DeVotchKa: “100 Lovers”

Here, first and foremost, is what I love about DeVotchKa: They believe in romance, which is an altogether different thing than saying they believe in love, or that their music is sensual or sexy, though I suppose those things are true enough. But no, what I love about this band is that they sing about love, about matters of the heart, but not in the style of bedroom troubadours or coffee-shop poets. They prefer widescreen, full-color Panavision. They prefer to conjure exotic locales, love stories that are sweeping epics. Their old-world sound– cobbled together with startling precision from Gypsy, Latin, and European folk idioms– is married to old Hollywood values; they sounds to me like they make a great effort to entertain us, and more than that, to make us true believers, if only for the duration of the album’s play, that singer Nick Urata and the lover he is addressing in these songs are the only two people in the world, and that even if the whole world lies between them, they can and must be together, and that nothing else really matters, and that maybe– just maybe– there is a romance so ravishing, an adventure so utterly worthy, that might one day sweep us along with it, just as it has DeVotchKa.

Or to put it a slightly different way: This music makes me swoon. Maybe I should have simply said that from the start, though there is something about this record that causes my internal sense of the dramatic to swell up inside me. Regardless, what DeVotchKa does, no one else is doing, exactly; they defy irony and hollow “cleverness” in the same way that U2 did at their 80′s peak, so I suppose it’s not too surprising that both bands look to the American desert for inspiration; the opening number on 100 Lovers is called “The Alley,” and none of the particulars of the song have much in common with U2, its sense of wide-open-spaces and dusty grandeur– of something beautiful and transcendent literally rising from the the dirt and sand of the earth itself– is very Joshua Tree, right down to the slow-and-solemn, “Where the Streets Have No Name” build-up. But at the same time, it’s a very different animal; DeVotchKa has a sense of old-world romance, to say nothing of a certain self-identification with pop music, that sets them apart, and Urata’s voice, falling somewhere between opera and Orbison, speaks to something timeless and classic.

The song is a big change-up for a band that has traditionally favored something a little more instrumentally complex, but it makes sense: It’s nothing if not cinematic, and there are few bands who fit that description so well, not just because of their film score work (Little Miss Sunshine, to name one) but because they have a neat trick wherein they invoke passing remembrances of certain times and eras while maintaining a sense that these stories and songs are at once as old as the world itself and as urgent as where you’re standing today– nostalgia in favor of something timlelessly beautiful, something that never really changes.

This is an album wherein pieces of exotica are collected and then left to simmer for a while; you hear that DeVotchKa draws from a myriad of cultures and styles, and that their arrangements and performances are masterful and complex, but what is most striking is simply the warmth and humanity of this music. Some bands use this kind of globe-trotting eclecticism almost for shock value, or as a way of creating something of an intellectual puzzle, but DeVotchKa is more about aiming for the heart; it’s worth noting, I think, that the song “100 Other Lovers” has a sunny sort of groove that could easily have been concocted by Vampire Weekend– a band that I really like– but while Vampire Weekend’s music is always a little detached (can I say hip?), DeVotchKa’s is very lived-in, spacious and inviting.

There is also a clear distinction between this band’s methods and those more common to the classic rock realm; I have already offered a U2 comparison that I mean to be favorable toward both bands, but I’m a bit more mystified by what I hear as strange echoes of The Police– strange because I never cared as much for that band but am clearly pretty taken with this one. Part of it might be the fact that Urata’s voice has a weird tonal similarity to Sting’s, but I think it’s mostly because Sting was always rather intent on appropriating sounds and styles from other cultures because I think he thought they sounded classy and sophisticated; he pieced them together with a jazz man’s precision.

Contrast that with DeVotchKa, who have a song here called “The Man From San Sebastian,” which brings together an accordion sound– one which I sort of associate with a French cafe, or at the very least Vaudeville– and a driving electric guitar rhythm that’s pitched somewhere between surf rock and New Wave. This all sounds sort of like something The Police could have done, but DeVotchKa don’t sound like they’re just doing it to see how the pieces fit, but because it’s an adventure. The sound of the song is pretty far removed from anything resembling a genteel jazz bar, but rather sounds like something that just sort of came along and swept both listener and band clear off their feet. And oh yeah: It’s pretty rockin’, too.

I keep invoking other bands, and I hate to, but truly, there’s not an easy way to discuss music as unique as this. I do think this is the best DeVotchKa album, moving as it does from the panoramic grandeur of its opening song and then “All the Sand in All the Seas,” another hard-hitter, to knottier, more intricate and intimate fare like the Mariachi-flavored folk tune “Bad Luck Heels,” which takes a kind of moment-of-truth freeze-frame and makes it into a touching moment of reflection and clarity, or “Ruthless,” where Latin and Greek elements meet for a cutthroat tale that casts passion as something not just exciting, but death-defying– a good summary of the album in the whole, I think; the biggest risk here is not in any of the arrangements or idiosyncratic match-ups of cultures and musics, all of which are technically unimpeachable, but rather the way heart is worn on sleeve and the band sounds continually like they are standing on the edge of something embarrassing or unseemly, yet they nevertheless reach for the big moments. They’re all heart, these folks, and I can’t help but fall hard for them every time.

