East of Ely: 3: Shorebound

‘East of Ely’ is Miracle Mile’s first album since 2012. It was largely written in an old fisherman's netting shed on the Suffolk coast and later recorded between London and Norfolk. Marcus and I had both found bucolic bliss in coastal retreat. That detachment informed the writing process and limited the palette to primary colours. The bare bones were gathered in Walberswick. Once I've given the songs form I usually present them to Marcus in his Norbury Brook studios in London. We had a slightly different approach this time. In the spring of 2022 Marcus invited me over to his bolthole - his 'happy place' - on the North Eastern coast of Norfolk, in the aptly named hamlet of Happisburgh. 'Bring your guitar and songs.' was his only instruction. He'd bought his bass, dampened the strings with loo paper, set up a mic in front of the obligatory creaky chair and... we were off. 

These were happy days. We'd walk the dogs Willow and Charlie, swim the North Sea, and retire, teeth a chattering, to the village's only pub for warmth and sustenance. We fitted the recordings around these larks and before we knew it had the sense of an album. We later took the recorded sketches back to the more palatial Norbury Brook studios in London. 

We decided to limit the musical palate to primary colours and resolved to doing most everything ourselves. 

The only folk we invited into the cave were drummer Mike Pickering

Pedal Steel maestro Melvin Duffy 

and vocalist Lucinda Drayton.

We added to the album over the course of the year and then Marcus beavered away on arrangements and production, whilst I worked on my tennis game.

Marcus and I are both pretty proud of this one. It wasn't pre-planned. It just kind of... evolved. There is no concept: other than a recognition of the benefits of retreat. I think that we'd both been a bit frazzled by the enforced withdrawal imposed upon us by lockdown. We regathered ourselves; learned to let the outside in. And then we took the coast roads. East of Ely. Shore bound.

'East of Ely' is available to pre-order here

East of Ely: 2: Boltholes

Boltholes. Mine lies at the end of a road that leads only there: a fisherman’s netting shed on the Suffolk coast, couched between river and sea. There’s a wood burner, a kettle, a bed. It’s November. I’m obliged to do nothing. I wake to quiet cacophonies: the flutter of tacking sail, the mutter of migrating birds. I’m up early, onto coastal paths, mudflats, meadows and marshland. It’s easy to get lost. The moon usually leads me home.

I don’t crave isolation but have found myself sharper in seclusion. I get to sort loneliness from solitude and reacquaint myself with that revenant muse. It speaks of secret things. It helps shape the dust. Free of work I’m free to work. It’s easy labour: books my tools. Reading leads to wonder. Silence shapes the thought. Later, the rhythm of walking will reveal the song. And once I have songs I reach for Marcus. He recognises the benefit I’ve found in solitude. I don’t have to tell him: he’s a good listener. His dogs eventually dragged him east, to the Norfolk coast, and there he found his own safe harbour.
Rilke wrote “I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other.” Such was our silent pact. We regathered ourselves; learned to let the outside in. And then we took the coast roads. East of Ely. Shore bound. We shared secrets. Shaped dust. And in the silence we found sound.

Pre-order 'East of Ely' here

East of Ely: 1: Why? Why Not?

'Maybe the West's approach is right. After all, if you've got a massive fight in, say, a pub car park, the best way of solving it is clearly by standing back and randomly lobbing in fireworks. You can't get rid of an ideology by destroying its leaders. You'd think if there's anything Christian countries should know it’s that. Europe has rejected the death penalty on moral high grounds, and yet we relax this view when it comes to a group who want to be martyred. You can’t bomb ideas. If your kid shits on the carpet you can’t stop them by bombing the person who invented shit - though it would tidy up ITV's Saturday night schedule.'

Frankie Boyle 

Although he usually strikes me as smug and spiteful, this isn’t a bad effort by Frankie.

We are all desperately trying to nutshell fog aren't we? The world's in turmoil and struggling to understand how it got there. I tried by looking up the origins of 'hell in a hand cart'. Apparently in the 19th century, the phrase was associated with the American gold rush of the 1840s, where men were lowered by hand in baskets down mining shafts to set explosives which could have deadly consequences. Avarice eh? The greed and need for material wealth or gain. Or land. Acquisition, regardless of the dangers of action, reaction or the horrors of their consequence. The Middle East is in calamitously unsolvable crisis. As resentment begets resentment, horror begets horror. Intransigent 'Leaders' are either stubbornly obdurate or ruthlessly rudderless: all seemingly virtueless. Forget foreign affairs; domestic politics have become less about the pursuit of noble ideals and more about the lobbing of fireworks at other folks' ideology; our worldview more informed by disbelief than belief. With the inevitability of an election looming I’m struggling with my choices. 

Should I vote for a grey man or a buffoon? 

I know that I will choose not to choose. 

I'll choose to look to myself. 

"To thine own self be true' was my dad‘s mantra. 

I concur, but decide that I need to be more active in the belief.

I’ve spent the last 35 years in the service of others. My music had become a sideshow, a sideline; something that I choose to commit to in my other, better life. A fool's folly then. I determine to look to myself and to take that part of myself more seriously. Is that self-indulgence or self-preservation? Surely the essence of creativity is self-indulgence? If I can't burn my own torch and make myself the drum banging hero of my own story then, what's the point in the reaching?  Self-regard is unattractive in others I know but, what else can I do? If I want to invest in myself authentically I can only look inwards. With that avowed intent, perhaps my songs will better resonate with others: not just other kindred crusty geezers, but hopefully with anyone unsure of themselves. Sometimes loneliness is steeped in the belief that we are somehow uniquely isolated: that the nature of things does not apply to us. Or only to us. We are like pitiful polar bears, floating alone on melting lumps of ice, hoping that the thermodynamics of fusion won’t apply to us. Does that make us hopeful or hopeless? 

So here I am, again, lighting fires on the Suffolk coast: my annual, self-imposed retreat. But to what end? Solitude has its benefits. You arrive and... unpack. Unburdening is healthy, but isolation can lead to a re-burdening. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result. You don’t have to be Einstein to see the truth in that. And only a fool would deny doing it. 

And that’s me: I’ve just thrown another soggy log on the fire, hoping that this one will burn. 

But at least I'm trying. In retiring from daily duty I have recognised the need for a change of state: the need to reset, to dry my kindling and light a new fire. I have detached myself from distraction so that I can authentically connect. My first step was to step away from work to limit my choices and thus focus my intent. At my age, why wouldn’t I do that? At my age how could I not? 

My little piece of brash ice will melt in time, but hopefully there is time enough.

Pre-order 'East of Ely' here.

