hissyfit: Aarhus : 2

Tuesday 1 September 2015

Aarhus : 2

The second day at the festival panned out nicely. After a late and lazy breakfast with Joe Henry and Italian festival promotor Carla I took to the streets of Aarhus for a lonesome wander in the rain. I wanted to try and find a quirky little 2nd hand clothes shop that Di and I had stumbled across on our first visit here in 2012. This bizarre was a coffee house/come charity shop crammed full of treasures or trash depending upon the length of your beard or memory. Back then I brought a pair of leather framed pilot's Rayban sunglasses that I assumed made me look Top Gun but their wearing actually made people cross the street nervously (never since worn). Also, a beautiful pair of alligator slip ons that I've worn locally a few times much to the mirth of my grey suited Beaconsfield friends. We'd made an instant connection with the owner and her assistant but had later lost contact; names since long lost to memory. Streets lost in time too; I ended up disoriented and soggy; not such a bad thing in this charming maze. It's a very conventional town that's occasionally inevitably coloured by that Scandinavian broad minded liberalism. The most popular poster in the city, currently hanging from the sides of churches and office buildings is a graphic graphic of a naked woman with a luxuriant muff, peeing into a wine glass. I'm unsure what services are being offered but it's certainly and eye catcher. Anyway... strangely in need of a glass of wine I eventually found myself back at the fest restaurant for lunch and hooked up there with Sylvie who was in the company of Canadian throat singer Tanya Tagaq who was waxing about her participation in the evening's main event: Imagery of Perfection - A Global Concert. This would prove to be a digitally interactive performance involving Tanya, opera singer Bae II Dong, Spanish flamenco singer Carmen Linares and a whole host of dancers and musicians both in the theatre and beamed in from around the globe onto large screens. We were joined by Japan, Italy, Australia and the USA. The evening was overseen by the boys from Efterklang who orchestrated the performances and urged the (occasionally confused) participants on. This was fearless, seat of the pants stuff. There was much initial wailing and bewildered fretting about form and tempo. Folmer whispered 'Yoko x 3' in my ear, but this was no insult, just a recognition of the adventurous spirits present in and out of the room. The time lag necessitated relaxed musical motifs and timing but produced moments of true magic as the dissonance resolved; particularly towards the end of the performance when the white noise faded to reveal a beauteous whispered lullaby emanating from a waif like lady in Tokyo. Gradually the band and the audience joined her sweet song in an emotional finale, a gentle but stirring climax for both the performers and a totally engrossed and engaged audience. It was wonderful, challenging stuff; free beer too.
Talking of freeloading: I later joined Folmer and friends for dinner at Jimmy Holm's fantastic Spanish restaurant 'Canblu'.

It's tapas but not as you know it; there's a unquantifiable to his imaginative world fusion cuisine. Great wine too, courtesy of the ever generous Mr Jepsen. I broke bread with Sylvie Simmons, Joe Henry, Billy Bragg, Rhiannon Giddens, Gustaf Ljunggren, Tony Garnier, Grant Lee Phillips, Carla, and, of course Folmer; a beautiful benevolent bunch. Joe revealed that he had recently produced an album for Chaz and Dave and... Billy Bragg's 'Tooth and Nail' album. That'll be my next vinyl then... There was an unforgettable chuckle of conversation that will linger long.
Later, but all too soon, we squeezed into one big people carrier and sped back to the hotel to avoid the wet and wind. That wasn't quite the end of the evening. Outside the hotel entrance the garrulous Tony Garnier and I shared our love of Sinatra and then traded variable but enthusiastic Derek and Clive impressions. Dylan's bassist is a funny and lovely guy. Just as we were about to run for cover Sylvie whipped out her Ukelele. Apparently this new uke is male and can only be tuned by mannish hands. Tony and I feyly fumbled with the thing (obviously lacking the sufficient testosterone) before Gustaf gallantly came to the rescue. And there we stood, like happy sodden pups as Sylvie serenaded the storm - somewhat appropriately - with 'Famous Blue Raincoat'. It was all beautifully bonkers; a magical end to a cracking second day.
It's Grant Lee's birthday today so I'm hopeful of a shindig and shenanigans after tonight's Trio show with Joe Henry, Grant Lee, Billy Bragg and Rhiannon. That's a quartet I know but, who's counting?
Here's the song that put me to sleep last night. It's a beauty:

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Miracle Mile: A User's Guide by Johnny Black

Despite being based in a home studio in a rural backwater on the outskirts of West London, Miracle Mile chose to name themselves after a fictional gold rush main street half a world away where, according to adventure yarn spinner Jack London, ragged 49ers would blow their hard-won nuggets on booze and broads.
They apply a similarly unorthodox approach to their career in general. The band’s core duo of singer/guitarist Trevor Jones and multi-instrumentalist/arranger Marcus Cliffe have been relentless in their pursuit of the perfect song. Not the fastest, the gnarliest or the loudest, not even the most instantly commercial, but the song whose melody, lyrics, arrangement, performance and spirit might stand the test of time, giving pleasure to listeners not just for years but centuries.
They’d be the first to admit they haven’t yet found that perfect song and maybe never will, but I’d argue that their albums — the documentary evidence of that search — deserve a place alongside the best work of time-tested tunesmiths as elevated as Randy Newman, Elvis Costello or Tom Waits.