Buddy Miller: “The Majestic Silver Strings”

There’s a sound that I love, used to introduce the second song on this album– it’s the sound of some frisky, playful guitar work, slowed down and then sped up in a way that makes it sound like the needle being dropped onto an old .45, eventually syncing up and, with a count-off, launching into a feisty take on the country chestnut “No Good Lover.” That’s the album in a nutshell: It’s pure guitar mastery from start to finish, but not in the way you might think. That Buddy Miller is an ace guitarist is not up for debate– he’s got no one less than Robert Plant to back up his shred cred– and the musicians he’s corralled into his Majestic Silver Strings troupe include jazz/blues stalwart Bill Friell, edgy Tom Waits/Joe Henry sideman Marc Ribot, and steel whiz Greg Leisz. These guys could put on a fireworks show for you if they wanted to. Much to my delight, however, they’d much rather put on a country music show.

And actually, the thing really does have the feel of a country music revue. Buddy Miller is the ringleader; he takes the lead on the first few tracks before passing along vocal duties to a star-studded lineup of country music pros (and even Ribot, whose unpolished romanticism as a singer somehow seems perfectly in sync with his guitar playing, and is an album highlight). It’s like a good old-fashioned guitar pull. Miller gets the mic back to close things out, and– how’s this for a perfect showstopper?– he gets wife Julie to join him.

It’s a celebration of great guitar playing, but much more than that it’s a celebration of country music. The songs here are mostly covers, and I think it’s fair to say that, while some of them might be familiar to you, none of them suffer from overexposure. (George Jones’ “Why Baby Why” is probably the best-known thing here.) There are lover’s laments and campfire sing-alongs; prison songs and jilted lover songs; songs of thick, syrupy sentiment and songs of unsettling gallows humor; songs for the honky tony and songs for lonesome nights on the prairie. Taken together, the material here doesn’t represent anything so formal as a history of country music, or even country guitar playing; it’s really just a love letter to the stuff, messy and heartfelt and brimming with personal quirks, humor, heartache, and general weirdness.

And as for those guitars, they’re usually used more for atmosphere than anything. Just about the boldest thing here, I think, is the opening number, “Cattle Call.” It’s a cowboy song, made for lonely nights of reverie around the campfire, and here it begins with a few minutes of gently-picked acoustic, sonorous electric, and high-and-lonesome steel guitar work, the aural equivalent of a slow-motion pan over desert plains and vistas that stretch for miles. It’s the slow and steady start that any good Western requires. Buddy’s voice comes in toward the end and carries it home, as gentle and unhurried as it began.

There’s a total lack of ego here, something that’s as evident from the lack of blazing guitar solos– which any one of these guys could peel off in a heartbeat and set the whole thing on fire, were they not so keen on serving the songs– as from the fact that, once “No Good Lover” kicks in, the emphasis is as much on Jay Bellerose’s drumming as it is on the electric guitar work. Buddy is in fine voice here, and Ann McCrary is his perfect vocal foil. Any album that wants to highlight the rich blend of heart and humor that’s always propelled country music would be a pitiful thing indeed without at least one good he-said/she-said duet, and this one is a gem– oddly sexy, or at the very least appealingly cantankerous, and rich in droll humor and bittersweet barbs. But the next Buddy song might be even better; he duets with Patty Griffin on “I Want to Be With You Always,” and it’s a mushy country weeper in the best possible sense, devastatingly beautiful.

Ribot sings lead on two songs– plus a duet with Buddy on “Why Baby Why”– and I never knew the man had it in him. Listening to his tracks is as revelatory as hearing him pick up the coronet on Joe Henry’s Blood from Stars– it seems there’s no musical endeavor to which the man can’t bring a wonderfully ragged, tattered sense of humanity and romance. His first song is a sad and stately prison song– “Barres De La Prison”– in which he brings a sort of deadpan resignation to his tale of woe; even better is “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie,” a six-minute masterpiece of heartbreaking frailty and ominous atmospherics. It is perhaps the album’s best showcase for its four-guitar interplay, even more so than the very fine, chugging instrumental “Freight Train.” (And there’s another must-have; what would an album like this be without a train song?)