Love Song: Our Man in the Field: 'Gold on the Horizon'

Our Man in the Field is essentially singer-songwriter Alexander Ellis, aided and abetted by a few talented amigos. The new album ‘Gold on the Horizon’ is a lovingly crafted collection of heartfelt authenticity. Recorded in Oregon by feted American producer Tucker Martine, the album comes replete with weeping steel, harbouring horns and just enough intensity to rubber stamp Ellis’s intent. And that seems to be to deconstruct and then rebuild himself before our very eyes. That standard approach could become mournful in lesser hands, but Ellis’s conviction convinces. "I’ve always been an outsider, so an outsider I’ll be." he intones on ‘L’Estranger’. His faith is in nothing but himself: “I believe there’s nothing up there looking down on me.” It’s that self-sufficiency that sustains and clearly moves him forward. The lyrics use familiar metaphor as lifeline but there’s enough personal insight offered as to make Ellis’s rope-a-trope authentic. He tethers his troubles to a soulful soundscape that evokes a youthful Van Morrison’s dreamier desires and Ray LaMontagne’s doe-eyed soul searching. Sure, it’s a conventional conceit, but our protagonist is utterly cogent in his cause. Alex Ellis has considered form, harvested homily and hued a sweet hymnal to hope. It’s apt that he offers up this wholesome set so close to Thanksgiving. 

This is confident Americana: honey-toned and virtuous. If you want to believe in bucolic benevolence, Alex Ellis is a convincer. Our Man in the Field has farmed and fermented a heady crop: woozy with wonder but firmly fixed on that golden horizon. 

Miracle Mile: A User's Guide: by Johnny Black

                                           

“Trevor Jones finds the poetry in real life; Marcus Cliffe anchors it in the sweetest pop. Gorgeous as ever. You may cry.”  The Sunday Times

Despite being based in a home studio in a rural backwater on the outskirts of West London, Miracle Mile chose to name themselves after a fictional gold rush main street half a world away where, according to adventure yarn spinner Jack London, ragged 49ers would blow their hard-won nuggets on booze and broads. They apply a similarly unorthodox approach to their career in general. The band’s core duo of singer/guitarist Trevor Jones and multi-instrumentalist/arranger/producer Marcus Cliffe have been relentless in their pursuit of the perfect song. Not the fastest, the gnarliest or the loudest, not even the most instantly commercial, but the song whose melody, lyrics, arrangement, performance and spirit might stand the test of time, giving pleasure to listeners not just for years but centuries.
They’d be the first to admit they haven’t yet found that perfect song and maybe never will, but I’d argue that their albums — the documentary evidence of that search — deserve a place alongside the best work of time-tested tunesmiths as elevated as Randy Newman, Elvis Costello or Tom Waits.

“Gorgeous melodies, hooks galore, intelligent lyrics that demand and repay careful listening, beautifully produced instrumentation, and an overall effect that combines poignancy and joy in equal measure. Music and words come together in a state as close to perfection as makes no difference, and leaves you with a delicious ache that makes you hug yourself with the sheer overwhelming joy of hearing such wonderful music. The beauty on offer here is enough to make you weep. It did me."
Americana UK

Marcus Cliffe wasn’t yet on board when the first album, Bicycle Thieves, arrived in 1997 but already it was evident that frontman Jones didn’t fit in with the prevailing mode. There was no rage, bitterness or self-loathing in his songs and nothing at all turned up to eleven. Instead, he offered meticulously orchestrated slices of ordinary human life, transforming the mundane into the marvellous with carefully crafted lyrics sincerely delivered. Even here, though, the hypnotic sample-based "Recycletwo" revealed a willingness to experiment that marked Jones out as more than just a pop craftsman in the vein of Crowded House or Aztec Camera.

"Gentle enchantment. The loveliest melodies you've ever heard."   UNCUT

“A melancholic ocean of poetry and sublime song-craft. Life is indeed worth living and all the richer for hearing this.” Properganda

What had started essentially as a recording project had become a five-piece live band by the time the follow-up, Candids, was released in 1998. Loaded with nagging guitar hooks and dynamic vocal interplay, it included one particularly affecting piece, "Small Ad" which featured just one line of lyric, the heart-rending couplet, "For sale, baby’s shoes, never used." With those six words, Jones conjured up a yawning abyss of grief that other writers might struggle to evoke in an entire album.

“A little oasis illuminated by musical creativity, glimpsed like a lovely mirage. Intelligent tunefulness that doesn’t kowtow to passing trends has always been as rare as fish fingernails, but it’s here.” Mojo

“How to write ‘Perfect Pop’ and still remain unknown. They are magic, charming, almost naïve in their perception of beauty.” La Repubblica (Italy)

Jones quickly realised that live performance was not his forte and retired to the womb of the studio for 1999’s third album, Slow Fade, which also saw the birth of the partnership that would lift Miracle Mile higher still above the norm. Marcus Cliffe, in demand as a player for Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Daniel Lanois, Mark Knopfler and others, was drafted in on upright bass.
Immediately the music took a more intimate turn, with Jones exploring the little things that illuminate the big things. Almost every song offers up at least one unforgettable line, like "I'd rather be ashes than dust" in "Everybody Loved You" or the concept of filling the void left by his loss of faith "with despair and metalware" in "Starwatching".
Slow Fade was further enhanced by the delicately filigreed swirls and swoops of England’s finest steel guitar maestro, B.J. Cole, whose style sat so well with Jones and Cliffe that he has become virtually a full-time member of the band.

"Meticulously orchestrated, careful and complex, this is canny songwriting leavened by bona fide humanity."  Q

“A lush swoon of gorgeous pop. Genuinely life enhancing and life changing. Jones is in a class of one. Near-perfect explorations of the human heart.” AmericanaUk

And then, out of nowhere, catastrophe struck. Trevor Jones’ sister died in tragic circumstances. It’s typical of the man that, rather than wallowing in his grief as he had every right to do, he dealt with his loss in the quiet, honest dignity of "Sister Song", the achingly lovely tribute that concludes the fourth album, Alaska. It can’t have been coincidence that the album, despite its meltingly beautiful musical landscape, was named for one of the coldest places on earth.

“Miracle Mile’s obscurity remains unfathomable. Perfect adult pop.”  The Sunday Times

“Moves you to tears and refreshes the soul. Scintillating.”  Maverick

By the time of Stories We Could Tell in 2004, Miracle Mile were drawing critical plaudits in every significant British magazine and newspaper, along with comparisons to such pop perfectionists as Prefab Sprout and The Blue Nile. Critics were noting that Miracle Mile was fast becoming a repository of timelessly romantic music fueled by the same shamelessly emotional human concerns that inspired the great standards. More than this, it was being noticed that while most bands go into decline after two or three albums, Miracle Mile were getting better, perhaps because they’d avoided the trap of trying to be contemporary, and had no need to be more outrageous than the competition, largely because they didn’t see music as a competitor sport.