Marcus Cliffe wasn’t yet on board when the first album, Bicycle Thieves, arrived in 1997 but already it was evident that frontman Jones didn’t fit in with the prevailing mode. There was no rage, bitterness or self-loathing in his songs and nothing at all turned up to eleven. Instead, he offered meticulously orchestrated slices of ordinary human life, transforming the mundane into the marvellous with carefully crafted lyrics sincerely delivered. Even here, though, the hypnotic sample-based "Recycletwo" revealed a willingness to experiment that marked Jones out as more than just a pop craftsman in the vein of Crowded House or Aztec Camera.

What had started essentially as a recording project had become a five-piece live band by the time the follow-up, Candids, was released in 1998. Loaded with nagging guitar hooks and dynamic vocal interplay, it included one particularly affecting piece, "Small Ad," which featured just one line of lyric, the heart-rending couplet, "Baby’s shoes, never used." With those four words, Jones conjured up a yawning abyss of grief that other writers might struggle to evoke in an entire album.

Jones quickly realised that live performance was not his forte and retired to the womb of the studio for 1999’s third album, Slow Fade, which also saw the birth of the partnership that would lift Miracle Mile higher still above the norm. Marcus Cliffe, in demand as a player for Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Daniel Lanois, Mark Knopfler and others, was drafted in on upright bass.
Immediately the music took a more intimate turn, with Jones exploring the little things that illuminate the big things. Almost every song offers up at least one unforgettable line, like "I'd rather be ashes than dust" in "Everybody Loved You," or the concept of filling the void left by his loss of faith "with despair and metalware" in "Starwatching."
Slow Fade was further enhanced by the delicately filigreed swirls and swoops of England’s finest steel guitar maestro, B.J. Cole, whose style sat so well with Jones and Cliffe that he has become virtually a full-time member of the band.

And then, out of nowhere, catastrophe struck. Trevor Jones’ beloved sister died in tragic circumstances. It’s typical of the man that, rather than wallowing in his grief as he had every right to do, he dealt with his loss in the quiet, honest dignity of "Sister Song," the achingly lovely tribute that concludes the fourth album, Alaska. It can’t have been coincidence that the album, despite its meltingly beautiful musical landscape, was named for one of the coldest places on earth.

By the time of Stories We Could Tell in 2004, Miracle Mile were drawing critical plaudits in every significant British magazine and newspaper, along with comparisons to such pop pluperfectionists as Prefab Sprout and the Blue Nile. Critics were noting that Miracle Mile was fast becoming a repository of timelessly romantic music fueled by the same shamelessly emotional human concerns that inspired the great standards. More than this, it was being noticed that while most bands go into decline after two or three albums, Miracle Mile were getting better, perhaps because they’d avoided the trap of trying to be contemporary, and had no need to be more outrageous than the competition, largely because they didn’t see music as a competitor sport.

The sixth album, Glow, showed up in 2005 and found Jones and Cliffe further expanding their musical palette mixing Celtic folksiness with slow, semi-industrial percussion on the inspirational "An Average Sadness," blending Badalamenti guitars with Bacharach horns on "What Kate Did Next," and opening "Strange Sympathy" with a beautifully synthesised string orchestration before letting the song melt seamlessly into a laid-back country-rock rumination on the gap between aspiration and acquisition. Glow was also their most lavishly packaged disc, gorgeously presented at no small cost to themselves.

Album No. 7, Limbo, offered fifteen songs overflowing with sensitively wrought melodies and heart-fluttering lyricism. If it’s not a contradiction in terms, Limbo was even more quietly passionate than usual, deliciously understated and, at times, devastatingly tear-jerking.

‘Cassidy’s Care’ followed in 2012 and received similar critical acclaim.
Miracle Mile may just be too concerned with timeless quality for their own short-term commercial good. They’ll never sink a fang into the jugular when they can plant a whisper of a kiss on that sensitive spot at the nape of the neck and set off a tiny ripple that will, in the fullness of time, explode in the heart. I, for one, wouldn’t want it any other way.
Johnny Black

“Trevor Jones finds the poetry in real life; Marcus Cliffe anchors it in the sweetest pop. Gorgeous as ever. You may cry.”
Sunday Times

"Gentle enchantment. The loveliest melodies you've ever heard."
UNCUT

“Gorgeous melodies, hooks galore, intelligent lyrics that demand and repay careful listening, beautifully produced instrumentation, and an overall effect that combines poignancy and joy in equal measure. Music and words come together in a state as close to perfection as makes no difference, and leaves you with a delicious ache that makes you hug yourself with the sheer overwhelming joy of hearing such wonderful music. The beauty on offer here is enough to make you weep. It did me."
Americana UK

“A little oasis illuminated by musical creativity, glimpsed like a lovely mirage. Intelligent tunefulness that doesn’t kowtow to passing trends has always been as rare as fish fingernails, but it’s here.” Mojo

“Classic pop songwriting, gorgeously realised” The Times

“Moves you to tears and refreshes the soul. Scintillating.”
Maverick

“A tender sadness. Songs that have universal resonance.”
Netrhythms

"Trevor Jones has produced a gorgeous pop album that few will hear — unless there’s justice in the world.’ The Wall Street Journal

“Jones has compiled possibly the finest catalogue of adult pop. Gently beautiful and genuinely moving”
The Sunday Times

Tuesday 1 September 2015

Aarhus : 2

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