People who don’t think like critics
sometimes assail them for their obsessions with comparison and
reference. They make a point, a marginal one, but a point. If the search
for a box to put an artist’s work in sabotages the ability or desire to
hear the work itself for what it is – Houston, we have a problem. As
someone whose mind works critically my beef is more with people with
cloth ears who make facile comparisons based on limited experience,
shitty taste or received information … so there. I also don't think the
wrestling between Apollonian and Dionysian impulses requires a winner,
just a good match.
Okay, that preface was provoked by my experience with Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose,
the debut full-length album from a twenty-one year old artist from
Newcastle, England named Beth Jeans Houghton. She and her band the
Hooves of Destiny make music that forces you to hear it on its own
terms. Comparisons I’ve read of Houghton’s music to artists like Nico
and Laura Marling left me wondering if I was listening to the same
record. Houghton's soprano, by turns breathy, piercing, sweet is an
altogether different instrument compared to Nico or Marling's altos. Nor
are her songwriting and arranging tendencies especially similar.
Another frequent comparison, to Joni Mitchell, makes some sense. And
that presented a bit of a conundrum because I’m not much of Joni
Mitchell fan, and I really enjoy YTCN. Proving only that art I’m not nuts about can inspire art I dig.
I enjoy Beth Jeans Houghton’s work as
pure musical pleasure. Her lyrics are obtuse – imagistic, but not always
communicative – but her songs are richly melodic and she and her band
adorn them with varied and imaginative instrumental support. The Hooves
are especially valuable as harmony singers, and while they do a nice job
in live performance (if YouTube is any indication), their role here is a
little marginalized by the sheer volume and variety of parts that
Houghton herself plays – for she is at the heart of the execution of
this music, beyond simply writing and singing the songs. At twenty-one
she’s already an auteur (she’s even responsible for the artwork for YTCN). Producer Ben Hiller ably assists Houghton – his credits include production for Blur’s Think Tank.
On
album opener “Sweet Tooth Bird” alone Houghton plays acoustic guitar,
ukulele, piano, organ, timpani, and vibes, as well as singing lead and
backup vocals. “Bird” and the following track “Humble Digs” feature a
consistent thread in Houghton’s arrangement sensibility; she loves
short, focused interludes, some of them bridges with vocals, some of
them simply instrumental segments connecting verse and chorus. But these
interludes are never gratuitous; they have natural grace and integrate
seamlessly into the arrangements.
“Dodecahedron” borrows some of the phrasing from David Bowie’s ‘Young Americans” – Bowie’s Hunky Dory
era music informs Houghton’s aesthetic throughout, as does the chamber
pop of Vashti Bunyan and the orchestral flourishes of early Kate Bush.
But Houghton is not hemmed in by any style, era or idiom. On “Atlas” she
sinks into a groove not unlike the Dirty Projectors. Driven by the
double drumming of Hooves Ed Blazey and Dav Shiel, “Atlas” is part
Afro-pop, part Bo Diddley meets Bow Wow Wow propulsion. The lyric
suggests that “red wine and whiskey are no good for me” while
contrasting Houghton’s travels with those of an older intimate.
On
“Nightswimmer” Houghton sounds ready to dismiss a lover (“I can only
hope he’ll go out with the tide”), while the accompanying music evokes
vintage Cocteau Twins. There’s something of the Velvets’ “Stephanie
Says” in the lilt of the rhythm guitar on “Liliputt," which also
demonstrates the sonorous beauty of the string quartet (cellist Ian
Burdge, violist Bruce White and violinists Sally Herbert and Everton
Nelson) Houghton employs with some frequency on YTCN. The strings
blend beautifully with Houghton’s jagged, guttural electric guitar and
spectral, romantic piano fills on “Franklin Benedict.” Houghton’s
proclamation of love is at once reluctant and spirited; her lyrics court
the absurd and the evocative like vintage Marc Bolan.
‘Carousel”
evokes the compositional sensibility of Stephin Merritt. Wary of
betrayal, Houghton issues a restless farewell as the string players stir
things to a conclusion. A “hidden” track, actually something of a
snippet, emerges after a few silent seconds - kissing the program
goodnight with a jolt of Pogues-like folk-punk. It’s an appropriate end
to an album that’s full of twist, turns, and enchanting surprises
throughout.
Reverberating: 8.5
______________________________________________________________________
Author: Steve Wilson
Source: stevemahoot
Date: February 18, 2012
Original article: HERE
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