MUSIC REVIEW ~ John Grant - Love is Magic

What is there left to say about John Grant that hasn't already cashed its chips in on an already established line of musical myth making?  Its as hard to look at an artist from a fresh perspective as it is for an artist to find one for themselves. Both develop expectations and associations built up from a repeated experience of what they love to write and what we love about them. We can become so accustomed to Grant's self confessional material that its robbed of its power to shock. amuse or awe.

He has often expressed his life experience in such a frank manner, its difficult to see beyond it to notice how he's filtered and packaged it for our consumption.  The results process his feelings via some of the most honest, witty, yet scathing songs about former lovers you are ever likely to hear. Emotional truths struck home and cause reciprocal resonant chords in others -'yes me too'.  Anyone who has broken up badly with a former lover and wanted to get back at them for the hurt they've caused, could hear it in a John Grant song. Much of this early solo material arose from a precarious sense of himself, to which the songs became a sort of cathartic therapy. Trying to rid himself of layers of self- destructive hate, doubt and anger. Over his three previous albums and associated live performances it was apparent that Grant has gradually been putting to rest, or at least managing better, the bitterness that drove his most cutting early songwriting. Where too now though for the bard of the withering put down?

As he releases Love is Magic, his fourth solo album, what more can we hear that hasn't been heard before? As Bella Union pre-released tracks from the album online, I felt concerned. What I was hearing, seemed like retreading old ground,  a lost sense for a melodic line, run out of fresh ways to write songs? Grant himself thinks this album is the most complete realisation he's yet achieved of what he's wanted an album to be. My feelings about it before hearing it in full were then a little troublesome. I was surprised then to end up loving it.

Queen of Denmark released in 2010 was in effect a salvage job by the group Midlake, to rescue Grant from slipping into a self imposed retirement. The resulting highly successful album has much more of a country lite feel to it, and had echoes of his previous work in the Csars. By the time of Pale Green Ghosts, three years later he's confident about where he wants to go musically experimenting with electronics, though still dropping back into the style of the first album from to time to time. This gave the album stylistically speaking an uneven feel, even though its full of songs that are some of his best.  My sense of 2015's Grey Tickles & Black Pressure was that it consolidated without developing further what he achieved on Pale Green Ghosts. With Love Is Magic, I believe I have a sense of what he's tried to achieve with this album. Its is more coherent in its form, being largely electronic in style from start to finish, but it also toys with something a bit more sonically adventurous too.

Between the last two albums he's done quite a bit of feature vocals on other people's albums. Most noticeably on Susanne Sundfor's Mountaineers, and with Creep Show. Both these allow Grant to sing over the most gorgeous sonic backgrounds allowing space to accommodate the full richness of his vocal timbre. Susanne Sundfor's album Music For Troubled Times, is a patchwork of songs each beautifully wrought. At times sparsely backed, sometimes lushly orchestrated,  experimentalally mixing in the spoken word, whilst still hanging together as a whole album concept. Love is Magic bears a few similarities, there are re-statements of what is good in a John Grant song, whilst weaving into this bolder explorations of the song form, pushing at his own compositional boundaries. The track Metamorphosis for instance opens the album with a crazy in your face list of things that appear to have no association, bookending a sad little tune about the death of a loved one, written from the perspective of someone with an emotionally alienated sense of loss. It doesn't quite convince you to fully buy into whats happening, its a fraction too clever to touch you, but it is a courageous track to open your album with.



The theme that holds the album together, resides in the title track Love Is Magic. Laying out the different reasons for our experience and desire for love. He sings that however it arrives ' when the door opens up for you, don't resist  just walk on through, there's really nothing else to do.'  Since an earlier song Marz there's has been a nostalgic vein that reflects back on his early life. Its present here in the Tempest, where he yearns for someone to come play the Atari arcade game with him. It has within it a plangent vein of loneliness, requesting someone to come and share an enthusiasm with him, to love what he loves. Preppy Boy, is a young inexperienced gay teenager imagining himself falling for the most straight looking and hence unobtainable love object. Smug Cunt could be seen as another of Grant's character assassinations of a hate figure. But there is often a sense that Grant only dislikes them because they have what he wants, the Smug Cunt has unwarrented self-confidence, but by the bucketful. Diet Gum, opens with the line 'I manipulate, that's what I do, I manipulate that's what I'm doing to you' interspersed with a lot of gay bitching trying to put down the manipulator 'Do you really think you could seduce me in a leisure suit' . Yet these pathetic expressions of independence are empty ones. They are only susceptible to being manipulated, because they love the manipulator.

Critical appreciation for this album has been mixed, some have like me loved it, often for the very same things that others have found irritating. Sometimes, I have to say, Grant's use of electronic instrumentation can seem a bit like he switched the machine on and used whatever its factory default settings were. He needs a musical collaborator to push him to be bolder in his arrangements, someone who'll conceive a unique sound to enhance Grants songs further. That said, Love Is Magic's compositional themes are as rounded and thoughtful as ever. It still has its pokey moments, but in a gentler, less cruel way, and he is perhaps more forgiving of others failings than before. Though not quite the superlative album that one might still expect him to write, it points towards a few bold musical directions he could pursue and expand on further. Nonetheless, for all its sometimes half resolved quirkiness, its a really interesting album that I'm already quite besotted with.

