SOUL SURMISE

Joni Mitchell - Travelogue

Taking the pre rock ‘n roll classics was no new idea when Joni Mitchell took the classics of the last centuries first half and orchestrated them into an intriguing work, Bryan Ferry’s was marvellous (I’ll leave Rod Stewarts to another web page!). Most intriguing were her own compositions that sat in the collection, A Case Of You and Both Sides Now. Even more intriguing she has now followed it up with orchestrated covers of her own songs! Now if you had suggested to me songs like Amelia, Woodstock, Cherokee Louise or Hejira given the orchestra sound I’d have discouraged it. But now that it is done it is a revelation. Musical director Larry Klein has brought together an orchestra and jazz players and given his ex wife’s work new resonance and drama in the most tasteful and subtle of ways.

What is most revealing is to hear thirty years of someone’s work in the same musical contextualisation. Yes, the Dylan and McCartney albums are live albums with the same band covering entire careers but there is something about this Mitchell experiment that because all the songs are rejuvenated on the same level that everything gets new perspective. The other thing that has been most clever when you bring in such a vast array of players is that Mitchell’s voice is the centre of attention at all times. And that voice seems deeper than her Baezlike wail, probably resulting somewhere between the abuse cigarettes and the wisdom of maturity.

The packaging is immaculate. We have been used to album covers of Joni’s painting since the beginning and portraits have been very regular in recent releases but inside the outer box there is a book between the CDs in the digipack where we get an independent piece of Mitchell’s art, her paintings complimented by quotations from her songs. Getting the opportunity to read her visual images alongside her poetic ones is a highly intoxicating mix. A live concert with her paintings going up behind would be some experience. We get a glance of it the multi media bonus material here. The booklet is all wrapped in quotes from Love her musical paraphrase of I Corinthians 13 with her paraphrase of Yeats’ Slouching Towards Bethlehem and a few other snippets of Refuge From The Roads where the album gets its title, Amelia and the spiritually drenched Woodstock and The Circle Game. Mitchell has confessed to having been in a “Born again phase” when she wrote Woodstock and this album is an intriguing way to ask has her work ever since been a travelogue “back to the garden” that she called us to in that song.

That is for another day what we need to keep going back to here is that voice and that poetry that makes this a near musical drama which could only be bettered if she now brought it alive in the theatres of the world. The Opera House in Belfast awaits you Joni!

Julie Miller - Blue Pony

I was flicking through the alternative country section, of Belfast's Premier store for that genre, Good Vibrations, when right there among the Jayhawks, Uncle Tupelo, Wilco and Son Volt was this album by Julie Miller. Was it CCM Julie? Why had I not heard of it's release? The label Hightone convinced me that it was our woman as her husband Buddy is signed to the same.

Miller has long been the premier queen of CCM. She is as zany as her voice which name checks somewhere between Cindy Lauper and Victoria Williams but her songs have been crystal clear in their testimony of a lost girl found in the old fashioned gospel way by the cross of Calvary. Indeed her lyrics could have been accused of deluxe cheese spread were it not for her crazy charismatic personality and gifted song writing.

Well here she is cheese free but with no less focus on redemption. This is a quality CD as would the list of session men suggest. Steve Earle duets on I Will Call On You, the clearest statement of faith in these 13 songs. Emmy Lou Harris sings on Forever my Beloved. Karin Peris from Innocence Mission duets on By Way Of Sorrow and Bill Mallonee from the Vigilantes Of Love co writes the benediction, Last Song. The omnipresent Phil Madeira, Sixpence Non The Richer's Matt Slocum and The Choir's Steve Hindalong also help out here and there.