“Classic songwriting, gorgeously realised.” The Times

“A tender sadness. Songs that have universal resonance.” NetRhythms

“Achingly tender.” Folk Radio UK

The sixth album, Glow, showed up in 2005 and found Jones and Cliffe further expanding their musical palette mixing Celtic folksiness with slow, semi-industrial percussion on the inspirational "An Average Sadness", blending Badalamenti guitars with Bacharach horns on "What Kate Did Next" and opening "Strange Sympathy" with a beautifully synthesised string orchestration before letting the song melt seamlessly into a laid-back country-rock rumination on the gap between aspiration and acquisition. Glow was also their most lavishly packaged disc, gorgeously presented at no small cost to themselves.

“A gorgeous album that few will hear - unless there’s justice in the world.”  The Wall Street Journal

“Jones has compiled possibly the finest catalogue of adult pop. Gently beautiful and genuinely moving.” The Sunday Times

“You hug yourself with the sheer overwhelming joy of hearing such wonderful music. The beauty on offer here is enough to make you weep. It did me.” AmericanaUK

Album No. 7, Limbo, offered fifteen songs overflowing with sensitively wrought melodies and heart-fluttering lyricism. If it’s not a contradiction in terms, Limbo was even more quietly passionate than usual, deliciously understated and, at times, devastatingly tear-jerking.

“Trevor Jones finds the poetry in real life; Marcus Cliffe anchors it in the sweetest pop. Gorgeous as ever. You may cry.” The Sunday Times

“Intellectually as well as emotionally engaging.” Mojo

"Overflowing with sensitively wrought melodies and heart-fluttering lyricism. If it's possible, this is even more passionate than usual, deliciously understated and tear jerking."   HiFi News

‘In Cassidy’s Care’ followed in 2012 and received similar critical acclaim.

“Miracle Mile are pop’s most consistently excellent cottage industry.”  The Sunday Times

"Memorable tunes wrapped around emotionally involving lyrics." HiFi News

"Truly outstanding. Another little masterpiece has been born."  AmericanaUk

“Masterpieces of subtlety and observation clothed in sumptuous, lush melodies.” RnR

Miracle Mile may just be too concerned with timeless quality for their own short-term commercial good. They’ll never sink a fang into the jugular when they can plant a whisper of a kiss on that sensitive spot at the nape of the neck and set off a tiny ripple that will, in the fullness of time, explode in the heart. I, for one, wouldn’t want it any other way.

Johnny Black

Miracle Mile. New album 'East of Ely'

 

'East of Ely' is Miracle Mile's first new album since 2012's 'In Cassidy's Care'. It was largely written on the Suffolk coast and later recorded between London and Norfolk. Both Marcus and I found bucolic bliss in coastal retreat. The detachment informed the writing process and limited the palette to anything but primary colours. You won't be dancing but we hope that the songs offer some kind of balmy relief to your day.

'East of Ely' will be released by the Last Night From Glasgow Cartel in 2024. It will soon be available to pre-order on vinyl and CD.

Pre-order 'East of Ely' here.

Lovesong: Boo Hewerdine: 'Understudy'

Boo Hewerdine looks more like God everyday. 

A God with glasses. 

Or at least my vision of a God with glasses. 

I digress. 

Boo has just released his latest album ‘Understudy’. There is undoubted divinity in these quiet passages: gorgeously rendered, wisely observed vignettes that are heart-swelling in their directness. Twelve tender epistles detail and celebrate the everyday. The subtleties are oddly… overwhelming. The benevolence in each offering is such calming balm that you wish they’d linger longer. He casts a kindly eye does Boo. There’s an almost childlike naïveté in the way that he totes his lot. The songs are understated; short but far from slight: a world of wonder within each modest miracle. Loss is palpable, but hope is the abiding, enduring aftertaste. And it tastes like medicine. Good medicine. I’d have entitled the offering ‘Specs Saver’ or ‘Hymns from Him’ but then I’m not him. He sits a cloud or two above. Goodness and graciousness is personified here. 

But Boo as God? 

Nope. 

There is no God. 

But, if there was, Boo’d make a worthy understudy.

Lovesong: Sinner's Shrine: Dean Owens

Never meet your heroes they say: you're destined for disappointment or doomed to simply walk in their shoes. Although Dean Owens’ boots are firmly rooted in Caledonia, it’s clear that his musical heart beats in, around and along the arterial song lines that connect the music of Arizona and its bordering states: “a wire around the heart of everything that’s sacred”. This is no cultural desert: Tex Mex and Mariachi boldly blend with Country and Folk to create a very particular brand of Americana. Owens had long been influenced by the weeping steel and aching feel that informs much of the area's music. He was particularly keen on Howe Gelb’s Giant Sand and, tellingly, its bastard offspring Calexico, whose masterful ‘Feast of Wire’ clearly whetted his appetite. He was thus drawn to the source: Tucson’s WaveLab studio, home of Calexico’s founding members Joey Burns and John Convertino. That wondrous duo's muscular rattle and hum underpins much of this adroitly understated album. He's a born storyteller is Dean, yet he ditches the narratives and goes straight to the heart of the matter: these are more cyphers than stories. Ghosts haunt the open roads, borderlands and dusty destinations. They are only ever glimpsed, but are omnipresent: displaced revenants whose whispers and moans tell of loss and longing: missed opportunities and broken promises. Dean cannily drops that syrupy brogue a tone or two and floats his beguiling melancholy over his compadres’ perfect rhythms. It occasionally feels perilously close to pastiche until you remember that, that is the point: Owens is there to tip a hat in homage to his hombres. The cumulative effect is one of gracious gratitude. 

So: never meet your heroes? Dean takes Calexico's wistful template and gently melds and fashions it into something oblique yet unique: something fine. To highlight individual songs would do an injustice to the album’s artful ambience. It feels like an invitation to a gentle journey: you simply need to surrender. That the beatific finale ‘After the Rain’ makes you want to retread your steps, only endorses Tom Wait’s wisdom: the obsession’s in the chasing and not the apprehending. Owen's intent is heartbreakingly direct and tender: “Maybe the sun won’t always shine/And maybe the moon won’t always glow/But if there’s one thing that’s guaranteed it’s/ I’ll always be here for you.” 