As for the guest vocalists, Shawn Colvin’s “That’s the Way Love Goes” and Emmylou Harris’ “Why I’m Talkin’” are both exquisite ballads. I’m even more taken with Lee Ann Womack, though, whose “Return to Me is Lovely” but who really shines on the standout number “Meds”– a hilarious, heartbreaking, and somewhat unsettling tale of love and loss and anti-depressants, written by Ribot. She performs it with an actor’s instincts. But the real showstopper? Marc Anthony Thompson, the Chocolate Genius himself, lending his golden pipes to a twisted, irreverent, and again grippingly sad gallows tune called “Dang Me,” guitars and drums churning in the background like the gathering flames of Hell itself.

It’s actually a pretty good representative of the album itself– atmospheric, gritty, funny, a little weird, and totally country– but what makes this something truly superb is the balance of material like this with songs that are lighter, more playful, more sentimental; this might read on paper like an exercise in guitar-worship, but actually it’s a thrillingly lively and authentic (albeit idiosyncratic) homage to the breadth and depth of great country music– a tradition that this wonderful album simultaneously honors and joins.

Cowboy Junkies: “Demons”

Originally, this was going to be a full-fledged collaboration between the Cowboy Junkies and an in-the-flesh Vic Chesnutt; Chesnutt took his own life shortly before the recording was to begin, and the Junkies chose to continue the project, transforming it into a collaboration with Chesnutt’s own restless spirit. It became a covers album, in essence, every song here written by Chesnutt, but what’s not quite clear to me is whether the album was always going to be called Demons, or whether that’s what it became once it went from a lively collaborative process to a haunted one. Either way, it’s an evocative title, and I dare say it can be taken in a couple of ways. Clearly, of course, Chesnutt had his demons, and the number of songs here that offer troublingly prophetic indications of his deep depression and ultimate  departure makes, at times, for a harrowing and poignant listen.

But I think the Junkies have some demons of their own, and at times this record sounds almost like an exorcism. Clearly, they loved Vic Chesnutt, and I can’t imagine a more primal or perfect tribute to him than a recording here of “Flirted With You All My Life,” a recent Chesnutt song (taken from his final album, in fact) that seems to set the blood to racing through the veins of this spirited and deeply felt music, vivifying everything here and transforming it from something elegiac into a true act of catharsis. The song is lively, almost howling. Chesnutt’s lyric addresses his life-long melancholy and his frequent temptations toward taking his own life. The song hinges on four small words– “I am not ready”– that, in Chesnutt’s own recording, signaled a sort of half-hearted attempt to keep pushing forward. Margot Timmins delivers it here as a prayer, almost a chant– the way she belts it out, over and over, it’s as if she thinks she can will the words into reality and bring Chesnutt back.

Death looms over everything here, actually, but the rather astonishing thing about Demons is that it’s not an inconsolable, really not even a melancholy kind of record: It’s not a light listen by any means, but it is exhilaratingly beautiful and utterly devastating all at once. A record borne by death becomes an aggressive assertion of life, and indeed, it’s a thrill to hear just how much life is left in this band, now in its 26th year of recording. Demons is the second entry in their Nomad Series, a concentrated effort to record in new places and different ways, which resulted in the very lovely Renmin Park, a sort of synthesis of the band’s tried-and-true folk-rock sound with Chinese elements. This one is less exotic but, to my ears, it’s an even better, more explosive and powerful record, the sound of a band fully rejuvenated. They haven’t rocked this much in years; befitting both the band and the songs, a lot of this stuff exists in sort of a wistful, narcotic haze, but everything is very much grounded here in a slightly bluesy, always tuneful sort of rock and roll. They even break out the brass section on a couple of tracks, sounding triumphant in a way that is actually rather fitting for this life-affirming music.

Frankly, it’s the best Cowboy Junkies album since Trinity Sessions, but I’m also inclined to say– with no hint of sarcasm or smirk– that this is the very best Vic Chesnutt album. By that I mean, it feels, in a sense, like it is every bit the collaboration it was always intended to be. His spirit is very much in the room with these musicians, who seem at times to be a mouthpiece, channeling his spirit from somewhere in the great beyond. I mean no disrespect when I say that Chesnutt was never a technically gifted singer, and his albums often seemed like they downplayed the beauty intrinsic to the songs in favor of a sort of creepy sense of the peculiar and the macabre. Frequently, his loveliest songs were intentionally given the ugliest arrangements, as if to obscure just how directly emotive the material really was. Here, the Cowboy Junkies wear heart and melody on sleeve, and even when they tackle one of Chesnutt’s darker, more sinister short stories– I’m thinking of “West of Rome”– they make it beautiful and vibrant. These are songs that assert their own right to be here, their own voice, in a way their composer would never allow, and in that sense they feel to me to be the ultimate tribute.

