hissyfit: Lovesong: Brian Lopez: I Pray For Rain/KT Tunstall: Feel it All

Friday, 21 June 2013

Lovesong: Brian Lopez: I Pray For Rain/KT Tunstall: Feel it All

I was at Aarhus in Denmark last summer, finally able to accept an invitation from the charming Folmer Jepsen to play in the opening show of the annual Arts Festival that he directs so creatively.

I was fortunate to get to play with the iconic Giant Giant Sand, Howe Gelb's backing band. They have a brilliant newish album out called 'Tuscon'.

OK, I did play only one song, but...

I sang for The Queen of Denmark.

We stole her oysters, drank her wine...

I liked her.
Firm handshake.
Firm eye contact and... she smokes filter tips.

Often.

The excellent Brian Lopez plays guitar with Giant Giant Sand.

Brian has a solo album 'Ultra' which is cracking.

You can buy it here.

Think Dylan meets Feliciano meets Ry Cooder... if you must, but Brian's voice is incomparable. He does this falsetto thing that is quite unique and spine tinglingly addictive. The ensemble playing on the album has a wide screen twang and drama that is compulsive; horns blare, strings quiver and set the hairs on your neck a dancing. The songs themselves are passionate parables of love lost and found.

I hope that Tarantino has his number.

Brian is now in Britain, staying with Di and I: he's here to play some gigs with KT Tunstall as her support and as a member of her band.
Excuse the gush but we had the privilege of a private performance in our lounge the other night.
Di was blubbing and blowing snot. Our neighbour Louise used the word 'exquisite' ten times before I stopped counting. Maybe it was the tequila that fueled her enthusiasm but she was right of course. Her husband Des was rendered speechless, unusual for him, reduced to chuckling, whooping and whistling so loud that, well, he'd have woken the neighbours if... they hadn't been the neighbours. Up close, inside the guard, you get to see the mechanics of a performance and there was definitely something special going on. Brian is both powerful and sensitive in the same sweet breath; dexterous and deftly adroit on his nylon stringed guitar. He had some choices to make because he can take a song anywhere he wants to and, although he'd drunk deep from the same bottle as the rest of us, he didn't misstep once.
Brian knows what he wants; he's grounded yet ascendant, seemingly heaven sent, surely glory bound.

We went to see the show last night at The Assembly Halls in Islington.

It was a great gig; both KT and Brian played a blinder.

If you'd like to see the ridiculously talented Lopez up close there's always his gig at:

The 12 Bar Club: Soho's Denmark Street: July 2nd.

Meet me at the bar.

Buy me a drink.

Don't offer one to Lopez.

The man doesn't drink apparently.

Not a drop...

I've got to admit that, while I was interested enough to buy Tunstall's earlier albums, they didn't set me on fire. The new album however has a deep, smoldering intensity that is absolutely captivating.

For its recording KT went to Arizona in search of some arid authenticity. Giant Sand's Howe Gelb was Prospero there and spirited some fine, instinctive performances from the wee lassie. It's a quiet gem of an album, exquisitely gentle; gently sad, informed by the loss of her father and the break up of her marriage. The album, 'Invisible Empire/Crescent Moon' was released on June 10th.
You can buy it here...
First up I've posted 'I Pray For Rain' by Brian Lopez then have a look at KT and Brian performing an acoustic version of Tunstall's new single 'Feel it All' recorded at Tuscon's Wavelab recording studios.

7 comments:

Tim Patrick22 June 2013 at 05:29
Speaking of smoking queens, I just finished watching a fantastic interview on CBC with the queen of folk music... Joni never grants interviews, but Gian Ghomeshi is kind of a TV wonder-boy here these days, and he managed to somehow persuade her. I won't even try to describe the thing, except to say that Joni is one eccentric old bird. And boy does she love her ciggies...
I found the video on the CBC site. I think you'll get a kick out of it, if the link works across the pond? Scroll down to first video labelled "Joni Mitchell Interview." It's nearly 2 hours long, but utterly fascinating...

http://music.cbc.ca/#/blogs/2013/6/Exclusive-Joni-Mitchell-talks-to-Jian-Ghomeshi-about-death-hippies-art-and-getting-Banffed
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Anonymous23 June 2013 at 21:56
Not a drop of tequila touched my lips, great night though! PS tell your mate that he has prayed for enough rain thank you!
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Séamus Duggan25 June 2013 at 08:51
Something of the faded widescreen splendour of The Triffids about Mr Lopez on this track. A very good thing, that. Just discovered he's been to Dublin in the last couple of days. Mmm. Ah well, I was at a festival watching your man John Lydon and the kids (although not in that order).
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Hissyfit25 June 2013 at 19:39
Brian back (a little crumpled) from his Dublin visit. He and KT played The Pepper Cannister and were accorded a typically Irish welcome. The boy loved the place but not the prices...
Btw Seamus, I know that you are a Bunnymen fan.
Brian does a cracking version of 'The Killing Moon' on his album 'Ultra'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7GOIZLRwtU
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‘Jones’ is Trevor Jones; principle songwriter with the critically acclaimed duo Miracle Mile, where he works alongside collaborator, arranger and musical partner Marcus Cliffe. Together they have produced nine albums, the latest of which was 2012’s ‘In Cassidy’s Care’, rated ‘Album of the Month’ by HiFi News, with respected journalist Johnny Black noting that Miracle Mile were “far and away the most unfairly unsung musical wizards ever to emerge from this sceptered isle. Big on memorable tunes wrapped around honest-to-goodness emotionally involving lyrics.”

Trevor Jones has also previously produced four solo albums: ‘Hopeland’ (2009), ‘Keepers’, (2010), ‘To the Bone’ (2014) and ‘Happy Blue’ (2016). Co-produced again with Marcus Cliffe, ‘Carver’s Law is another triumph of intimacy.
Previous critical acclaim for Trevor Jones:

“Gorgeous, as ever. Trevor Jones finds the poetry in real life; gently beautiful and genuinely moving. You may cry.” The Sunday Times

“Masterpieces of subtlety and observation clothed in sumptuous, lush melodies.” R2

“Jones is in a class of one. Near-perfect explorations of the human heart. The beauty on offer here is enough to make you weep. It did me.” Americana UK

“Achingly tender.” Folk Radio UK

“Intellectually as well as emotionally engaging.” MOJO

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

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

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

“Classic pop songwriting, gorgeously realised. Jones has compiled possibly the finest catalogue of adult pop. Gently beautiful and genuinely moving” The Times

Miracle Mile: A User's Guide by Johnny Black

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 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.

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.

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, "Baby’s shoes, never used." With those four words, Jones conjured up a yawning abyss of grief that other writers might struggle to evoke in an entire album.

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.

And then, out of nowhere, catastrophe struck. Trevor Jones’ beloved 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.

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 pluperfectionists 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

“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

“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

“Classic pop songwriting, gorgeously realised” The Times

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

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

"Trevor Jones has produced a gorgeous pop 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