'Sinner's Shrine' is not informed by wickedness or worship: Owen's benevolence seeks solace, perhaps even redemption, in the recognition and celebration of influence. That confluence is a river worth crying over. Dean’s dream may be wilfully woozy but it is perfectly realised: spectral yet specific. Before he left for New Mexico, he had told me of his plan: that he had no plan, just hope for a musical journey towards kinship; a yearning to find and befriend the source of his ennui and inspiration. It's an oblique map for a travelogue; but what a trip. Dean Owens left without a destination and, bugger me, he found a home.

LoveSong: Life on Mars: Bowie

So many songs, so little time.

I woke up this morning thinking about Bowie. There'd been a boozy discussion about 'genius': which musicians the word might apply to. It's a conversation as potentially incendiary as a pub trawl over the values of 'Art'. You don't need to like something to appreciate its value. Prince anyone? Genius, but I don't reach for his albums often. Dylan? Indubitably. I play Bruce more. Miles? Yes. Joni? Yes. Macca? Lennon? Nope. I love them both, but their 'genius' was collective: with the Fab Four. Paddy? Possibly. Neil Hannon? Possibly. I don't reckon Paul Buchanan a genius but his music means more to me than Prince's and almost any other artist's.

I rate this particular song, on record, as one of the great modern productions: one of the great vocals. Apparently when Bowie recorded the version on Hunky Dory, he nailed it in one take and fell in a wrecked, wracked, weeping mess at its conclusion: genius made man at the recognition of his gift. That literary giant/midget Rimbaud said “Genius is the recovery of childhood at will” and perhaps that was Bowie's gift: that he could wilfully tap into past wonders: the mysteries and mischief of formative life. Ironic then that the song is apparently about a teenage girl's desire to escape her restrictive childhood. Also paradoxical that this otherworldly man, so often likened to an alien, could speak with a common tongue.

So: Bowie? Yes: without a shadow of a doubt. He dressed his genius up in the clothes of imaginary friends and yet... he still made the song his own.
And here he is, stripping it down to its undies. Even the Liberace piano stylings cannot undermine the power of this brilliant performance.
What a genius!
What an Artist!
What a man!

Distant Voices, Still Lives

Sailing on no honeymoon

Just separate chairs in separate rooms
Jesus, please
Make us happy sometimes
No more shout
No more fight
Family life

It's interesting how arrested many of us are by the Blue Nile song 'Family Life'. I have always thought that it was something to do with the way that singer Paul Buchanan tremulously presents us with shards of personal memory that resonate as universal recognition. Everyone's family life is different, but we all hold moments of collective clan memory that equate to personal pain. That tussle to retain and release what pleases or injures is a mournful shuffle towards something... less. Even if it is a memory full of emptiness - that clumsy dance with the 'everyday' - the cruelties stay with us as a part of our personal history. Of course there's beauty too, but that is often ephemeral, idealised in retrospect. Scars are held as badges of family honour, a kinship of ritual that ties and binds. It's a strange loyalty that we have to the overwhelming burden of a past imperfect. Our fragility and strength are often bequeathed to us by a patriarchal parent: we remain tethered to, and haunted by the sound of their voices. Our past becomes us, as our past becomes us...

Sorry to rattle on but... last night I watched 'Distant Voices, Still Lives', Terence Davies' impressionistic take on a working-class family's life in 1940s and 1950s Liverpool. It is based on Davies's family and is chillingly familiar. Everyone is hopeful for 'happier', but are happy with their lot. The tableau is masterfully held together by music: old familiar tunes, offered as mantras to soundtrack the misery and mirth. I reckon that Paul Buchanan might have watched it before penning his masterpiece. Give it a go: you'll know exactly what I mean.

Bruce Springsteen: Stuck in 'The Middle': With Who?

Bruce Springsteen has finally made an ad: a film in fact: 'The Middle', to help celebrate Jeep's 80th year. And he's getting pelters for it:

"Christian Nationalism! There's no middle with someone who wears a ‘Camp Auschwitz’ shirt or who walks a Confederate flag through the US Capitol. There's no middle with insurrectionists. There's no middle with fascists. There's no middle with anyone who harasses a school shooting survivor.”

“I believe what the Jeep ad was telling us is that if we just set aside our differences with the fascists who want us silenced or dead, Bruce Springsteen will bring us each a Jeep we can use when we eventually have to flee to Canada.”

Bruce himself dedicates the film “To the ReUnited States of America.” and says “It’s no secret … The middle has been a hard place to get to lately. Between red and blue. Between servant and citizen. Between our freedom and our fear. Now, fear has never been the best of who we are. And as for freedom, it’s not the property of just the fortunate few; it belongs to us all.”

Regardless of any fee taken or paid - he is a working man after all - the message seems like a fairly simplistic attempt to unify to me. I’m guessing that Bruce sees it as his job. His blue collar popularism has always appealed across the board. ‘Jeep’ is a nuts and bolts brand aimed at the working man. As is religion. He’s gone to the heart of the country. He’s put on a stetson and gone for the buckle of the Bible Belt. 

Bases loaded and covered then. But, this seems more of a bunt than a home run. Perhaps Bruce is taking stock before a reset and a big swing? Despite his recent public alignment with Democratic politics, Bruce has always stood solid on common ground. Trouble is, the sands have shifted so much recently that Americans are either unsure of their footing or more entrenched than ever. Now, more than ever, the promised land seems more of an American pipe dream than a reality. It’ll be interesting to see how Bruce pitches his next delivery. I don’t anticipate a curve ball but I reckon there’ll be some bile in a heavy delivery. A spit ball then.

What Bruce is trying to endorse with the film is unclear. That’s if his hands were on the wheel. Other than a vague intent to unite, the mystic message is middling, muddled. But is taking a stand for common ground really legitimatising extremism? And wtf is ‘Emotional Terrorism’? At worst Bruce’s message is naive: at least it is well intentioned. Ultimately I hear a simple message: a plea for unity, forgiveness, perhaps even contrition.

The other main criticism seems to be that finally Bruce seems available for sale or rent. It’s not really Bruce trying to sell a car, more a brand trying to ally itself to his. It doesn’t make me want to buy a Jeep. Or a bible. 

Take a look. Do you see Christian Nationalism in the homilies? Do you hear resignation and acceptance of extremism in the call to "meet in the middle"? I just hear a tired, elderly man, keen on unity. Oh, and that sponsor's fee. At least Bruce didn’t give Jeep a song: a hymn: a slogan. Apt that the music he offered was ethereal; impressionistic: there’s nothing more undeniably American, or beautifully vague, than a gently weeping peddle steel guitar.

Lovesong: Jack Henderson: Where's the Revolution

'Where's the Revolution'.
Where's the question mark?
Perhaps it's missing because, as ever, there are more questions than answers.