There’s good stuff all over this one, the performances so strong across the board that picking a favorite is tough. Aside from the aforementioned “Flirted,” I’m rather keen on “See You Around” right now, which exists on the bluesy tip but takes on an almost sing-along quality and has a beautiful, shimmering organ sound. I like the way “Strange Language” seems to reach into a noisy patch and pull out something really tuneful, and the almost noir-ish treatment given to “Betty Lonely.” But the overall impact of this thing is both founded on and somehow transcendent of the quality of individual songs; it stands, ultimately, as a rousing piece of work that pulls life out of death, and there’s nothing else even remotely like that in the Cowboy Junkies catalog.

Drive-by Truckers: “Go Go Boots”

Little late with this one, but here it is: My take on the new Drive-by Truckers.

I’ve lived with this one for a while now, and I can’t help but feel a certain fondness for it. It’s uneven, to be sure, and there’s definitely material here that I typically skip over, but the mere reality of the courage and confidence it took to cut an album so outside of the norm, so given to their weirder inclinations, so utterly devoid of anything really resembling a rock and roll song– well, that impresses me. And some of the grooves are just killer.

To put it in perspective, I like it better than The Big To Do, and it’s certainly got more highlights than The Fine Print, but its lack of balance makes it a much lesser album than Brighter Than Creation’s Dark, which is still my favorite of their albums.

Catching Up with The Long Play: “Days of the One Night Stands”

In this series of Long Play posts, we’ve been discussing several of the recurring themes and ideas that have been threaded through these five Sam Phillips EPs, and indeed, through the whole of her career– in particular, the way she’s been dealing, more candidly than usual, with her faith (“I Shall Seek Thee Earnestly,” the whole of the Cold Dark Night EP) and the breakdown of her marriage (“Go On Alone,” to some extent the Hypnotists in Paris EP); different conceptions of pop music and what it means to be a pop singer, exemplified best, I think, in the wildly different approaches taken to Hypnotists and Magic for Everybody; and her ongoing wrestling match with the elusive nature of mystery and art (“Magic for Everybody”).

Now we come to the fifth and final EP, and find Phillips relinquishing– however briefly– some of these threads, holding on to others, and adding some new ones to the mix. If you want to hear her weave all of them together at once, just wait until we get to the Cameras in the Sky album– the closest she’s come to a sort of definitive, career-defining album, I’m tempted to say.

I chuckled a little bit when I realized exactly what Days of the Night Stands really is; I suppose it isn’t too strange that a series that spanned an orchestral album, a holiday album, and a concept album would also include a covers album, which is exactly what this last EP is, and with that comes to the fore another thematic thread that’s been woven– somewhat more subtly, up to this point– through this Long Play material– namely, the role of the interpretive singer, which Phillips plays adroitly on these five songs.

That she relishes the position as an interpreter of his own work has been apparent from the very first EP, which recast three of her classic songs in an entirely new light; I loved the way the more pop-oriented, chamber-quartet takes on “Say What You Mean” and “I Don’t Want to Fall in Love,” for instance, underscored the meaning of those compositions (as torch songs, basically) while also offering a very gentle subversion to how we think about love songs and “standards” to begin with. To that end, there is a new version of “Lying” on this album that is just terrific. I’ve always thought there was a big pop hit just waiting to happen, lurking somewhere in that tune, and while neither this nor the Cruel Inventions version is quite it, I do already prefer this version, a sort of folksier version with the ripping electric guitar solo replaced by spirited violin. The melody and lyric are unchanged but the entire mood of the song has been upended, not so much to change its meaning but rather to fit with the late-night, chill-out vibe Phillips wanted to capture here. It’s fascinating on that level, but mostly it’s just a lovely song, as is her long-awaited recording of “Where is Love Now,” which she wrote in the early 90s but has never recorded herself until now; it’s one of her most straightforwardly rousing ballads, and encapsulates a side of her she’s really never shown before the Long Play came int being.

The highlight of this record, for me, though, is her cover of the tremendous Tom Waits song “Green Grass,” which she’s been talking about recording forever now; I believe it was rumored, at one point, to be on Don’t Do Anything, but I’m glad she held it until now, as it fits the purposes of this EP quite nicely and also serves as a Long Play highlight. Phillips writes in her liner notes that she always felt this song should be sung by a woman, and indeed, it’s amazing how something like that can alter the nature of the song. She also does it– not too surprisingly, I suppose– something like a standard, again collaborating with the Section Quartet, and the end result is a thing of ominous, mournful beauty. It might be my favorite Phillips vocal in the whole series, yet I also find myself thinking that, now that we’ve heard it sung by a great female singer, it could potentially be revelatory to hear it done by a full-on crooner; Joe Henry is sort of the obvious choice, given that he sang on another Long Play track, but I also find myself thinking how splendidly Jarvis Cocker might handle this one.

The remaining two songs took a bit longer to sink their hooks in, but I have come to really enjoy both. There is a take on “(I Am Not Your) Stepping Stone”– recorded by both the Monkees and the Sex Pistols– that downplays the punk and the rock in favor of something much more low-key and hypnotic; there is also a pleasantly simple, sprightly take on the standard “Undecided,” which serves almost as a sort of reversal of the way Phillips took her own pop songs and made them sound like old standards on Hypnotists.