  

SHERINGHAM DIARY 20 ~ Taking A Break From The Usual

A Pre-holiday Holiday
Five days after we both completed the last day at our jobs, we were now inhabiting a bardo of our own making, a place between two states of being and styles of work. Time for rituals to mark these changes in our surrounding landscape:~ writing the names of people or states we disliked or wish to leave behind onto pebbles and throwing them into the sea combined with the force of a Vajrasattva mantra behind them:~ on another day writing the people or aspects we liked and would wish to remember onto a thin Japanese paper which became transparent once placed in the bottom of a pot and anointed with water, adding soil, spring bulbs, then more soil before anointing again with water, and perfumed with the aroma of two sticks of incense. Sometime in early Spring they hopefully will grow and bloom.

This was a pre~holiday holiday, a week in which to put down work concerns, catch up with ourselves, and take time to tidy up the house a bit and simply relax. I prepared my workshop to be in readiness for the new work to begin post holiday. Jnanasalin made jams and preserves. It felt like a long weekend with no perceivable end, to be followed, according to our nightmares, by a return to our previous work by desperate pleas for help. So there was a bit of anxious emotional adjustment lingering around.  The finite nature of our savings creates a time pressure to crack on with developing Cottonwood, with it a distinct tension. But first, allow ourselves a break, travelling up to Richmond in North Yorkshire for seven days away from all that is familiar in hearth, home and work habits.

Celebrate Holiday


Richmond is an attractive Georgian market town, dominated by a huge castle towering over the fast flowing water serpent that is the River Swale. Its an ideal base from which to explore The Yorkshire Dales or Moors, even The Lake District. Having said that, what we did was spend three of our seven days hanging in and around Richmond.

Mainly we wandered about a bit, taking in a couple of lovely riverside walks, either side of the Swale. My favourite was along the old rail line to Easby Abbey which lies about a mile or so out of town. Jnansalin and I are never your purposeful ramblers charging on, walking poles in hand, to the next objective dragging both the willing and the unwilling behind them. We are, however, up for an nice easy strole, a gentle amble along a worn and hopefully well signposted route, motivated by the reward of coffee and cake at the end of it.

The best cafe we found was in Mocha, in Richmond Market Place. From the outside it appears just a high end chocolatier, but it has a small number of tables inside and out. These quickly get full, so you do have to stake claim to your territory when one comes available. Both coffee and cakes were the best in Richmond and district, so it was always worth it.

Finding a good range of vegetarian dishes on a menu in the North Yorkshire appears to be patchy and the results often feeble or unsatisfying. There wasn't a single cafe that could provide even a half good Veggie Breakfast. Most being let down, by over cooked fried eggs, grilled but still uncooked tomatoes or fried mushrooms that seemed to have been numbered and rationed per person. We also failed to discover a local baker who sold danish pastries that weren't doused in a vat of liquid sugar. The Noted Pie Shop, on the market square, wasn't notable for its culinary inclusiveness, for apart from an anaemic looking quiche it appeared to sell nothing but meat based pies.

We did have occasionally quite excellent meals. The Black Lion has a limited range of vegetarian dishes. but Jnanasalin enjoyed a richly flavoursome Mushroom Stroganoff there. On our last full day in Richmond we discovered Duncans Tearooms. A small upstairs restaurant with only a door at street level, it gets five stars and rave reviews on Trip Advisor. Its only open Wednesday to Saturday, so lunchtimes in particular you may have to book. But their menu is broad, ranging from superbly executed standards to rather more unusual fare. I had a creamy Potatoe and Leek Pie that was simply mouth-wateringly delicious, whilst Hubby tucked into a deep and richly layered Mushroom Tarteflette.

Whilst in Duncans Tearoom, I had my best 'overheard' of the entire trip. As we were sat waiting for our main meal, a retired couple came in sitting on a table behind and just to one side of us. Middle class and country tweedy, her voice in particular would've cut a glacier in half, so clear I suspected she might actually want everything she said to be heard. I certainly caught everything darling ' Well, I first read the early novels of the lesbians when I was at university. There's not one mention of sex between them or anything, so its hard to see why they got in such a lather over it. But goodness there was a lot of bitchy conversations between them, it just goes on and on and on... and I had to study this thing, it was so utterly tedious I got extreee..mly bored.'

On a very wet day in Ripon we sought shelter from the whip of wind and rain in Lockwoods. Its a sort of hipster boho bistro I guess, but that didn't put us off. Surprise surprise, from its non-alcoholic cocktails, a starter of soughdough and olives, through to the mains of  Butternut & Feta Risotto, dribbled with walnut pesto topped with a tangle of pea stems, it was pure joy from start to finish. Excellent service, timed well, with just the right amount of attentiveness. We left sated and deeply satisfied. Highly Recommended.