"Doesn't matter what you lose… it only matters what you choose"
 

'Conviction' is the word that comes to mind when I consider Jack. A few years back Di and I were invited to a New Year's Eve party at the now defunct Convent in Stroud. Enthusiastically run by maverick eccentric Matt Roberts, within minutes of arrival we were promoted from guests to Stage Manager (me) and Number 1 Cameraman (Di). It was quite a night: particularly considering Matt's generous gift of a free bar. During the soundcheck my ear was taken by a fashionably disheveled gent crouched over the piano, wrenching a beautifully baleful ballad from the ivories. There was a whiff of Tom Waits in the grainy delivery. The injury was clear, the conviction compelling. Later at the bar I was introduced to the performer as Jack Henderson. It turned out that Jack and I had something in common: he and my musical partner Marcus Cliffe had previously worked together on a project or two.

Jack and I stayed in touch and, last year, I was offered a chance to hear new songs as work in progress. The sketches were incomplete but fascinating. I offered vague encouragement and moved on. And then early this year a package dropped on my doorstep: Jack in a box! His newly completed album 'Where's the Revolution' sat atop my 'to listen to' pile and... somehow got buried. 

In the meantime I'd read about Jack's need to make this a homespun album. It was clear that here was a man in command of his craft, but one who was guided as much by budget as by instinct. 

“If necessity is the mother of invention then 'Where’s The Revolution' is largely the result of that confluence of necessity and invention. Sometimes limitations can be liberating and for this album I wanted to explore what would happen if I recorded, produced and more or less played everything myself whilst embracing those limitations, both physical and financial, head-on. There was no overarching manifesto and I wanted to let the songs dictate their own course and allow the imposed imperfections to constitute the very soul of the record.”

Months later, this morning I dug out the album and finally got around to breaking the seal. First impressions are that the soundscape has been vastly improved from what I'd previously heard. The production has pushed Jack's voice to the fore, but there is a musical muscularity that belies the domestic source and more than matches the muse. The arrangements are traditional songwriter fare: piano and electric guitar the primary colors. A wobbly mellotron wanders into the room occasionally to reinforce a woozy sensibility. Comparisons can be odious so let's get them out of the way early. I can hear 70s Bowie floating in the high register; Joseph Arthur lurks in the mid shadows; whilst Waits and Dylan haunt the bottom end. And yet Jack's timbre has a unique, genuinely engaging quality in its quivering delivery. As he earnestly totes the mundanities, again, 'conviction' is the byword here. You believe that Jack believes everything he's singing about. And whilst he's got nothing particularly revolutionary to say, he says it with such conviction that you can't help but buy into these passionate paeans of disillusion. I've got 'imaginatively familiar in his melancholy' scribbled down here. Jack says it so much better: 

“We’re often acutely aware of our own failings. We all have the capacity for occasional acts of selfishness, anger or jealousy, but those need not be what define us. We are all capable of acts of incredible kindness and self-sacrifice too. Perhaps we begin caring for each other by forgiving and being kind to ourselves first and recognising our shared human condition. We are so much better than we think we are and if we devote our energies to building the world we want to live in and pass on to generations that follow us we become the hope that truly remains.”

Ever hopeful then, but you can tell from the title track that Jack's not a happy bunny: “I'm sick of these clockwork clowns and their silly little paper crowns. Reckless disaffection, constant disconnection, squeeze you till you’re almost sick, We don’t have to take this shit, Oh my dear, where’s the revolution now”. Thankfully, we are talking a gentle revolution here. Jack's not breaking windows; it's your heart he's after. There's compassion in abundance. 'Stars' is a beatific hymn to hope. He's too smart to tell us that he's looking up from the gutter, but you kind of get that his boots are well worn and muddy as he gazes at the heavens: a journeyman considering the journey and the journey's end. 'We are castaways: so good, so far... We are the conscious light that lingers on: a hope that will remain when we have gone." 

'It's only Rain' completes the set contemplatively, reinforcing the compelling image of the slightly crumpled, flesh wounded Everyman.

'Don't be afraid, it's only rain. Nothing we haven't seen before'. 

Indeed. 

And yet... there's something charming in Henderson's wide-eyed injury, in the way that he catches and caresses the quotidian as 'penny drop' moments. 

His is a true heart, a familiar flight, a journey worth sharing. 

How could you not want for the company of a man who leaves the room thus: 

"Every dying star leaves a trail across the universe. Every weary pilgrim goes on believing, and every broken heart goes on beating."

Lovesong: Paul Armfield: Domestic

I'm struggling, in search of a leading line.

Perhaps I'll let do Paul do the talking:

"My eyes are ringing and my eyes are sore

There's things out there that I can't ignore

So draw the curtains and lock the door

I've no appetite for more"

'Domestic' is clearly rooted in the idea of 'home'. Armfield apparently gave up on work and decided to hibernate. It seems that he'd been over stimulated by worldy affairs and was intent on retreat: 

"There's nothing being said that I want to hear. And if anybody wants me I'm not here."

His ambitions had become more wholly humble.

"January first. My new year's resolution is to learn the second verse of Auld Lang Syne'. 

I know, I know: comparisons are odious but I'm getting Jake and Jaques with a slight aftertaste of Leonard. Wait, there's a bit of Waits in there too. The ghosts of Thackery, Brel and Cohen are fine spirits to marinate your fledgling chanson in. Perhaps more than anyone, Armfield shares a muse of the mews with Essex folk singer Chris Wood, whose keen eye and dry wit similarly details the familial and the tribal. They occupy common ground as they focus on the solid state of things: the actual world rather than a virtual one. Paul ponders, but his touch is light, coherent, heartfelt and true. His treacley tenor has a calming timbre: perfectly pitched as he sings of the mundanities; toting and detailing the dots that join our everyday. He raises the drawbridge to consider the quotidian and occasionally peers out to squint at the connections outdoors. But how to truly retreat if you are genuinely compassionate and concerned? Paul's looking in to better look out: you can sense the curtains twitching. And in that refined worldview, beyond the sweet ennui, there's a worldly recognition of the bitter divisions that Brexit has elicited; particularly the platform afforded to those with concerns about national identity. Ironic then that Armfield lives on a tiny island anchored to a larger one. From his home on the Isle of Wight he questions the entitlement of belonging. In 'Flagbearers' his kindly gaze drifts from navel fluff to naval flags. 'Washed up on the shore, just a mongrel like yourself... Is that a medal of honour or just a badly drawn drawn bulldog tattoo? He wearily concludes "We are all just strangers." It is perhaps that disheartened sense of dislocation that has ushered him towards the sanctuary and protection of his own threshold. And there there is family. There there is love: "And for the briefest perfect moment I am absolutely yours and you are absolutely mine". Paul considers the empty nest of a newly child free home in 'Fledglings': "The roost is tidier, every room is cleaner, quieter, wider. Less housework yes but much less homely... I still leave the door unlocked." His attention ultimately settles on his life partner, his beloved wife whom he clearly and cleverly eulogises in 'You'. It's a lovesong so artfully, heartfully stuffed with love that you want to hug the both of them: "My heart's a purse that's full to bursting, but the only thing of any worth is a faded crumpled photograph of you." 