Which makes it seem, strangely enough, like a nice full-circle gesture for this wonderfully engaging series. On that note, I should say that I do plan on saying quite a bit about the Long Play album, just as soon as I pull my thoughts together; it’s a really magnificent piece of work and a rousing finale to this very fine endeavor. As for the EPs, I have no reservations about saying that, taken collectively, they represent Sam Phillips at the peak of her creative powers. That this music is destined to be heard only by a small number of people is a real shame, but I couldn’t be more optimistic about where Sam will go after this, as she really seems to be firing on all cylinders these days, as though her best work is yet to come.

Lucinda Williams: “Blessed”

I remember hearing a lot of Lucinda Williams fans saying– only half-jokingly, I think– that falling in love might have been the worst thing that ever happened to her as an artist. This was around the time of her last album, Little Honey, which documented– in sometimes embarrassing detail– the domestic happiness she’d found with her then-new husband, and yes, alright… the writing was a little dicey, certainly a far cry from the scalpel-sharp incisiveness and verbal precision she brought to her tales of unraveling love on classic albums like Car Wheels on a Gravel Road and World Without Tears. But of course, blaming the slack quality of the songs on her matrimony is rather churlish, and unfair to boot: Quality control, at least as far as lyrics go, was also something of an issue on West, a divisive record (and to my ears, a rather simplistic and ineffective one) that was sort of like Little Honey‘s exact opposite, a real downer of an album, full of loneliness and failed connections.

But now comes Blessed, and with it a fresh sense of perspective, which is in itself enough to make this my favorite Lucinda since World Without Tears; that it also happens to be her strongest set of songs and maybe her best-sounding album ever only sweetens the deal. This one is tougher to pigeon-hole as far as its mood goes, as there are some really sticky kiss-offs, a song about war, a song about death, a song about suicide, but also songs of devotion and compassion that ring true precisely because of the darkness that skirts their edges. All of them are brought together, seemingly, under the title song, a sort of philosophical statement that strikes me as being truly wise; its basic premise is that, even when things go down the crapper, as they clearly have for the narrators of a lot of these tunes, the mere fact of our existence suggests that we all tend to have it much better than we deserve.

Williams brought in Don Was to produce this one, fresh from the really remarkable country album he made with Elizabeth Cook (who I still think it a sharper writer than Lucinda, truth be told, in both the heartbreaking stuff and certainly in the funnier stuff), and he captures a really vibrant, full sound here that makes it immediately the best-produced Lucinda Williams album to date. There are a couple of weepy numbers early on in which sound and song alike are firing on all cylinders, as though everyone involved here is pushing each other toward forward. “I Don’t Know How You’re Livin’” is the kind of teary-eyed country slow-burner that Williams has always done so well– think of, say, “Fruits of My Labor” from the World Without Tears album– and the lyric here has a special resonance; it’s an expression of compassion and friendship that’s a far cry from the all-atwitter newlywed romance of Little Honey, sounding hard-won and really earned, wise and experienced in a way that many of the best songs on this album are. It turns “I’ve always got your back” into something really profound; “Copenhagen,” an elegiac meditation on the passing of a friend, does something similar with the simple phrase “you are missed,” and both songs are given a sad sort of shimmer by Greg Leisz’ expressive steel guitar work.

Elsewhere, the production has the effect of elevating lesser lyrics. “Seeing Black,” the rocking-est thing present on this mostly  meditative set, is an absolutely enraged, accusatory song directed at the late Vic Chesnutt, who took his own life a couple of Christmases ago. The sentiment is powerful, the lyrics oddly forced; there is deep feeling to this recording, though, and I think a lot of its power comes via Elvis Costello, of all people, who doesn’t lend his voice to the track but does provide a wonderfully slashing, violent electric guitar performance that raises this one into something darkly hypnotic.

Speaking of hypnotic, there are a few songs here that take on almost a droning, repetitive quality; they’re not quite kin to the talking blues numbers she’s done before, but they do have the quality of being moody and meditative, as though the singer is really chewing on her own words, savoring the taste of them on her tongue. The title cut fits the bill here, and is without question the musical and spiritual heart of the album– its sense of perspective is welcome, though some of the turns of phrase are predictable and not as clever as Williams might think– but my favorite of this lot is “Born to be Loved,” largely for its late-night blues atmosphere (thanks once again, Don Was) but also for the way lines like “you weren’t born for nothing” seem like answers to “Seeing Black” and its seething rage.

