synths and guitar wobble and flounder slightly before the sparkle of a wand introduces PinkPantheress’s verse. More than ever on new avatar the musician has made that quavering post-club atmosphere her own, in a way that can feel almost hermetically sealed with a bit of bleed at the borders of the frame and can absorb all kinds of gesture and tone.
Through heaters and sultry come-hithers or icy breakup sequences there is an oscillating push and pull or to-and-fro as couples state their piece then falter before the finish line, waiting in yearning but nervous anticipation or for some action or sentiment that might still change their mind. Whether we are witnessing first-time hookups or shattered encounters where love is on the line, there is a sense of isolation amid presence, where both relationships and meaning hang on tremulously as though by a gossamer thread.
Here though together with PinkPantheress on ‘the bridge’ the singer is all about consummation. ‘First time, so right, my nook all night’ she urges, less to suggest than to corral, and ‘It’s heavenly when we collide’ she sings stretching out the fulfilment of the fantasy, a moment of blissed-out ecstasy which manages to sustain itself so long as the moon – that symbol of lust and transformation – continues to crest a silvery sky.