It is the rarest of things: a work of quiet, considered beauty: one that takes its own sweet time to reveal itself. With an album so lyrically rich it is easy to overlook the musical content. It's jazz, it's folk, it's lovely. Interestingly Paul chose to record these homely homilies abroad in Stuttgart with European musicians. At the core are Giulio Cantore on guitars and cavaquinho, drummer Johann Polzer and producer Max Braun on bass. Their gentle strums and sophisticated proddings provide the perfect patchwork for what could be the perfect 'duvet album'. And yet, although this album fits like a pair of well loved slippers, Paul's mischief keeps a pebble playfully placed, just in case you should get too comfortable. 

This is ultimately an album written by a man in love with words. His concept is nuanced with caution and care: if there's a more finessed, lyrically astute album released this year I'll eat my Thesaurus. Profound and scintillatingly droll, Paul Armfield is a master of the bon mot and the vinegary vagary. I could flick the artfully printed lyric cards at you and let you find faith in the familiarities. But I can only quote Paul so much, so will leave you with the last lines of the final song: a summation of Domestic's canny conceit: that, although home is where the heart is, we're all home alone. Armfield's search for a sense of home has no cozy conclusion. He settles for 'a lighter darkness'.  'Alone' recognizes the loves and losses that make this sweet, ordinary life such an extraordinary wonder. And appropriately enough, there, finally, is my leading line: This sweet, ordinary album is an extraordinary wonder. 

"Rain flicks the leaves and the wind whips through the trees

And a lighter darkness spills out across the sky

The headlights of the cars lead us back to where we started from

We buckle up and drive ourselves back home

In silence, together but alone"

 

Lovesong: Sylvie Simmons: Blue on Blue

“I’d always thought of the uke as a toy … a little handful of happiness. But not anymore. From the moment I picked it up, I fell in love. A ukulele has a sad, fractured sweetness, like a broken harp. And a modesty. It doesn’t try to impress you, it almost apologizes for being there.”

So spoke Sylvie. 'Fractured sweetness' pretty much sums up the appeal of this delicate offering. It's quite an achievement that an album birthed in hurt is steeped in such serenity. The portents weren't good. Simmons had recorded her 2014 debut 'Sylvie' in Arizona with the grandaddy of Americana, Howe Gelb. She returned to Gelb's favoured Tucson studio WaveLab in 2017 to start work on the follow up. However, whilst out walking in the desert after the first day's recording, a stumble led to serious injury; particularly a badly broken left hand. That hurt not only halted the recordings and challenged Simmons' future uke skills, but actually threatened the loss of a limb. Sylvie retreated to her home in San Fransisco to recover and reconsider. Time told. Wounds eventually healed. With itching scars still smarting, she gamely returned to the source of the hurt. Hurt and recovery are major themes here. 'Blue on Blue' a perfect title then. You get the feeling that Sylvie's world is hurtful, hopeful and homely. That she managed to recreate that feeling so far from home is credit to the company she chose to keep for these recordings.

Producer Howe Gelb famously sees rehearsal as 'the enemy'. He gathered a trusty crew of Tucsonan musicians to come play his ruleless game: familiars who recognized the virtues of spontaneity. Gelb kept things suitably understated throughout: there's plenty of space left for nuance, finesse, and the wonder that is Sylvie's breathy delivery. Her ukulele, that 'broken harp', laconically leads, keyboards whisper, a bass occasionally wanders into the spartan room, guitars gently conspire to caress the silence. There are whistles and bells (yup) but they are playfully placed to unsettle any possibility of ennui. The lack of drums and percussion lend a faltering uncertainty which adds to the woozy, indolent charm. And charm is central to the success of this album. There is vulnerability in Sylvie's gentle voice: a quivering quaver that speaks of hard earned heartache.  And what of the songs? Given the preceding trauma, you anticipate bitter darkness: you are gifted sweetness and light. 

Her style is classic Laurel Canyon 70s song-smithery, and Sylvie references that influence with a calm, quiet confidence. It is clear that she has spent a lifetime marinating in music. Her journalistic career has required her to consider and critique the successes and failures of others. Gamekeeper turned poacher then? More like poacher turned sitting duck: a courageous step away from the relative comfort of disinterested editorials, towards the faltering uncertainties of a life as troubadour. And Sylvie surely leads with her chin. You feel the kindred influence of Nico in the loose limbed, quotidian appraisals. You sense the presence of Leonard Cohen in the lyrical conceits, in the way that Sylvie catches and caresses the mundanities with her poets' eye: “ladybugs climb up the blade of grass and balance on top of a dewdrop, swaying in the breeze like they were floating on a fish eye.” You hear Neil Young in most every fragile melody. This does not confer Simmons a copyist. How could a life in music not influence her creativity? What's fascinating is that, because she has left it so late in the day to write these songs, she's too worldly to play the ingénue. She presents herself as she is, not as what she wants to become. And yet this awareness is not a cocky strut. It's a gentle, breezy dance: a composed, rear mirror recognition of where her life has beached her. And that Sylvie chooses to keep dancing, with no shoes on, amid the broken glass and dog shit, renders her tender songs as mischievous, elegant courtship. It's that heady mix of knowing and naivety that makes 'Blue on Blue' simply irresistible.

Lovesong: The Bathers: The Marina Trilogy

The Bathers: The Marina Trilogy

Lagoon Blues · Sunpowder · Kelvingrove Baby

A re-issue of the three, long out of print albums that Chris Thomson's band The Bathers released in the 90s on the German label Marina.
Vinyl & CD: Released 23 October, 2020

Available to pre-order here

I have followed Chris Thomson's music from the off. Friends Again's 'Trapped and Unwrapped' (1984) was a fine debut. It mined a similar vein to Roddy Frame's Aztec Camera and that was good enough for me. When they split in 1985 I'd heard that Chris had formed a band as a vehicle for his idiosyncratic stylings. I remember buying the first album 'Unusual Places to Die' in 1987 and was intrigued, although a little unsure of the ramshackle musicality. 1990s 'Sweet Deceit' was a step in the right direction for me, but I was still not overwhelmed. And then the band signed to German label Marina and the stars seemed to align. 

