There are plenty of surprises to be had on Yours Truly Cellophane Nose,
but perhaps the biggest of all is to find it on Mute, which one more
readily associates with detached, metronomic efficiency and malevolent
electronica. In truth, the legendary label's roster has been far more
diverse than one might expect at first thought, though it's still hard
to remember them releasing anything that sounded quite this... well,
heavenly.
When listening to Beth Jeans Houghton and the Hooves of Destiny, a
glorious visual smorgasbord springs to mind: angels, white marble
arches, Victorian Generals, feathered burlesque dancers, unicorns and
Brian Blessed in Flash Gordon. Yet where in another's hands this
array of images (and especially unicorns, with their associated chintzy
friends of rainbows, crescent moons and twinkling stars) might have
summoned up the appallingly twee, that's never the case here. Throughout
Yours Truly Cellophane Nose, there's nary a sniff of whimsy to be found.
What we have is an album of scope and unbridled invention, drawing
from the past (in both music and aesthetics) to create a universe of
sounds and textures that are quite unlike anything around at the moment.
Space is used wisely so that choral singing and violins and harps can
all live together without ever sounding too cluttered; something that is
no mean feat. And on top of it all sits Beth Jeans Houghton's versatile
falsetto. There's an almost inexplicable pipey tone to her voice that
is reminiscent of Nick Drake, but hers leads us on a merry dance to
joyous abandon where Drake's could so often be an instrument of sorrow.
'Sweet Tooth Bird' arrives with victorious trumpet blast, the
splashing of cymbals and the thumping of big drums. Over the next half
hour or so there's barely a gap to draw breath. 'Humble Digs' smuggles
in a banjo, but then becomes a much bigger event as it strives towards
the ethereal, drawing on celestial powers and just about anything else
it can get its hands on. In fact, this dynamism is used unsparingly
throughout, and to no better effect than on 'Atlas'. Houghton reveals a
penchant for older men on this track ("dissecting the atlas for places
we've been / your list is longer but you've got more years on me"), and
that includes Adam Ant, whose ideas about drumming and BVs are all over
it; this is of course a good thing.
'Lilliputt' canters along at a feverish pace, while 'Veins' starts
out like an old-fashioned soul record, again turning into something more
frantic and alacritous. 'Franklin Benedict' is verbose with stabbing
cellos and shooting analogue squelches (it is a Mute record after all).
Any song that uses the word 'unitard' has to be alright.
Yours Truly Cellophane Nose is breezy, uplifting and a pitch
perfect demonstration of the fact that to sound this capricious actually
takes an awful lot of work. Furthermore, as Mute continues to stake out
its identity as a renewed independent, it is proof too that a label
with such history can still confound our expectations and spring
pleasant, present-day surprises.
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Author: Jeremy Allen
Source: The Quietus
Date: February 6, 2012
Original article: HERE
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