|
 The
Major Lift
By
John Brodeur
Kicking
off October with an album that feels autumnal (if not terminal),
Neil Young has teamed up with producer Daniel Lanois
for Le Noise. This is not No Line on the Horizon:
Lanois simply outfitted the workaholic rocker with a special
electric-acoustic guitar and some effects boxes and let him
play, then mucked around with the whole thing on the back
end. The result is far from what you might expect from a Neil
Young solo album—it sounds like none of his other albums,
a pretty major accomplishment considering this is his thirty-freaking-third
studio album. (That, and he tried pretty much everything in
the 1980s).
It’s the sound of two artists bringing their unique creative
energy to the table and seeing what happens—the essences of
both Young and Lanois in one package. Neither seems to have
come to the project with any preconceptions about what they
were going to do; indeed, it’s a warts-and-all performance,
full of life and rough around the edges. The songs sound at
times to be coming off-the-cuff, but the album is about life’s
bad chords—that formative spark, those brief moments of uncertainty
that all but tip toward error, are what make Le Noise
an interesting and generally excellent record.
It’s short but sweet in Neil terms, with just eight songs,
all strong (and none that break the 10-minute mark!), with
at least a couple stone classics among them. This record seems
to bear consequences—it’s heavy from the first chord to the
last. There’s the noisy grunge-blues of “Walk With Me” that
cedes to a Lanois-built wall of feedback; the beautifully
craggy guitar riff of “Hitchhiker,” the noise squalls and
vocal loops that make “Angry World” sound more paranoid than
antagonistic. The acoustic “Peaceful Valley Boulevard,” the
record’s most naked recording, is among the most haunting
songs he’s ever put to tape.
This is all matched with some deeply reflective, and not exactly
optimistic, lyrics. “I don’t know how I’m standing here,”
he sings on “Hitchhiker,” a starkly autobiographical song
that’s about a million miles from the alternative-energy anthems
of last year’s Fork in the Road. It’s one of two songs
where he references Toronto, the other being “Love and War,”
a dark masterpiece that finds Young reflecting with uncharacteristic
resignation on his years of singing about the titular topics.
Here, he’s a protest singer who’s lost all but the will to
protest: “I don’t really know what I’m saying” he opens. “I’ve
been in love and I’ve seen a lot of war/Seen a lot of people
praying.” He uses the slight refrain (“I still try to sing
about love and war”) as a theme of determination, something
to return to after hitting “another bad chord,” while Lanois’
soundscapes are reminiscent of his great work with Willie
Nelson on 1998’s Teatro. Fifty years after he’s gone,
this will be one of Young’s definitive songs.
 Stepping
away from a majorly successful pop act can never be easy,
but on Page One, his first proper solo record, former
Barenaked Ladies singer Steven Page makes the break
seem effortless. To be fair, he’s toyed with the idea before—2005’s
Vanity Project was a solo record in all but name—but
Page One seems like a statement of purpose. Written
(mostly) with his longtime co-conspirator, English songwriter
Steven Duffy, and performed (mostly) by Page and producer
John Fields, this is literate, quirky pop of the highest order.
While those who kept tabs on his former band already know
that Page was both the Lennon and McCartney of that
project (the others were Beastie Boys, I guess?) it’s great
to see what he gets up to when he doesn’t feel compelled to
put a rap in the middle eight.
Page pulls out all the stops on opener “A New Shore,” which
serves as both an introduction and a thematic break from the
past. By the time the song’s rolling drums and chirping flutes
give way to a lush, Pet Sounds-style vocal break, he’s
more than made his point; when that explodes into a refrain
of “Land ho!” you can’t help but be swept up in the (admittedly
forced) majesty of it all. Elsewhere, he balances Costello-esque
power-pop (“Indecision,” “Marry Me”) with cheeky stabs at
Europop (“Entourage,” “Queen of America”), laying out some
inspired production touches in the process (the big-band chorus
on “Leave Her Alone” works, despite itself). “All the Young
Monogamists” gets a little “Cups and Cakes,” and Page’s lyrics
as always tread the fine line between clever and stupid, but
in large part Page One comes down on the side of the
former. Moreover, it sounds like it was a fun album to make,
and it contains one of the best recordings of the year in
“Clifton Springs,” a country waltz that sparkles with great
ideas, featuring gorgeous pedal-steel work by the late Will
Owsley.
 Also
packed with great ideas is Spark, the debut solo release
from Alain Johannes. You may recognize him from his
time with the band Eleven, or from his work as sideman with
a number of acts (Them Crooked Vultures, Queens of the Stone
Age, the list goes on). Or you may not recognize Johannes
at all, which would be your loss because he’s a major talent
as a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, all of which comes
to the fore on Spark. This eight-song stunner is a
moving tribute to his late partner in music and life, Natasha
Shneider, who passed in 2008. “It’s killing me that I must
go on living/Just to fill this cup of promise with meaning,”
he sings in “Endless Eyes”; the album closes with “You were
not afraid of letting go/So I am not afraid of letting go”
(from “Unfinished Plan”). Johannes plays all of the instruments
here, from fretless E-bow guitar to cello, but he never overclutters
the mix, leaving plenty of room in the arrangements to accentuate
the Eastern-inspired melodies—and lots of wicked guitar playing.
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