Wednesday, 2 January 2013

Intelligence Records Bureau - Part 3

Happy New Year all you TTID readers. Full as we are with food and alcohol, we are signing off the old year with reviews of a Christmas album, to get it all out of our system in one huge festive purging. I know, I feel a bit sick now as well.

Tracey Thorn - Tinsel And Lights




Dave C
I was determined after two current albums, we should dig up some old classic. But December’s choice falling to me just as one of my favourite singers (Tracey Thorn) taking on one of the most soppy cheese producing of subjects (Christmas) was ‘unpassupable’
An interesting(ish) counterpoint, on the last album we reviewed, we had a song entitled Misery which was rather jolly, and this one starts with one entitled “Joy” which, on first hearing, seems rather lacking in said emotion.  However further listens reveal that, over the delicate bass, slightly tremulous picked guitar and sensitive but surefooted piano, it expresses that (for the non-religious), after the unfettered excitement of childhood and the riotous celebration of young adulthood, the sentimentality and family based traditions of Christmas evoke the simple but deep seated emption of joy. And that joy offers, not merely a refuge from, but also a base from which to fight back against, life’s vicissitudes.  It is one of two original compositions and the best track on the album by some distance. The XX would do well to listen to the singing here.
The other Thorn composition throws up another counterpoint “Tinsel & Lights” lyrically and musically being the expression of what the more genteel, well-heeled types were doing in the big apple whilst “The Fairytale Of New York” was unfolding. It’s the most upbeat, musically free and joyous track on the album.
The rest of the songs are wide range of covers, which generally showcase Tracey’s voice well and make most of the original vocals seem somewhat pale. The one Christmas standard “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” is done with subtle rather than lavish strings and sung splendidly with that tone of warmth with slight underlying sadness that no one else does quite as well.  Joni Mitchell’s “River” whilst not a standard has been covered many times but again suits Tracey’s voice very well. Unfortunately the same can’t really be said of the White Stripes “In The Cold Cold Night”  I think Poison Ivy from The Cramps would do this well, but the line “When my skin turns into goo” seems particularly incongruous here.  Hard Candy Christmas works better and seems more personal here than in its multi-person original in “The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas”.  Ron Sexsmith, Sufjan Stevens, Randy Newman and Green Gartside make this a far cry from your average Christmas album (indeed it’s more seasonal than specifically  about Christmas). The remaining highlight being the duet with Green Gartside on Low’s “Taking Down The Tree”.
Overall, it’s hard to argue that this is an essential epoch-making album. But it will certainly become a part of the joy of my future Christmasses.
75/100

Rich C
I have been a fan of Tracey Thorn’s music since the Marine Girls. I loved her early acoustic/indie solo album A Distant Shore and like many people from Hull I enjoyed her and Ben Watt’s rise to success as Everything But The Girl, taking their name as they did from a furniture shop that was opposite the pub that gave it’s name to a legendary “crawl” in the 80’s called the Zoological. Their Hull University student days, coincided with my first days out and about as a young man finding his way in the world, and in many ways they provided the soundtrack to a lot of that.
There were times when EBTG’s music didn’t quite do it for me though. Mostly when they seemed to run out of ideas after their initial albums. Those soulful, mournful ,completely English jazz tinged ballads got a bit boring quite frankly. But that was OK, as Ben and Tracey realised this too and changed their approach based on the influence of the new dance music of the late 80’s/early 90’s that permeated just about every strand of music in one way or another.
The albums they released in the 1990’s like Walking Wounded and Temperamental were, for me, even better than their initial output and saw them develop a style of music that whilst being incredibly redolent of it’s time in musical history, also saw them create what I believe to be their finest and most timeless work.