It is country rock veering both sides of the fine line between the two, but if you hate Gareth Brooks do not fear, this is much more universal. And it is good stuff. It is Miller's most accomplished album and another indication that you have to cut it a little bit harder to make it in the real world. Particularly strong is her duet with husband Buddy on Take Me Back, about the stray returning to love and like this one many of the songs deal with redemption and the search for love and meaning in a world of sin and emptiness where the devil can often be an angel. there is a great deal of reality written across this work. Sorrow and failure are rife and God is found in such weakness and toil - "but still I know sometimes, God serves the best wine up right from a paper cup" (Letters To Emily). I Call On You is the signature tune with it's assurance in who can bring some help - "When trouble has swallowed my soul I call on You/When I'm waylaid and losing my hold I call on You."

Julie Miller at her very very best I'd say!

Buddy Miller - Universal United House Of Prayer

Buddy Miller's new album sits politically beside Steve Earle's The Revolution Starts Now and spiritually on the other side Ben Harper and The Blind Boys Of Alabama's There Will Be A Light. Stocki thinks it is the best of his career...

Universal United House Of Prayer is as in your face spiritually as Steve Earle’s The Revolution Starts Now is politically and deals with the very same response to the very same war. It is Gospel blues of a most upright sort. No messing or ambiguity. This is the subject matter of the contemporary Christian music industry but with a huge difference - it doesn't sit in a vacuum but gets sung into the worries of the year. Which brings us back to the war.

The cover of Mark Heard’s Worry Too Much (Is Pierce Pettis’s “open every album with a Heard song” catching on!) reveals the mood in the Miller household, Bob Dylan’s God On Your Side lays out his position and The Louvin’ Brothers There’s a Higher Power points to hope and escape. Not that this is about blind escape. It finds its heart in what the best of traditional Gospel music was - people in slavery well aware of the daily strife but always trusting in a God who cared and watched over them and ultimately would set them free. Where the aforementioned Earle sends a missive to the President or about who the President should be, Miller is bringing wisdom and hope to those who live with the consequences.

It is an astonishingly assured work of faith. Shelter Me is seeking the Lord to do just that; Wide River To Cross is a confession of stumbling and straying; the co-write with Victoria Williams This Old World is about Jesus washing those sins away and challenges a new way to live – “pray pray/time to love every man woman and child /just forgive and let live for a little while”; Don’t Wait written with Jim Lauderdale calls for immediate repentance; Fall On The Rock written by wife Julie is a judgemental conclusion – “you better fall on the rock /or the rock's gonna fall on you.”

As with all Buddy’s albums the playing is immaculate as is fitting of one of the most respected guitar players in his genre. Personally I find the arrangements and production here more organic and authentic than ever. It is bluesy and brooding with deep rooted Gospel joyfulness, politically acute and spiritually tender and erudite. At last the album that Buddy Miller has always threatened to make.

Maria McKee - Late December

Maria McKee gave up on the charts many years ago, no doubt perturbed that her weakest ever song Show Me Heaven topped the charts. In recent years she has been doing her own thing, not caring whether anyone really cares or not which is just as well because very few seem to care. 2003’s High Dive was lavishly produced and she returned to a more familiar roots style for 2005’s Peddlin’ Dreams. She took the opportunity in the dialogue between songs on her live acoustic album from 2006 to warn her older fans that she was off again on her self-indulgent fetishes and so Late December is again like no other McKee album although there are little echoes of nearly everything she has ever done. Like High Dive there is a 70s production thing going down with hints at Meat Loaf, Queen though less echoes of George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass this time. It is big and layered, dramatic, operatic and at times not short of bombastic. But then My First Night Without You could have been on her eponymous debut and she covers her own song, if that is possible, with her first studio version of A Good Heart, written when she was 18 and a member of Lone Justice. It was number 1 all over Europe for ex Undertones Fergal Sharkey and here McKee retreats it to see if she might get some radio play. You see I think she does care about what the radio thinks. No matter what the arrangement it is that emotional powerhouse of a voice that stands out though there is no doubt that there are times when she both stretches it too far and over layers it too much. There are some good moments on Late December but overall she is frustratingly contrary.

Maria McKee - Peddlin' Dreams

Maria McKee has the voice. That has never been in question. She once told a journalist friend of mine that her voice was her witness and I laughed at such a cop out until I heard her sing live and it confirmed my belief God! There will be a few atheists turned agnostic when they here the variety of her performances here.