Don't let the number of column inches I devote to food lead you to believe that is all we look forward to on holiday. Though everything else does tend to sit in a time limited orbit around when the next opportunity for eating might arrive. This time we tried not to pre-plan our week, attempting to stumble into spontanaity. Well, it certainly felt less pressured. Nevertheless, we managed to take in the marvellous, the historical and the cultural, a few of which are worthy of highlighting.

Many stately homes have first been a castle or abbey which subsequently became an ancestral pile. Raby Castle has always been a house that later applied for a 'license to crenellate', which is something I'd love to think you could still ask for. The current owners of the Raby Estate trace their ancestry back to the notoriously power grabbing Neville family.  Raby Castle on the outide seems a classic medieval fortress, has grand and ambitious interiors, extensively remodelled in the Victorian Gothic era. When you enter the Octagonal Room you do literally gasp, nothing in the rooms prior to it quite prepares you. Its the sheer audacity with which the bling has been thrown, plastered or hung around. It bears a similarity in spirit and style to the interior of the Brighton Pavilion, though the Octagonal Room was executed some forty years later, its in close sympathy with the Pavilion's camp ostentation. I loved it to bits.

From being quite young you could never please me more on holiday than to leave me exploring some castle, church, cathedral or abbey. In consequence I've gleefully wandered over countless ruined abbeys in my time. Its never clear until you actually get to a monastic site how much of it will be left, a few walls, a solitary broken window moulding, sometimes only a stone outline in the ground. So nothing quite prepares you for the size, scale, and level to which it is intact, of Fountains Abbey. No other monastic site in England I know of comes anywhere close. Yes, the roof is long gone, all its architectural and decorative flourishes in stone, wood, paint or glass have been stripped away, but what remains, the vaulting, the height of the walls, the clerestory, columns, arches and windows, is all without parallel.

Without fail on visiting a ruined abbey I get a mixture of feelings; great sadness and a silent hankering for what has been lost culturally and spiritually due to the dissolution, plus a fantasy of becoming a monastic myself. How these religious institutions would have fared had they been left alone, is hard to say. A place of true solitude away from the worldly, would be harder and harder to find as the subsequent centuries progressed. Perhaps, even leaving aside the effect of being mugged by the so called English Reformation, the writing was on the wall for them.

Close by Raby Castle lies the market town of Barnard Castle. It too still has its own castle, that has mostly had its crenelation nicked, with only a curtain wall left. What it does have is the Bowes Museum, built like a French Chateau, founded and paid for by the wealth of John & Josephine Bowes. Finding themselves unable to bear children they spent the rest of their lives using their surplus income to build a huge museum to house their art collection. Mostly the art works are second level Italian or French masters, with a couple of Canalettos and an El Greco to raise the quality a bit. Anyway, apart from the 200 year old mechanical swan, the main highlight was the exhibition Catwalking based around Chris Moore's fashion photography. Covering a period from the start of his career in the sixties to the present day, the often iconic photos are accompanied by the actual iconic dresses by Chanel, Dior, McQueen, Westwood etc plus the sculptural delights of Issey Miyake.

There was much about our holiday that was filled with quiet and small delights. Through a small door just off the market place and down a narrow corridor you are taken into this beautifully compact award winning garden. Not much wider than 4 or five metres Millgate House Gardens meander down the hill slope in the direction of the Swale, pausing to create small arbours for garden chairs, benches or tables, and then sidling on its downward path  The day we visited was a bit drizzly, the garden bore more of a dripping jungle demeanour with its luxuriant hostas blanketing the ground level catching beads of rainwater. The planting is deceptively but delightfully informal, but then you start to notice there is quite a bit of distinctly structural topiary scattered around. The Georgian house with its balconies overlooking the valley provides its own architectural accent to the splendid garden laid out before it. Its a garden worth taking a look at, anytime of year.

There were hardly any duff venues, but The Richmondshire Museum must get a special mention and the battered wooden spoon. We arrived just as it opened and the lady on Reception was a little startled, 'Do you want to see the museum then?'- 'So, will that be two adults?' She's obviously forgotten exactly what an adult looked like as two middle aged gentlemen loomed into view.  Five minutes later she catches up with us to hand us our tickets. The museum, run and set up by volunteers, hasn't been updated for fifty years, maybe more. All the items exhibited have faded or fogged labels originally typed laboriously on perhaps a pre-war typewriter. They're immensely proud of managing to acquire the set from All Creatures Great & Small after it last aired sometime in 1990. We couldn't wait to exit this museum which felt like being locked up in a dusty and heavily mothballed wardrobe.

Working For Ourselves
In most jobs how you schedule your work is constrained by the job itself, your boss, the people you work with, and other stimuli external to you. When you work for yourself all those prompts and responsibilities return home to you. The first thing we had to decide when we returned from holiday, was what our working day and week was, what to prioritise, how Jnansalin and I would work together. All of which was surrounded by slivers of Protestant Work Ethic, guilt about actually having the time to be creative in, and anxiety about making the most of this upcoming year.  We found we were pretty much on the same page about products and how we want to revamp our website. So - so far, so good!