On 2011 films

I’ve always rejected comments like ‘hey, but isn’t …. (insert a year), like, a really low point for music/films/literature? Like, awful year’. I’ve always considered that a dubious sort of remark – often too lazy and just plain baseless. Made by people who either missed too much or never really got to the right stuff. 

This time, though, I do feel terribly underwhelmed. It isn’t that I haven’t watched a lot (I have) or that my expectations were too high (my expectations have become timid little things). And it isn’t even that 2011 was overloaded with bad films – no, quite on the contrary, it was chockfull of good stuff. In fact, that is precisely the problem: too many good films, not enough truly inspired ones. Great moments – yes, lots of them, but moments don’t make it. Unless, of course, you are talking about Double Nickels On The Dime by The Minutemen.

It’s interesting that animated films are a good indication of a year’s overall quality. To counter the inventive greatness of Toy Story 3 Pixar makes us sit through the dull and perfectly unremarkable Cars 2. After the well-recognized but adventurous spirit of How To Train Your Dragon you now deal with the cheap, brain-dead thrills of Kung-Fu Panda 2. Sylvian Chomet’s Illusioniste was breathtakingly beautiful and smart – A Cat In Paris is just all right. Well, yes, Rango was somewhat better than the others, but that’s a relative achievement. 

Still, there’s no question that 2011 does merit a best-of-year list. And now that I’m looking through these 12 entries, I realise they are so full of new sensations it is still well worth it in the end. 

Album review: LEONARD COHEN - Old Ideas

Highlights: Going Home, Amen, Show Me The Place, The Darkness

Four songs into Old Ideas, and you might get a feeling this is actually Cohen’s best album in many many years.  And while it does get kind of patchy and diffuse after that, it’s still full of that wise, poignant charm that makes Leonard Cohen so special. After all those years – it’s still easy to get lost in that quiet, heartfelt croon.

Of course he can’t sing. But it’s not as if he is any worse at it than he was in the 60’s or in the 70’s. But with that said – there’s actually one interesting point to be made: the quality of a Leonard Cohen song always relies on vocal hooks (and I don’t just mean that ever-present female back-up choir – which is quite good here). So it’s not simply about the man’s lyrics. If you take a track like “Amen”, for instance, you will notice that for all its slowness and long-windedness, it manages to stay rather… catchy. Granted, it all needs a quiet, relaxed listen (preferably in the dark), but I believe that a man with such wisdom and taste merits a couple of grateful evenings (though he does call himself ‘nothing but the brief elaboration of a tube’ in the confessional opener “Going Home”) . I’d argue that hollow, uneventful stuff like “Anyhow” and “Banjo” is way too plain, but overall it’s gloriously understated, stately experience.

The production is crystal clear, and the pianos, violins and orchestration are as pleasant and affecting as ever – but it’s still the basics that cut it. For all the nice embellishments, Old Ideas is about that voice, those lyrics and that simple but gorgeous melody.

8/10

SONG OF THE WEEK #46: Edwyn Collins - "The Campaign For Real Rock"

The greatly titled "The Campaign For Real Rock" is the epic opener of Edwyn Collins' best album, Gorgeous George (1994). Yes, that album is mostly known for its classic single "A Girl Like You", but this one might be even better. Intense vocals and smart lyrics, the song's brilliant, never-ending crescendo finally dissolving into the unforgettable finale you will never get out of your head. 

Album review: KATHLEEN EDWARDS - Voyageur

Highlights:  Empty Threat, Chameleon/Comedian, A Soft Place To Land

At the risk of sounding discouraging and frightening off cynics, I’d say that on her new album Kathleen Edwards sounds like the Norah Jones of alt.country (not too surprising, I guess, since Jones is among the record’s guests). Gentle, touching compositions of piano- and guitar-based folk, Voyageur is as poignant and wistfully romantic as you can get without being trapped by sweetness and sugardom. 

My major concern prior to listening to Voyageur was Justin Vernon’s (aka Bon Iver) production. Words can’t describe how insipid and bland the man’s latest sounded to my ears, so I had an uneasy suspicion he might splash his whiny mediocrity (that said, I admit to actually loving For Emma…) all over Edwards’ album. Not the case. And for all Norah Joneses of the world Kathleen retains enough artistic edge to guarantee a good, solid listen. The lilting “Empty Threat” is a great opener, but “Chameleon/Comedian” is even greater: a slow-burning ballad with a timeless vocal melody beautifully sung against the acoustic strumming and some brilliant electric passages. Then the piano-based melancholy of “A Soft Place To Land” continues the first side’s perfect run. Sadly, Voyageur does run out of steam after track six or something, when it gets somewhat samey (maybe not necessarily worse), though I certainly do appreciate some timid but successful attempts at rocking out (parts of “Going To Hell”).

As it turns out, Voyageur has a lot more to offer than charm and heartfelt singing. And excellent instrumentation and melodies such as one on “Chameleon/Comedian” do push it to a very high seven. Recommended.

7/10

Album review: OF MONTREAL - Paralytic Stalks

Highlights: Spiteful Intervention, Dour Percentage, We Will Commit Wolf Murder

A new album by of Montreal is always welcome. While the band's enormous catalogue has enough weak points, there’s no denying that every single effort by Barnes & Co sounds inspired, convincing, supercharged. It’s good to know that Kevin Barnes’ stream-of-consciousness styled songwriting is still in full bloom – even if Paralytic Stalks does suffer from certain indulgencies (of which more later).

Sound-wise, Paralytic Stalks is more of the same: psychedelic pop, Bowie, Beatles, Prince. But it’s not the sound (or, indeed, the melodies) that makes this stuff so exciting and so charismatic: it’s the fact that Barnes makes the impression of being this drunken alcoholic blubbering obscenities. But what comes out has nothing obscene about it: what you hear is a never-ending, ever-changing onslaught of terrific vocal melodies and hooks piling on top of each other. It gets so cluttered occasionally that a track like “Spiteful Intervention” might include sections certain moneyed artists would kill for. Barnes, though, doesn’t even bother to repeat these sections, which is maddening but makes for extremely rewarding further listens.

The first side of Paralytic Stalks is near flawless, with “Dour Percentage” possessing one of the most powerful soulful hooklines in the band’s entire catalogue. But that doesn’t mean a song like “Ye, Renew The Plaintiff” (oh those of Montreal’s titles!) is not good enough. It is, it’s just that it’s so long and has so much going on that you are bound to become somewhat fastidious. The aforementioned indulgencies begin after the pretty first half of “Wintered Debts”. Suddenly it’s all about long passages of orchestrated psychedelia that just become too much to bear. The mostly instrumental “Exorcismic Breeding Knife” is almost 8 minutes long, and then there's even more frustration: the closing song is as mind-blowingly catchy up to its 4-minute mark (easily my favourite thing here) as it is expendable afterwards (even though the last two minutes do provide some piano-based loveliness).

I’m still giving it a perfect eight because Barnes’ spontaneous brilliance can’t be denied. True, some of it might be overlong and weedy, but the number of absolutely ecstatic moments simply amazes. Paralytic Stalks is the year’s first half-classic, no less.

8/10