Where she has frustrated the critics is in not frustrating herself by pleasing the critic. You get the impression she is a feisty, impatient girl with a short attention span and the musical ability to feed it. So she takes years to bring us her life’s work,the meticulous and lavish High Dive a rich layered and ambitious record that at times lost her voice in the mix. This was after she PJ Harveyed out on her 1996’s outing Life Is Sweet. Peddlin’ Dreams will please the old fans who wanted a second helping of her eponymous debut album all along. Indeed the first track, Season Of The Fair, it seems, is an outtake from that album. We believe of course that this is her flightiness bringing her home on her terms rather than giving in to expectations. Though there seems a desire to do things quicker and with less thought this time around that shouldn’t give any suggestion of a work any less complete.

Life is not so sweet for most of the characters here which is surprising for a happily married woman on a role artistically. My One True Love is a gorgeous piece of depression. It deceives in title and the celebratory poetry of beautiful landscapes and human relationships. The singer misses it all, it is not for her. The melancholy can never go too dark and desolate as McKee’s voice can never go Nick Cave. The title track suggest where the shadows get cast, the dreams of America’s cheap promises of consumerist happiness. People In The Way is McKee’s best ever lyric and her at her most autobiographical. Centred on her own flirting with fame and its fickleness she gives advice to the young wannabes; we are all just people in the way and that in itself is more than enough.

A cover of Neil Young’s Barstool Blues is a major hint at the overall influence here and follows a Youngesque guitar workout on Everyone Has A Story. If McKee settled long enough in this terrain she’d chase out Lucinda Williams as alternative country’s darling and never allow the new kid on the cattle ranch fences Kathleen Edwards to get up on her horse. She’d reign as Queen but enjoying herself as just a person on the way leaves excitement of anticipation as to where she goes from here; to satisfy her own ambitions no-one else’s.

Paul McCartney - Back in the US

The last few years have seen some changes in the life of Sir Paul McCartney. His beloved Linda passed away and at the age of 60 the friendly granddad of pop got his leathers out and returned to The Cavern for some good old rock ‘n roll, fell in love and put together a kick ass young band to record his most potent album in some years Driving Rain. And so then on the back of all that, the newly wed headed out across America on a critically acclaimed live extravaganza.

Here is the record of the tour; thirty five songs most of which are household names and interestingly twenty of which are Beatles’ songs. Of course it is more than good but where it lacks is in any new slants on the old sounds. Where it is most satisfying is in the three songs off Driving Rain and then the acoustic set where familiar live chestnuts like Blackbird, Every Night and Fool On The Hill are complimented by the rarer Mother Nature’s Son, the recent soundtrack tune Vanilla Sky and, a tribute to the latest Beatle to be taken from us, George’s Something.

Not that the success of the stripped back parts says anything about the band. There is no doubt that Rusty Anderson and Abe Laboriel Jnr add a youthful edge to the arrangements. Everything has its worth but unlike Dylan’s Live 1975 this is not an essential addition to the art of Paul McCartney. Whereas Wings Across America, a quarter of a century ago revealed a band in the midst of something new looking back, this is almost completely retrospective. Then again Dylan himself has been a little too dependent on his sixties output in recent years. “And in the end…” as a document of a 60 year old performing as well as ever it is more than worth the admission.

Sarah Masen - Dreamlife Of Angels

Sarah Masen is a beautiful human being. Without doubt culturally good looking too. She is a gentle and tender soul. Aye and maybe a little bit whimsical too. Beneath all that she is a mind and heart and soul that is searching deep within herself and her world and her God for what this big hurting and hopeful world is all about. Beneath the tenderness she is courageous enough to ask the hardest of questions. Beneath the beauty she will look in the face of the world’s most ugly realities and provoke the questions and grope for some direction towards answers.