I’m not quite as taken by everything here– “Soldier’s Song” is a tale of war that is perfectly fine, but, for whatever reason, doesn’t hit me in the same way that a lot of the new PJ Harvey songs do, and “The Awakening” is one of those rambling numbers that seems to wear out its welcome pretty early on– but it’s worth celebrating this album for the production alone, which is really just stellar from the first song (“Buttercup,” an otherwise unremarkable roots-rock number that’s given a whole new dimension by the addition of a bluesy organ) to the last (“Kiss Like Your Kiss,” just aching with southern sensuality). I should also add that, if the songs aren’t as across-the-board excellent as the ones on World Without Tears, I do think there are some terrific ones, and there’s a sense of ease to them that’s pleasing, all the more so because of the way they’re sung; fresh off of her wonderful duet with Karin Bergquist on the Over the Rhine album, Williams has never sounded so human as she has lately, and there’s a lived-in quality, a hard-won wisdom to these songs that follows suit.

Sean Rowe: “Magic”

My review of Magic– the very special ANTI- debut from singer/songwriter Sean Rowe– is posted at CT today.

I’m grateful to the CT crew– and to my editor, Mark Moring, in particular– for letting me review this record for them. I remember a time when CT’s music coverage was confined, very narrowly, to expressly religious music; now, they’re letting me write about a dark, complex, occasionally-profane singer/songwriter album from a man who is, by his own admission, irreligious, but who employs religious language for his own, unblinking expressions of existentialism. The times, they are a-changin’.

Speaking of which: I am sincerely, deeply impressed by this album, which may be the most accomplished and mature album I’ve heard from a (relatively) new singer/songwriter in a long time. Here’s a guy who really stands out from the perennial crop of “New Dylans”– he’s more into slippery, spiritual love ballads in the Van Morrison vein, sturdy old-school rock and roll like Bruce Springsteen might have written once upon a time, even some Beat-centric finger-poppers a la Tom Waits, circa The Heart of a Saturday Night. His bread and butter seems to be his glacially-paced but thrillingly wordy Leonard Cohen-styled folk ballads, though. Everything about the guy– voice and songwriting alike– suggests a much older, more seasoned man, which makes me awfully excited about where he might go from here.

Catching Up with The Long Play: “Old Tin Pan”

You don’t even have to play the music to know that this is a slightly different entry in the Long Play series; the three previous releases each boasted at least one song we recognized– be it the three re-worked Sam Phillips classics on Hypnotists in Paris, the Christmas standards on Cold Dark Night, or the freshly-recorded Gilmore Girls song concluding Magic for Everybody– but that’s not the case with Old Tin Pan, a tracklisting that seems, at first glance, to be comprised entirely of new material (unless you’ve been fortunate enough to see Sam on tour in recent years; “When You’re Down” has been a concert favorite for a while now, but has never been released on a Sam Phillips record until now).

Her liner notes complicate matters significantly; as it turns out, there aren’t exactly new songs, but rather songs that were cut from Don’t Do Anything at the eleventh hour. But the plot thickens even further, literally– the songs included on Old Tin Pan have a narrative thread that unites them, offering a loose retelling of the Aimee Semple McPherson story. This all seems, at first blush, like it could potentially be problematic. Albums with a narrative focus can sometimes be a little awkward or undercooked as far as stand-alone songs go, which is particularly problematic on a six-song EP, where there really just isn’t time or space for anything resembling a full-on rock opera. The fact that these songs are, on some level, “leftovers” might also be a sign of trouble– an indicator that this one isn’t going to hold up as well as a stand-alone album when compared to the three terrific EPs that preceded it.

But of course, Phillips’ track record with the Long Play project should, by now, be more than enough to allay any fears, and indeed, Old Tin Pan is as good as any of the Long Play EPs I’ve heard thus far. (And after this, there’s only one left!) Actually, everything about it fits Phillips well, and pushes her, in subtle ways, to try new things. The story of Aimee Semple McPherson– a Christian evangelist who came to Hollywood and got tangled up in show biz– has obvious resonance with Phillips’ own story of Christian pop stardom and subsequent exile, while the trappings of pre-Depression Hollywood make for an agreeable source of inspiration for Phillips, who has always had a sort of old-timey flair that manifests itself in some jaunty little piano numbers; I’m thinking in particular of the great Fan Dance track “Edge of the World,” which is echoed in another playful piano ditty here, “Aimee’s Temple.”

That song, and a couple of others ones, take obvious inspiration from the McPherson saga, but you almost wouldn’t know it if you didn’t read Phillips’ liner notes; the two figures have such striking similarities that while Sam may have written these songs from somewhere in McPherson’s own headspace, they work just as well at telling her own story. To that end, I’m pretty wild about a song here called “I Shall Seek Thee Earnestly,” which, even more than the Christmas hymns from Cold Dark Night, seems to speak more plainly to religious themes than anything Phillips has recorded in a while. (Which is, again, not to say that her recent work has been anything less than sublime, gloriously concerned with the mysteries of grace; the language is just more direct here.) It also happens to be sort of an unusual piece of music to hear on a Sam Phillips record, too, the Section Quartet and drummer Jay Bellerose producing a hypnotic, almost trance-like sound that mirrors the lyric’s pious devotion and spiritual vigor.

