hissyfit: TORONTO TIM SAYS: NEW MUSIC: BEN WATT

Wednesday 14 May 2014

TORONTO TIM SAYS: NEW MUSIC: BEN WATT - HENDRA ++++

Here I hand the pages over to Tim Patrick from Toronto.
I tried to host all of the videos but they froze my screen so, please just click on the links.
I have the album and agree with Tim, it's a fine album.
It also led me to his two books, an autobiography 'Patient' and the story of his parents troubled life together 'Romany and Tom':

Toronto Tim Says:

Ben Watt's new solo album 'Hendra' has arrived…

I'd heard a couple of promising clips earlier, and David (Friend Of Rachel Worth & former blogmeister of the sorely missed Cathedrals Of Sound) had mentioned that it's his 'Album Of The Year' (so far), so I was eager to give it a spin. I must say that Dave was right. 'Hendra' is excellent... I'm so glad Watt has put "DJ-Disco Ben" on the back-burner, and gone back to his roots. This seems like continuation of his last solo album 31 years ago - 'North Marine Drive' mixed with a dash of his more successful band Everything But the Girl (with sidekick/wife Tracey Thorn).

Musically, this is classy record. Warm, clean electric guitars played by Watt and collaborator Bernard Butler, gentle Fender Rhodes/Hammond, a steady rhythm section and occasional shadings of synth. Pink Floyd's David Gilmour stops by to add some tasteful slide guitar on the breathtakingly lovely "The Levels". Ben's voice sounds richer and stronger than ever.

It's also a very personal, contemplative record. Watt explains on his blog:
"Lyrically, I definitely wanted to write a bunch of unsentimental songs. I wanted to write a set of songs that were very true. My sister, who I was very close to, died, quite unexpectedly. She was only 58. It all came to head, and I wanted to get some of this stuff down. It’s quite dark emotionally, but I always think I write songs about some form of resilience. There is some form of hope, even in the darker moments. I’m always looking for that in the characters in the songs. They have a tough exterior, even if they have a soft interior."

The songs? There are so many good ones. Let's begin with the one that breaks my heart every time I hear it ...

"THE LEVELS" - A simple tune with a powerful, haunting lyric. One of those "dart to the heart" songs, such as: "Family Life", "Sister Song", "Mid-Air", "If I Fall Behind" that evoke empathy and emotion, and leave an immortal wound on the listener. The lyric tells a poignant story - with utter honesty and grace. I dare you not to be moved. Especially after you hear the inspiration behind the song...

Ben reveals: "The song is set in the low-lying area of the Somerset Levels. It was where my sister got married in 2004. The song is about how we deal with loss. She died unexpectedly in 2012. I wrote it for her husband..."

THE LEVELS

The estate agent's been over, I've resurfaced the driveway

I'm setting flowers out on the pavement, made it nice round the place

I'm up for selling the business, my heart isn't in it

Without your face over the counter, without your face

Some nights I drive out on the levels

Through the village, past the church where we got married

And I can see for miles

Out there is the future, what's this standing in my way?

Right now it's my past, and it's not moving forth

Some nights I'm out there on the levels

And the ditches and the fields are flooded by the river

And I can see for miles

And I know its only daylight that we all walk through

And everyone has wounds that heal with time

And I'll get over mine

Some nights I'm out there on the levels

And we're talking like we used to

But it's me who does the talking

And I'll be out there for a while

And I can see for miles...

- The Levels (live w/ David Gilmour on pedal steel):

"YOUNG MAN'S GAME" - a candid ballad of soul-searching, regret and surrender; reflecting on his journey from DJ/clubber to middle-aged Dad/husband, admitting: "I'm not as good as I used to be, with the late nights, now just look at me, I'm staking a claim at the young man's game tonight" and asking: “Every mirror just tells the time - Can you name a great fighter over 45?” "Should I act this out, or act my age, tonight?"

- Young Man's Game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD3yuFzeMm4

"GOLDEN RATIO" - probably the closest reminder of the elegant bossanova /jazz vibe that EBTG excel at. Bernard Butler guitar-playing shines.

- Golden Ratio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbiqbqsdYL8

"FORGET" - Breezy mid-tempo ditty reminds me a little of Lloyd Cole for some reason. Maybe the self-loathing... "Who am I fooling, when I say I have no regrets. You can push things to the back of your mind, but you can never forget..."

- Forget: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl685ButgLo

"HENDRA" - the moving title track, inspired by the dreams of his late sister, a rural postmistress and shopkeeper...

- Hendra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e_KxrI3erc

There are five more fine tracks on 'Hendra'... Notably “Matthew Arnold’s Field” where Watt travels to scatter his father’s ashes near Oxford. Only one possible misstep - "The Gun" which is an anti-gun rant that just seems out of place with the nature/flow of the record. Sorry, I have a pet peeve about being preached at...

Overall, a very special record. I rate it 8/10.
Let's hope Mr. Watt doesn't wait for another 30 years before another solo release...

Ben Watt official website: http://benwatt.com/

2 comments:

Meetwood Flac14 May 2014 at 14:21
Yes, I obtained this in vinyl as part of Record Store Day 2014 - it is a lovely thing and a return to form after all that DJing stuff he's been doing lately. Good choice Tim.
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Anonymous14 May 2014 at 16:53
Not read his new one but patient is excellent . Tracey thorns book is a good one as well.
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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