Dreamlife Of Angels is Sarah Masen made sound. It’s as accurate as any artist could ever be in describing themselves through their songs. It’s a stunning work of musical breathtake with it’s catchy melodies and the little brushes of musical accompaniment. It’s got quirky little phrasings that have you alert with surprise and the most sensitive of little aural thrills. Whether it’s the tranquil shuffle of the hopeful Valley, the stillness of Love Is Breathing about her daughter Dorothy Day Dark’s birth, the folksome endearment of her Supertramp cover Give A Little Bit, the acoustic funky David Gray-like groove of Midnight or the rockier Hit N Run, less is more and the more you listen the more you get from the spaciousness of John Jennings (Mary Chapin Carpenter) production.

Where Masen stands apart is in her literary approach to songwriting. She is a young woman in love with words and ideas and imagination. She has this God given ability to express the light and the dark and the shades where we all walk in between. There are a few gloomy shadows and then there are these moments when the bright makes the breaks in the clouds all sparkle and beam. She describes her life with it’s recent marriage and even more recent motherhood and the friends around her and tries to seek some insight to who we are, where we are, what we are going through and how we start to hear somewhere more worthwhile and peaceful. It’s an album full of hope and love and a new kingdom coming in the midst of the old one. It’s dangerous because it’s honest and it’s auspicious because it is grace drenched.

It may just be March and the first few months of the year are always a little lacking in album releases but it may be safe enough to say even now that this is the best album that will come out of the Christian industry in 2001. If anything betters it you should buy it for sure.

Phil Madeira - Off Kilter

As gentle and honest an album as you'll hear this year, Phil Madeira has crafted a work of tender beauty. Off Kilter tingles your ears with it's lazy guitar playing but is far from easy listening in any kind of Neil Diamond way. It is so saturated with musical delights that you will never be allowed to drift into sleep. It will grab your attention and never let it go. Madeira of course is Mr. Session Musician in the Nashville CCM scene, I challenge you to find five albums in your collection where the omnipresent one hasn't played on, and so quality was inevitable. Still I was not ready for how good a, rare, solo album from Phil would be. Beginning with the Lanoisesque mood of Jagged Heart and moving through Dylan, Cockburn and John Prine as reference points Madeira takes us on a songwriting ride through his spiritual journey. As the man himself says: "I've been carving, stripping back the bark, rounding off the edges of a jagged heart." Gorgeous. An album of the year. A career work.

Lone Justice - This World is not my Home

This is the sweetest surprise. Twelve years after breaking up and during a period when their lead singer, Maria McKee, is without a record deal, Geffen decide to release a Lone Justice compilation. One wonders why? But who cares; it is a cracker! For a band that only released two albums this could have been even more unsatisfying than most record label cash ins that go by the name of "best of". This, however, is one of the most satisfying retrospectives that I ever remember buying. Firstly, it really does have the best of. There are no obvious omissions. Secondly, there are a whole clutch of previously unheard songs and live tracks. It is more than worth the money. For new fans it is a fine introduction, maybe even all you need. For the old fans it is a very necessary addition to what we bought on vinyl and then replaced with CD. Maybe the only thing that could have made it more essential was a version of Maria's Good Heart which was number 1 for Fergal Sharkey but never released by the lady herself.

Still, Tom Petty's Ways To Be Wicked really was a great debut single and it is good to see it ageing well. I Found Love is the hymn that Charles Wesley never wrote with it's "The beginning and end of every wish/Is balanced in the centre of a vision like this/Maybe my emotions are inclined/To surrender to the notion of a glorious kind." Glorious notions indeed. Then of course there is Don't Toss Us Away, written by Maria's brother Bryan MacLean from Love who sadly passed away last Christmas. That song was as country as I could have got in my early 20's and, when we consider the whole No Depression music scene today, it may reveal how ahead of their time Lone Justice were. Wheels was always a startling live song and here it just that, bringing out the fulness of Maria's yearning voice journeying to the depths of heartache.