"A heightened sense of romanticism was part and parcel of those songs and recordings. At times the lines became blurred, as they tend to do. That exploration of those shadowy regions yields much beauty."  

Chris Thomson  August 2020

Listening to Chris Thomson’s music can be a little overwhelming. It is an investment for sure, but there’s labour involved. It’s a journey that you are required to surrender to. It has to be a personal engagement: you have to take Chris on. His is a dizzy dance: one moment stately, jittery the next, but one that leaves you breathlessly elated. You are often reduced to mirroring uncertain, fragmented steps. My reactions are abstract, emotional. I try to find meaning in the vague reverie but, as I struggle to focus, I'm moved along apace. It’s a bit like jogging through the rooms of a lofty art gallery whilst wearing your Mum’s glasses: the eye never quite settles. It’s a gentle pace for sure: the music is dark and strangely exotic, otherworldly. It’s all about love of course: a lush, intoxicating romanticism that elicits a giddy reaction, as you voyeuristically view half-revealed moments. Thomson’s muse is cinematic, operatic, impressionistic: you are challenged to decipher the opulent imagery, the fanciful conceits, the half whispered, unfinished sentences. It evokes rather than details, although sometimes the details are telling. But telling what? You are reduced to grasping at fleeting glimpses, sneaking snatched impressions: of the torment of unrequited love, of kisses un-kissed, of the musty musk of yesterday’s sheets; of the veiled promise of a moonlit tryst. There’s lots of movement, often towards gothic destinations, usually on the wings of desire, despair, or an old love song. These are not confessionals though: there's mischief afoot. It is clear that Thomson has created a persona to inhabit the lush, theatrical backdrops that couch his concerns. There is however a sure sense of 'self' in the flesh that he puts on his hero's bones. Lines blur between fact and fiction: Chris is surely investing the script with his own hard earned wisdom. His champion becomes ours: an exemplar of romantic virtue. We are swept along, essentially taken for a ride. That you commit unquestioningly to his journey is a sure sign of a confident craftsmen: so convincingly does he inhabit his imagined world. The man himself admits that "... a heightened sense of romanticism was part and parcel of those songs and recordings. At times the lines became blurred, as they tend to do." We come to see 'the artist' as the man: a further indication that Thomson plays his part well. And so it becomes almost impossible to listen to the songs without accepting them at face value: and that face is Thomson's. And you can't help but root for him 

Our protagonist is dissolute; potentially profligate, certainly rakish. Pleasured, pained, frustrated and seldom satiated. Heroic but unenviable, erudite but seemingly unbalanced: found yet flailing; giddy and unsettled by his adventures. You find yourself lost in a hinterland of what's real and imagined. But what wondrous perplexity! When it comes to brow furrowed romantic rumination, even stumbling, Thomson is virtually peerless. And his peers? Tom Waits’ lust is earthier, Leonard Cohen’s more grounded. For me Thomson shares much of Nick Cave’s libertinism. Cave’s desires are more tangible, flesh made real; potential conquests caught confidently in his cross hairs. His challenges are rationalized, his impulses controlled. Thomson seems less confident of his quest, intent on serenity but less sure of the source of desire. And yet that flailing intensifies his adventure: the ardor increases, triggering a desperate pursuit for more of that elusive pleasure… Desire and fulfillment are seldom happy bedfellows. Perhaps that’s the crux of Thomson’s dilemma: the unfulfilled hope, the unrealized ambition. It’s familiar fodder for songwriters. Tom Waits famously told us that “The obsession's in the chasing and not the apprehending. The pursuit, you see, and never the arrest.”

Back footed and reticent, Thomson’s plight is less harmonious, more beguiling, shrouded by uncertainty. I listen hard, desperate to understand but destined to be kept in the dark. I’m reminded of when, as a child, I read by torchlight under sheets. The words seemed weightier, their meaning more intense. That sensory overload added to the giddy appreciation, but didn’t necessarily result in understanding. Whether this is pretension or artful ambition depends upon your mood or your appetite. This intoxicating music renders me drowsy, makes me taste dark, bitter chocolate. That Thomson’s reach exceeds his grasp speaks volumes of his unfettered ambition. His vision remains singular, untethered to the lexicon of rock and roll. Strewth! I hope you’re still with me? Apologies if this seems over-written. Writing about The Bathers is about as challenging as listening to them. 

And so, to the albums. ‘The Marina Trilogy’. 

The three, long out of print albums that The Bathers released under the patronage of German label Marina during the 1990s. It’s unfathomable that this is their first ever printing on vinyl. This music seems conceived, created and designed for that format. I’m happy to report that the platters are flat, noiseless and beautifully syrupy. 

Trying to describe the music is a challenge: one that might be beyond me but I'm keen to give it a go. I think it best to initially consider Thomson's broad intention for his musical escapades. He recently told me "that exploration of those shadowy regions yields much beauty."  And it surely does. It's a thrilling adventure, one that I'm happy to join him on.

Dim the lights, fill my glass, I’m going in…

Lagoon Blues (1993)

Interestingly, this album was completed as 'a speculative venture' before Marina became involved. Once they had heard the mixes they were convinced to put their weight behind the album. This is a definite development from the first two Bathers albums. With all of the building blocks now in place, there is a sense of the flexing of muscles: an excitement at the possibilities of this new format. The woozy, languid arrangements are sumptuosly velveteen: the cryptic narratives strangely unsettling; the fragmented montages almost Brechtian in spirit. And yet you are swept along, because it would seem indecent to break the spell. The songs are informed by the sweet and sweaty perfume of passion. The arrangements bewilderingly baroque, loose, almost adlibbed. There’s not a whiff of Caledonia. The songs are awash with European reference: Mahler, Bergman, sultry Italian summers, Grand Hotels, French gowns. Cupid takes aim, misses, takes aim again. And again. Unrequited love abounds. The indulgence is almost indecent. Christ knows what Marina's commercial expectations were. The most radio friendly cut ‘Ave the Leopards’ proclaims: “Ave Little Mamma, meet me at the fountain tonight. Bring your Egyptian pistols and blast them in the cool of the night… Mind me when mischief finds me, from the cruel and the vain.” A call to arms as such, but a call that I’m not sure Radio 1 would’ve returned.