My favorite thing here, though, is the closing song, “Go Alone,” an almost jazzy-sounding thing that might be the closest thing Phillips has done to a torch ballad. The lyric is even more provocative; she’s rarely commented so directly on the breakdown of her marriage, which is saying something when you consider how explicit some of the lyrics on A Boot and a Shoe seemed to be. That the song is also perfectly well in keeping with the voice of Aimee Semple McPherson is a testament to Phillips’s adept touch as a songwriter, and to the direction that Don’t Do Anything might have taken.

The remainder of the material focuses on Phillips’ chamber/pop side, as opposed to the sprightlier, more rock-oriented pop of Magic for Everybody, “When You’re Down” might warrant special mention, not just because it’s a great song that’s finally seeing the light of day but also because it marks something of a return to the sound of Hypnotists in Paris, but reveals yet another dimension to the Section Quartet’s playing, sounding more violent and tempestuous than anything on that short record. All told, though, Old Tin Pan stands on its own, and is, if anything, a particularly sophisticated and well-executed entry in the Long Play series, which I’m seriously starting to wish could last forever.

Adele: “21″

Adele’s 21 made its debut in NPR’s “First Listen” series not too long ago, and, true to form, the public radio blogging team introduced the music with an appreciative portrait of the artist and her work. What struck me, though, was that this NPR portrait– unlike the usual ones, which tend to be purely on the positive side of things, at times bordering on breathless in their praise– was accompanied by what I’m tempted to call an apology– or, at the very least, a defense of why a TV pop singer, just barely out of her teens, is worthy of play on National Public Radio. This is what the NPR profile says: “The songs on 21 don’t offer up much specific detail of the heartache Adele says she’s suffering, or even outline the person she’s battling. Her lyrics don’t always reflect a hard-won wisdom or tell stories about a truth that’s tough to swallow.” Then it goes on to praise her voice, as though her powerhouse singing makes up for the shoddy songwriting.

And fair enough, I suppose. Great singing can overcome weak material, to a limited extent, and I don’t think anyone’s going to argue that the main draw for Adele is anything other than those magnificent pipes. But the presumption of the NPR criticism rubs me the wrong way. I’m tempted, for one thing, to believe that the crack about a lack of “hard-won wisdom” in these heartbroken, lover’s laments is more a dig at her age than the lyrics themselves. And the complaint about a lack of specificity– and the more general feeling that the NPR writer is simply tired of love songs, and holds it against Adele that she didn’t completely turn the conventions upside down and reinvent the wheel, so to speak– overlooks what strike me as the more obvious, central truths of this album. For one, it’s more about heart than head– this is music you feel, and that you belt out, along with the singer, while stuck in traffic or cleaning your flat. And for two, there is a level of craft here that is genuinely impressive; just because they aren’t “profound” doesn’t mean they aren’t good songs.

Actually, a lot of them are really great songs. Adele titled her debut album 19 and this one 21, the obvious implication being that she has matured, and that this one is a reflection of where she is now, as a human being and as an artist. And matured she has, not just as a singer but as a songwriter, or, more precisely, a creator of ace singles. To the first point I see little point in elaboration; if you’ve heard Adele then you know she’s a dynamite singer, unfairly tagged as an Amy Winehouse clone in the early days even though she’s always been pretty clearly a better, more human vocalist, I think. And if you haven’t heard Adele’s voice, that’s just your loss, okay?

But as far as the songs go: Yes, this is something of a breakup album, and yes, these are all sort of sadsack love songs– with the exception of the two opening numbers, the smash hit “Rolling in the Deep” and the just-as-good “Rumour Has It,” both of which are more incensed than melancholy, but what really matters is that they’re pure dynamite as singles. “Rolling in the Deep” is an irresistible stomp, and “Rumour Has It” combines Motown harmonies and spy-movie guitar riffs in a way that obviously has the 60s as a touchstone but doesn’t ever recall the era as precisely as, say, a Daptone production might. Adele keeps the passion burning hot enough to make it a real burner even in 2011, though really, pop this good is pretty timeless.

“Turning Tables” is the first of many slow songs, and here Adele eases into something a little showier, the kind of powerhouse ballad that’s made to win shows like American Idol or The X Factor. Call it a throwback to her roots. But it’s not shameless pandering. It’s a beautiful song, the lyric playing out with an intoxicating flow, and that voice! Forget about it. The thing’s just killer. The next song, “Don’t You Remember,” is both slower and flashier, an even more brazen ballad that might be playing on soft rock radio for decades to come, but who cares? Again, she sells it, and it’s triumphant even with its ready-for-Broadway crescendos.

