As the 1980s collapsed into the 1990s in a fluorescent, floppy ball of smiling inanity, there was an intriguing trend amongst a certain breed of “inky” journalist (don’t forget, NME, Melody Maker and Sounds were all smudgy doorsteps of respectable opinion in those days). As if in reaction to the laddish euphoria of the nascent baggy scene, or the crusty simplicity of post-acid dance music, a select coterie of writers retreated into a safe cocoon of poetic intensity. In their reviews every keyboard was “ethereal”, every voice “lusciously evanescent”, and every guitar touched by man, child or beast turned out “coruscating”. By the time Brit pop turned up, these guys must have either retreated sadly to their 4AD bowers or shrugged and joined Wire, deciding that Derek Bailey was where it was at all along. But we bring it up because we’ve been sitting on this record for weeks, wondering what critical vocabulary we have left to describe Richard Walters after years of lavish praise for his, ahem, lusciously evanescent voice.
Do people get bored of hearing Walters’ voice described as beautiful and delicate? Hell, does he? And, like a man who’s bored with paradise, like Oscar Lomax throwing his precious Snappy toy into the sea, can it be possible that we can get bored with music as wonderful as this? Well, perhaps. Two of the songs on this EP, whilst being jaw-droppingly lovely, are also a little par for the course. ‘Infinity Street’ does a nice line in breathy confessional – and probably no singer in the history of Oxford city can deliver a line as intimately as Walters – but never quite finds that Stina Nordenstam zone of disquieting secrecy; and ‘Dandelions’ moves from pizzicato melancholy to mini-epic perfectly… almost too perfectly.
But, just as we’re getting jaded, this record hits us with some elegantly emotional songs to remind us why Walters is such a local treasure. ‘Regretless’ is a washed-out ghost of a gospel celebration, a sort teary-eyed opposite to Blur’s ‘Tender’, and is beautiful, but the title track eclipses it, allowing a mournful cello and some typewriter percussion to embrace Walters, whose voice flutters round the notes as if it’s trying to keep from floating away, an Aspirin desperately trying not to dissolve. Some backing vocals, like Disney bluebirds, step in, only to be numbly undercut by lines like “I talk in platitudes”, that would give Walt the shivers.
And yet the closing number, ‘Bring On The Dancing Horses’ stands above even this. It’s a wan, spectral valediction, glistening guitars and bodiless backing vocals keeping the song balanced between bottomless despair and rough victory. Yes, it’s a mystery that this record isn’t making waves at grown-up magazines like Uncut, but more importantly, Walters at his best makes us want to tumble into a weeping huddle one second, and leap into air, fists aloft the next.
You can’t get much less bloody ethereal than that, eh?