One of a number of recent releases by this label, Les Clochards‘ debut album represents a high point for Big Red Sky, in its winning combination of sophistication, tunefulness and originality. The band boasts one of the most brilliant instrumentalists in town, a singer of rare character, a host of cynically romantic or romantically cynical Anglo-Franco-Irish songs and it’s all beautifully produced and arranged. On s’amuse bien.
The record opens with a song to set the tone in ‘Pride Prevents, Part 1′. Only a distinct resemblance to the theme from MASH prevents this being one of their best, but ignoring this, we are welcomed into their world with Karen Cleave’s superbly evocative accordion and Ian Nixon’s gruff-but-soulful baritone voice most notable. The lyric name-checks Eddie Cochrane and on this song and others there are indeed distinct recollections of the glory days of fifties rock and roll, particularly Peter Momtchiloff’s stylish Hank Marven-esque guitar figures.
Better still is the world-weary jazz of ‘Glad I Made You Laugh’ which balances Cleave’s effortless melancholia with some intelligent clarinet-work by guest star Paul Medley. The lyrics, spookily grumpy musings of a spurned lover, are an ornery joy:
“The mice are blind, they scuttle around the skirting-board…they don’t know much, but they know as much as me”.
My favourite of the album, and perhaps a candidate for Oxfordbands Song of the Year 2009 is the unsettlingly thrilling ‘Lavinia’. Yet again, Cleave’s accordion is a thing of ghostly, evasive beauty, the perfect tune floating through the attics and basements of the song like a sweet, razor-edged memory.
‘Stone Angels’ sees Nixon venture, rather successfully, into low tenor, and despite being an octave or two below Roy Orbison’s natural range, he invokes some of the glorious vulnerability of that unique and awkward talent. Fellow singer Corinne Mateo has her high point on the bluesy, ambivalent hymn to a Dorset seaside resort, ‘Durdle Door’. She provides welcome contrast to Nixon, an album’s-worth of whom might have been a tad depressing.
There’s not really a dud on the whole album, and there are fine things on the remaining songs (I especially like Matteo’s performance on ‘Saving Grace’, which should be a shoo-in for the soundtrack to Pulp Fiction II, if Tarantino ever feels the urge), and it is a matter of taste which songs stand out for each listener. Suffice it to say that this supremely intelligent and emotionally layered record reflects credit on all involved.