The best example here of the merit of this writing, though, is in the closing number, “Someone Like You.” It’s another ballad, and, while it’s a bit more subtle, it’s every bit the showstopper. The lyric is constructed with real momentum, the hook is ingratiating without being cloying, and the words, far from being lacking in specificity, are emotionally complex: There is great sadness here, and resignation, but also acceptance, maturity, and resilience. It’s a song about heartbreak, and about moving on.

Admittedly, Adele’s instincts as a record-maker are less sharp than her instincts as a singer and as a songwriter, though the faults of this particular record can probably be pinned on the team of producers– Rick Rubin among them– who stack the album a bit too heavy with ballads. But I give them major props for keeping things simple; there are drums and guitars where needed, in many cases just piano and strings. The focus, in other words, is squarely on the voice, and on the songs, and as far as I’m concerned those two things are more than enough to carry this fine, moving pop record.

Catching Up with The Long Play: “Magic for Everybody”

I’ve been making up for lost time, spending many of my listening hours catching up on Sam Phillips’ subscription music service The Long Play, and blogging my way through each of the five EPs– and, as of last Saturday, there’s a full-length album, Long Play capper Cameras in the Sky, that’s really terrific; a full review of that will come once I’ve made it through these EP catch-ups. (And yes, I confess to some cheating here: I’ve still not listened to the final two EPs, having promised myself not to move ahead until the blog entry is up, but I couldn’t help myself with the prospect of the first Sam Phillips full-length this side of Don’t Do Anything in 2008).

Actually, I have to confess to a second thing, as well. Really, I could’ve/should’ve reviewed the third EP in the series last year when it released. This is the one and only Long Play offering that was made available to the general public, posted to iTunes though, alas, not made available as a physical CD or record. And in that regard, Magic for Everybody is aptly named: This one is, indeed, for everybody.

And that’s not the only part of the title that holds true. This is Sam in full on mischief-maker mode, applying her entire repertoire of smoke and mirrors and parlor tricks to a set of pop songs that sparkle with real magic. In a way, I think each of the three EPs I’ve covered thus far has been about showing a different side of Sam Phillips the pop songwriter– Hypnotists positioned her melodic gifts within something of a classicist/orchestral pop setting, sans drums and guitar, while Cold Dark Night was a quirky take on standards, and originals that might as well be standards. Magic for Everybody is a full-on fireworks show, though– Sam Phillips pulling out all the stops for what might be the most whimsical and enticing five-song run she’s ever recorded.

You think I’m kidding, but the sense of playfulness here– and the precision with which she stacks these songs with sounds and harmonies and irresistible hooks– makes this one pure dynamite. The title track is sort of a flirty little pop number, one of two or three tracks here that wears the artist’s Beatles fascination proudly but subverts it with a snappy, pyrotechnic sound that’s all her own. This one belongs in the long line of Sam Phillips songs that feels like a collaboration between singer and drummer– Jay Bellerose lends a whole extra dimension to so many of her tracks– and it’s also another one of her artist’s manifestos, a song about exploration and mystery and grace that is particularly profound given Phillips’ dramatic experience as a former Christian pop star. The lyric is an anthem, a banner song that summarizes her career in the same way as “I Need Love” and “Five Colors” before it: “Don’t let perfect make you blind / To this beautiful world / Don’t erase your crooked lines / Take your mistakes and come with me.” Now imagine that as a sing-along and you’re getting a hint of just how brilliant this stuff is.

And that’s not even the best song here. The opener, “Always Merry and Bright,” is a song quite unlike anything else Sam has done. (Well, there’s one song that’s on the same plane, but it was recorded after the fact; we’ll come to that when we come to Cameras in the Sky). Recorded with the cinematic swell of the Section Quartet and hand percussion from Bellerose– the man can make shaking a tambourine sound like the most ingenious, musical act in the world– it’s a pop song in the classical sense, elegant and stately and reminding me of something Richard Hawley could have put on Lady’s Bridge. And the lyric is just perfect in its pungent bittersweetness.

The whole set is great; there’s a flirty little tease of a song called “Trouble,” and there’s a number that I’m almost tempted to call a rocker, if only for its rowdy sense of energy, called “Lever Pulled Down”– another pitch-perfect pop song with energy to burn. There is also a gorgeous, sparkling take on “Tell Her What She Wants to Know,” originally written when Phillips was doing the Gilmore Girls music.

My final take? There are weightier, more exploratory and profound Sam Phillips records than this, but as a collection of crack singles, this thing is tops– fun and playful and with a sense of mischief, but far from frivolous or throwaway. Actually, as a recordmaker, Sam has never sounded so confident in her craft (though again, I reserve the right to change my mind about that when we get to Cameras).

Old Tin Pan is next.