America has always had a fondness for female British singers with
giant voices. From the invasion of Dusty Springfield on to the dead end
of Amy Winehouse, we’ve seemed to favor Brit girl singers who lean
heavily on soul, which is why the recent emergence of acts like Florence
+ the Machine and Adele is a welcome change. On her debut album “Yours Truly, Cellophane Noise”,
Beth Jeans Houghton (and her equally lengthily named Hooves of Destiny)
are a continuation of these shifts of tone, combining the orchestral
bombast of Florence and nearly matching the vocal control of Adele. It’s
a remarkable first album, albeit one that relies too often on sudden,
jarring changes and unnecessary experimentation.
Houghton has been performing since her teens and released several EPs
and a single in the last several years, but only now might be poised to
break out. She’s been referred to as “anti-folk,” which makes sense in
that it is a meaningless term that could literally be ascribed to any
pop, rock, soul, metal, opera or classical singer in the world. Her
sound could be more accurately described as lush, fractured art-pop, but
even that is reductive; the 10 songs on “Yours Truly, Cellophane Noise”
(clocking in at a lean 35 minutes) vary widely from track to track,
both in instrumentation and mood. It’s sometimes invigorating, an
individual track coming across as surprising and rich. Other times it
seems overly self-indulgent, with songs changing tone without warning
just to display a full plumage of ability. And that’s not really
necessary: Houghton is credited with a staggering 13 instruments on the
album, even without her very impressive voice. She sounds wholly unique,
both highly trained and liable to break away into deep emotion at any
point. On “The Barely Skinny Bone Tree,” she easily carries a haunting
intro on the strength of vocals along, only later bolstered by acoustic
guitar, a string section and deep, complementary male backup vocals.
“Yours Truly, Cellophane Noise” is strangely front loaded
with its most off-putting songs, “Sweet Tooth Bird” and “Humble Digs.”
Both songs sound cluttered, with too-dense multi-tracked vocals,
keyboards, percussion, harpsichord and a brass section on the former
alone. The banjo melody on the latter, followed by a rousing chorus
improves, but as if to demonstrate weirdness, there’s a bizarre middle
eight of strings and ghostly voices that drag the whole thing down.
Fortunately, the deep cuts improve the album immensely, with the driving
drums of “Atlas” perfectly balancing its melancholy refrain of “Red
wine and whiskey are no good for me/ Dissecting the atlas for places
we’ve been/ Your list is longer is longer, but you’ve got more years on
me.” The highlight of the album may be “Liliputt,” which begins as a
gentle, nearly pastoral melody until it transforms into a tumbling,
propulsive journey over viola. It’s one of the few tracks that manages
its shift in tempo and tone organically, and feels much the better for
it.
It may sound strange to say “Yours Truly, Cellophane Noise”
is both a confused and self-assured collection of songs, but well, it’s a
strange album. It’s clear that Houghton has a sound and atmosphere well
mapped out in her mind, a heady combination of artiness, carnivalesque
and whimsy, but her construction of it falters a little too often to be
wholly complete. But few debut albums have the kind of ambition that
this one does, and that’s to be lauded just as much as its virtuosity.
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Source: Spectrum Culture
Date: March 11, 2012
Original article: HERE
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