On the most candid album of her career, le Bon feels her way through a tropical haze of flange and heartache.
Photo: H. Hawkline | Words: Lloyd Bolton
'Michelangelo Dying' is a strange Cate Le Bon album. Of course, all of her work is strange in its wonderful way, but this is a strange addition to her solo discography because it feels, for the first time since 2012's 'Cyrk', like something sketched out, grasped at, but not fully realised. The run of albums from 'Mug Museum' to 'Pompeii' is a better string of albums than many artists could hope to achieve across an entire career, each its own bold sonic world, argued with precision. 'Michelangelo Dying' by comparison, feels a little too opaque. It is evidently an exploration of heartache, but perhaps out of a mixture self-protection and the unfinished processing of its subject matter, the record feels ultimately vague, lacking in self-assurance and narrative pace.
The record was recorded on the Greek island Hydra with the Welsh artist's long-time collaborator Samur Khouja. Sonically, it picks up almost exactly where 'Pompeii' left off, a thick, tropical sound awash with flanged guitars, wounded saxophones and thick bass. Highlights like 'Jerome' and 'About Time' feel like they could have come straight from that record. Other tracks withdraw further from the listener, however, not quite letting us into their core. On 'Pieces Of My Heart' and 'Body As A River', where the vocals are mixed deliberately low, Le Bon's typically oblique lyrics are further occluded behind fern-like instrumentals. The overall effect is a kind of spectral form of a Cate Le Bon record; her presence is everywhere but if we look for it directly it melts into humid air.
Rather than producing standout tracks, this album instead leaves us brilliant fragments, not quite packaged into something complete. The melody that flows from vocal into sax on the outro of 'Love Unrehearsed' is one such nugget, a hair-raising moment of musical instinctive on a record that is otherwise tightly controlled. Opener 'Jerome' is perhaps the best full track, moodily driven along by a winding bassline and lyrics that catch Le Bon at the best of her abstract emotional style.
In general, however, this record lacks a certain level of mystery in its writing. It feels almost ridiculous to say about Cate Le Bon, whose lyrics are defined by an ability to evoke an emotional reaction without directly telling you what she wants you to know. Even as she sings "Happy birthday to you" on 'Is It Worth It', your mind is at work trying to sense what exactly she means by that. But in spite of the obliqueness of specific moments, 'Michelangelo Dying' as a whole adds little depth or resolution to the mood of grief and heartache that dominates its surface. It sounds as though Le Bon is feeling her way through these experiences, rather than translating them into something poetically whole. Perhaps this is deliberate, and indeed it would explain those almost ambient tracks where the vocals are just another instrumental layer, The result, however, is more like the pages of a diary than the finely tuned kinetic sculptures her previous works have conjured in the mind's eye. Perhaps 'Michelangelo Dying' feels limited because of the high standard Le Bon has set with the confidence and completeness of her own previous work. While it still has plenty to offer Cate Le Bon fans – a John Cale feature on 'Ride' adding further intrigue – this is certainly not the record to recommend to a newcomer to her work.
Previously, Le Bon has spoken of the radical moment after 'Cyrk' where she decided to reduce her recordings to as few layers as possible, so that each detail, each instrument, would fight its corner. It is a formula that lends so much space and precision to 'Mug Museum', 'Crab Day' and 'Reward'. On 'Pompeii' this began to give way to a richer texture of flange guitars and synths, though there was still a certain precision, prominent wonky metallic hooks that have become a signature of Le Bon's work. On 'Michelangelo Dying', however, it seems that focus has been almost entirely supplanted, leaving an evocative but overly textural wash. We should not simply expect Le Bon to continue retreading old ground, but on this record it feels she is setting out in a new direction still in search of a fresh revelation.
No comments:
Post a Comment