Then there's the many rare moments of curiosity. For the first time on CD we find Dylan's Go Away Little Boy which he wrote and played on and even though it is a cracking wee rock song they had the confidence to leave it off their debut album. Imagine relegating Dylan to a B-side! Lou Reed's Sweet Jane was a favourite song for McKee and she is heard on a free 7 inch single with I Found Love to say that they would always play it. We have a couple of live versions of it in the Justice back catalogue but here again to go beyond the expected we have a guest appearance by Bono. Maybe not his best vocal but well worth having. Add to this the little patch of pre first album recordings like Drugstore Cowboy, Cottonbelt, Merle Haggard's Working Man Blues and a studio version of another live regular This World Is Not My Home giving that gospel blues voice of McKee's a chance to let rip as bets as you've ever heard.

I have quoted McKee elsewhere when she told a friend of mine that her voice was her witness. This album proves the point. I remember her on the Tube giving I Found Love a truely pentecostal, rock rant. Never had I seen such charisma. Never such rollicking testimony. It was those performances that led Ricky Ross to write Real Gone Kid. Indeed she was, fronting a great rock 'roll band that deserved more than they achieved. Maybe this is a call for a reunion tour. Imagine that; a reunion tour that'd be worthwhile!

Lies Damned Lies - The Last Place on the Map

Every few years Scotland’s Lies Damned Lies make the most audaciously brilliant pieces of music that you could ever wish to hear and yet few people ever do. It is not so much a secret as a scandal, not just for them but for the many hundreds of thousands of people who are looking for something just like this. Flirting with the big time way back in the early nineties, they signed to Siren, did all the expensive pop videos in locations like Mauritius, released all the remix 12” singles but in failing to dent the charts were dropped. That was a move that sent them running back to the border and setting up their own studio in Ayrshire where without the need to oblige with singles they have spent the last decade creating “honest to God” albums of sheer wondrous beauty.

For a point of reference think Talk Talk and Blue Nile; that kind of ambience before ambient had been discovered. Lush atmospheres with beauty so deep you can sink into it like the lushest of expensive carpets. Thick pile comfort. But their name betrays them and comfortable is not what they are aiming to create. It is that “honest to God” factor again. Like “Who” the lead off track on this new album, that we should get around to raving about, asks “Who is better, who is worse/who to bless, who to curse/who is pure and who complex/who is without sin?”

Dot Reid, Charlie Irvine and Steve Butler are not over generous in optimism. Realism is their wont and the underside the only thing that they think makes good art. They left two great songs off their previous work Lamentations because they were too up!

And yet we see much more light on their latest masterpiece, perhaps sparked by their leaving the studio as their day time work and going back to the “real” world! Butler is an Episcopalian vicar and as on his solo album of last year there is something warmer in the connections of this work. The eschatological “At The Centre” here is like a camp fire song for the sand hills at the gate of heaven and even includes children’s vocals.

But it all comes back to the beauty. Dot Reid’s fingers sink into the keys so gently and these tender sounds that resonate with a mystical something drift across the ether to caress and collide with Charlie Irvine’s guitar chords that are played as much with feet as hands to linger long in the air. In the middle Butler’s vulnerable husky voice on the very coolest side of Sting creates this sound that is unique to this sum of parts. When needed they ask old friends, Deacon Blue’s Ewan Vernal and the only drummer they ever trusted Eddie John to add a little rhythm on languished bass grooves and a sprinkle of percussion.

The Last Place On The Map was recorded just there, the last place that was mapped in the last ordinance survey of Britain. It takes the Beatitudes and looks at them from all kinds of angles to add very modern flesh and bone to the ideas of Jesus. Yet there is nothing bland or clichéd about how Lies Damned Lies express the spirituality that informs their work. They throw out questions and observations that have you asking the big questions whether you come from a theist’s viewpoint or not. This is a band that touches the ears, the mind, the heart and the soul. As they sing on Could Have Been You, “This isn’t guilt/This isn’t ambition/Just having eyes to see and ears to hear/What do you hear?” One of the albums of the year actually!