Sunpowder (1995)

Co-produced by Thomson with Keith Mitchell, a newly formed band endorsed the Bathers’ sophisticated formula: a unique blend: let’s call it ‘chamber jazz folk’. The burgeoning relationship with Marina had given the band a fresh confidence. This was a step forward: ever ambitious but musically more assured, likely because the line-up had become more established. Guest vocals from ex Cocteau Twin Liz Frazer added an ethereal foil for Thomson’s tormented, earthier concerns: fixing on ‘love’s power’, the church chords always seem to lead to the boudoir. ‘Tonight we have nothing left to prove… to feel love, to feel alive… and to know that once again we will surrender to love.” The accumulative lushness is akin to taking a mouthful of pear drops and, 5 minutes later washing them down with a healthy dose of Channel No 5. Yet another sensual overload then. ‘DelFt’ is a song so delicately fragile that I daren’t breath until, at the death, Thomson tellingly murmured “If I could just be the one”. The details are delicious. His beloved is faithless, nameless, shameless, unchained. And she holds ‘a little black book on jazz’. One minute stage centre, the next whispering with the chorus downstage, laconic, yet intent, Thomson brings a Prospero like mischief to the proceedings. Love' rough magic: he still cannot quantify its baseless fabric: the object of his love remains lost or just out of reach; the malaise and cure perfectly captured in an unusually direct line from ‘For Saskia’: “I couldn’t keep you for too long, but I can keep you in a song, forever young… forever in a dream.”

Even though adrift, Chris seems closer to ‘home’, the injuries more local, he remains disoriented, loss and loneliness still inform the songs. In ‘Weem Rock Muse’ he’s “... lost in the Scottish mountains. Alone in the Scottish mists”. He’s haunted by the ‘lost brown eyed Scottish girl’ of ‘She’s Gone Forever’. And finally, devastatingly, he’s cast astray in the desolate conclusion of ‘The Dutch Venus’: ‘There’s nothing left to trust. Everything is lost.” Champion or chump? Thomson's gallant hero might be a fool for love, forever putting his face to the pie, doomed to repeat the same mistakes, but has the arc of despair ever been rendered quite so beautifully?

Kelvingrove Baby (1997)

The expanded band line up that shaped ‘Sunpowder’ reconvened to make what would be The Bathers’ final record with Marina. The rhythm section was still unresolved: duties shared between bassists Sam Loup, Douglas MacIntyre and Ken McHugh vied with drummers Hazel Morrison and James Locke. Guitarist Colin McIlroy was joined by accordionist, pianist Carlo Scattini, organist Fermina Haze, augmented by the strings of Ian White and Mark Wilson. Love and Money’s James Grant and Del Amitri’s Justin Currie fleshed out the backing vocals.

Our man is still world weary, troubled, but here he seems more focussed on his foibles. We are offered snapshots rather than fleeting images. He catches things square on, rather than from the corner of his eye. It is all the more engaging for that. Our capture and commitment makes for an easier engagement than previously. Thomson's foil appears to have resolved a few of his issues, although he's forever fated to struggle with detailing, let alone defining, love’s mysteries. Less impressionistic: more assured, where love was once unrequited, there was now a girlfriend: something that initially gives the album an almost celebratory feel.
“Isn’t she fine? Positively the sweetest of her kind.” 

In that moment, you kind of want to throw your hat in the air and give the guy a great big hug. He remains hopeful of retaining that love in what might be his most beloved song, ‘If Love Could Last Forever’. But for me the highpoint of the album is the title track. ‘Kelvingrove Baby’. Unsurprisingly it is unashamedly romantic: “If I could reach you I would walk all night to hold you in the racing dawn”.
And then, line of lines, moment of moments, as the song rushes towards its thrilling climax, Thomson asserts:
When you girl looks at you
Yes when she sighs
When she moves beside you
You want the moment
Touched with magic
And immortality
You want rain
You want soft music
And the last words to be about love.

It is a transcendent, celebratory, chicken skin moment that I’d recommend to the hardest heart. The intoxicating vagaries of desire distilled into a single beat. It reminds us why we love music: it takes the mundane and somehow, miraculously renders it holy. The holy held: the unobtainable grasped. It is more than just a ‘connection’, it feels more like a communion. A joyous, hopeful moment to remind us that we are all connected: as much by our defeats as by our victories, and that, however fleeting, that moment needs to be marked. That generosity is positively elevating. The finale of this song alone made me love the album. 'Kelvingrove Baby' feels like the conclusion of the record but only ends side 1. Flipside there’s a more prosaic joy in ‘Dial’. “There’s nothing quite as sweet, kicking off your shoes in the sand”. But then, as the album slips gracefully towards conclusion, you feel a mournful sense of slippage, as though a spell has been broken. The Keatsian conceit is that beauty is transient. Similarly, Thomson is recognising the impermanence of acquisition: reminded that defeat follows victory as surely as night follows day. You begin to wonder whether the ‘girlfriend’ is flesh or fantasy, a figment of a hopeful heart. Our principal is laid bare, vulnerable, earthbound; languorously concluding ‘I was not born to fly’. 

The album concludes with ‘Twelve’.
Yes I love you
Until the orchids
Forget to bloom
Yes I love you
Until the roses
Lose their perfume
Yes I love you
Until the poets
Run out of rhyme
Yes I love you
Until the twelfth of never
And, baby, you know that’s
Such a long, long time

In lesser hands the sentiment could be sweet, saccharine, valentine card trite. As a sign-off from an artist who is more often lost than found, the effect is heart-swellingly moving. Thomson lays himself open: his dignified croon straining, struggling. It speaks more about the healing powers of love than the injuries of loss. Victories and defeats are our daily bread. Somehow, miraculously, Thomson serves them up as manna from heaven.

‘Kelvingrove Baby’ is certainly The Bathers' most coherent album to date. One that many consider Chris Thomson’s masterpiece. I can but agree. It deserves to be held in the same esteem as The Blue Nile's 'Hats'. I can't think of a higher compliment. I can also confidently attest to the accumulative effect of the music on these three albums. With each release, The Bathers got better. 

The Marina Trilogy deserves to sit atop the highest pedestal. Like much worthy art, it often willfully disguises intention, challenging you to find meaning. Perhaps ‘understanding’ is not pivotal here. Why try to demystify? Why sacrifice magic for meaning? Maybe all that’s required is willing. You do have to be up for the challenge. Best not to look too long or think too hard. Best not to attempt to decode the veiled messages: they’re often too lateral to be taken literally. Best to surrender to Thomson’s vulnerable charms and admire his ambitious devotion, then douse yourself in the vagaries of his intent. Best to steep yourself in the kindred sorrows and, dare I say, wallow in the recognitions. Better; to celebrate the brief sojourns and then marinade in the melancholy of their loss. Better still, to simply immerse yourself in Chris Thomson’s brave, bold and beautiful quest for betterment. But please, don’t just dip your toe, this is music to bathe in.