hissyfit: In Cassidy's Care: Updates

Thursday, 7 November 2013

In Cassidy's Care: Updates

'In Cassidy's Care' continues to pick up some glowing reviews.
I particularly like the florid translations of some of the Italian reviews...

“A triumph of lyricism. Dream pop with the grace of a butterfly. Touching, sincere, sensual, deep, brilliant, elegant and devoid of hyperbole, a triumph of noble songwriting and seldom reached perfection. If you only buy one disc this year, make it this one.” Onda Rock

“Another little masterpiece has been born. Truly outstanding. Thoughtful, intelligent, graceful and deeply moving music, with every rerun being as joyous as the first.” 9/10 AmericanaUK

“Jones and Cliffe make a formidable pair; crafting beautifully adult, thoughtful and melodic music where Jones' poetic lyrics are placed within gently memorable tunes and lovingly crafted arrangments.” Elsewhere

“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.
Rating 95% ‘Album Choice’ HiFi News

“The music and its rich texture is simply stunning. Quite honestly I have not been moved by an album for such a long time “ 4.5 out of 5 Let’s Get Ready to Rock

“Tumblingly lovely; rather like being gently massaged by feathers.” NetRhythms

“A record of great heart. The duo orchestrate intensely personal emotions that you’ve possibly never endured. It is a wonderful thing indeed.” Roots and Branches

“An almost perfect album.” Suono.it

R2 magazine reviewed the album in their current issue (41)

“Masterpieces of subtlety and observation clothed in sumptuous, lush melodies. This is one of the great records of 2013. Buy it and fall in love.” ****

The same magazine (an excellent read btw) will feature an interview with me in the next edition (42) and then, in the new year we are to have a track on their 'Un-Herd' CD which comes free with every publication.

We are currently wrangling over which ICC track to include:

Marcus: 'Sweet Nothing': "It's commercial and catchy"

Me: 'I Love You, Goodbye': "Lyrically it relates closely to Cassidy's story and is more reflective of our musical style"

Bazza: 'In Cassidy's Care': "It would put the album name 'In Cassidy's Care' into people's head and they would make the connection when they see the advert and hear the track. The intro with the horn, pizzicato strings and slidey guitar thing is really interesting - and I would bet there will be no other track on the CD with a similar musical mix. It also has a great middle 8 that really changes the feel and pace of the song and with the organ adds another (MM) musical landscape. The 'Jesus Christ Amelia' phrase is also deceptively catchy and sticks in the head. 'In Cassidy's Care' would be my choice. The opening to 'I Love You Goodbye' sounds great when it follows 'Sweet Nothing', but if it followed a similarly slow paced track on the compilation it could fail to have the impact you need. The hook that grabs me in this song is the 'I thought I was a dragon slayer' line, but it's 1min 20 secs into the song, so the listener may have skipped to the next track before they get that pleasure!

'Sweet Nothing' is great and would do the job, but it's probably the least representative of the album and the Miracle Mile sound. That's my view from a purely marketing angle"

You can alway rely on Bazza for a brief brief...

If you guys have any thoughts about the best track to choose, please feel free to chip in...

Meanwhile, here's the excellent ad that Bazza's just presented for the magazine:

10 comments:

Barryx7 November 2013 at 11:02
Trev, you should probably mention the track needs to be under 5 minutes long, so rules out the obvious contender 'Beach Songs' and almost half of the album. If only you didn't put so many extended guitar solos into your songs!! x
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Anonymous7 November 2013 at 11:40
These things aren't really designed for repeated listens so a comp cd i would go for the catchiest chorus everytime.
... So any human heart gets my vote
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Anonymous7 November 2013 at 16:03
I've just completed a 'Best Of 2013' CD for a friend and 'In Cassidys Care' got my vote, just pipping 'I Love You, Goodbye'
Phil
Tel Aviv
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Hissyfit7 November 2013 at 16:25
Thanks Phil. It's a tricky one this. The wise money is on 'Sweet Nothing' although I've a sweet spot for 'I Love You, Goodbye'...
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Meetwood Flac7 November 2013 at 22:07
Barry & Phil are right. It has to be In Cassidy's Care. The opening 9 note phrase is SO catchy. Often the artist gets too close to the songs to make what would normally be a considered decision. The problem also being that the songs are rarely made as singles and are therefore not produced as such.
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Tim Patrick8 November 2013 at 06:48
Good grief, what a tough choice. Great comments & rationalizing by all. "Any Human Heart" or "Park Bench" would be my first picks, however given the pesky time limitations...
Bazza makes a smart point regarding the initial lack of immediacy of "I Love You Goodbye", but the lyric/title is alluring & universally relatable; combined with an extremely catchy chorus, bridge & unique finale... "I Love You Goodbye" gets my vote.
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Anonymous8 November 2013 at 19:24
I'm with Marcus on this one, it has to be Sweet Nothing, which for me has the most immediate impact of all the songs and is the one that stayed with me after first listening. A brilliantly catchy chorus and superb musical arrangement.

Mel A Sheffield
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Séamus Duggan8 November 2013 at 23:44
My immediate feeling would be for In Cassidy's Care. But if I think I'll possibly change my mind, and change it back, and change again...
Love the ad! Must share.
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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