On listening to Tinsel and Lights my first thought, rather oddly, was what would it be like to be Ben and Tracey’s kids? Mum, quietly getting the Christmas shopping done and preparing the nut roast etc, while Dad is out, again (!), DJ’ing at some incredibly hip club into the early hours.  On Christmas Day they will all be communicating via iPad, whilst each recording their own tunes on Garageband. Kinda the polar opposite in England to the Royle family.
Anyway – to the album. Based on all of the above, I really wanted to like it. Tracey’s voice is, let’s not beat around the bush, an English treasure. Tinsel And Lights is an album mostly of covers with a couple of self-written festive tunes thrown in, including the title track, which along with Joy and Hard Candy Christmas have just the right amount of nostalgia and fond memories mixed with a certain sorrow that we all experience at this time of year. Indeed the title track is clearly a bid at outdoing Fairytale Of New York in a sense. It fails, but it’s close.
Where I struggle with the album is with it’s inability to keep up the quality levels throughout. It’s just too inconsistent in that respect. Joni Mitchell’s River is a very decent attempt, but The White Stripes In The Cold, Cold Night is I’m afraid, bloody awful. Tracey, it’s a blues song, you can’t sing the blues. Randy Newman’s Snow is dull, dull, dull but Taking Down The Tree is livened up by Green Gartside’s amazing voice (I have to confess to binning this off for Scritti Politti’s Songs To Remember the first time I played it; now there’s an album). Sufjan Stevens’ Sister Winter and the standard Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas are nice enough, but it just doesn’t make me want to dive into it as a warm, homely, chestnuts-roasting-on-an-open-fire kinda thing.
My Christmas album last year was Kate Bush’s 50 Words For Snow (reviewed here on TTID) and I couldn’t help but compare the two, perhaps unfairly, as Ms Bush I’m sure will have spent several zillion more hours on her work than Tracey will have done. But I think it shows that more is needed, even from “just” a Christmas album, to cut the cranberry these days.
In summary, what I’m saying is , I want a new Everything But The Girl album. Get those Garageband mixes together and get in a proper studio with himself!
52/100

Tony D
Well, I'm not a fan of Christmas so the thought of having to sit through an album full of Christmas songs filled me with dread to say the least. I vaguely remember Tracey Thorn at her best all those years ago so was willing to give this album a fair go. I've listened to the album probably more than I wanted to, so much so that I even started to sing along to the odd track!
I'm not sure if this was a genuine album or a money making exercise. Not all the songs are full of the cheer of the season. "Hard Candy Christmas" isn't really about Christmas either but probably one of the best songs getting me to tap me stubby little toes.
There are only 2 self penned tracks on the album, "Joy" and the title track "Tinsel and Lights" both looking back on times that really didn't, ironically seem to fill her life with joy.
`Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas', the only traditional Christmas song on the album......well that I recognised anyway, was done in a way that wasn't too annoying.
"Snow" was another sad song but good nevertheless.
There are a few electronic based songs on the album, "Taking Down The Tree" , featuring Green Gartside from Scritti Politti. "Sister Winter" and "Snow In The Sun" also lean towards the electronic side.
I really wanted to hate this album when i was first presented with it but found that no matter how hard I tried I really couldn't. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's my favourite album ever and I probably won't listen to it much ever again but it's not the worst in the world.
60/100

Andy D
I wanted to like this album as soon as it began. I wanted to like it for quite a few reasons. It was so far removed from the typical Christmas album you felt it deserved a chance of success. No slick commercialism. No cheesy festive melodies tainted it, whether they were knowingly ironical or simply brainless Xmas-by-numbers. It wasn’t afraid of looking at the more sombre side of Christmas, a time of year that isn’t always a picture-postcard riot of festive merrymaking or an Albert Square-esque carnival of despair and low farce, but rather a quiet, sometimes dull, maybe sorrowful time of year.
A noble idea indeed, hence one’s quiet rooting for the album to succeed. However we’ve all had lofty dreams that didn’t work. I never became an astronaut, or the first man to score 10,000 Test runs for England. I didn’t even get to play centre-forward for City, despite most able-bodied citizens in East Yorkshire seemingly having been in with a chance at some stage. So dealing with vaunting ambition meeting respectable but not giddying attainment is something we must all do, and it’s something this album must similarly cope with.
Huge ambition is to be respected, of course. And this isn’t a failure; far from it. The voice is impeccable throughout, an aching, wistful note that works particularly well on Joy, Maybe This Christmas and the signature song Tinsel and Lights. The mood of the album works – it seeks a reflective note and urges similar introspection of its listeners, and that too is a triumph. Where it’s let down is with a pretty stodgy cover of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (not because it’s a cover, as most of the songs were) but because it jars. Why, when seeking low-key pondering, insert this? A poor choice. With twelve tracks, it felt a couple too long and the quality sagged occasionally.
Lyrically it’s up and down - Hard Candy Christmas and Taking Down The Tree were my favourites, the latter being perhaps the best song on the album. However, musically it’s very average. Yes, it’s supposed to be unobtrusive, but to the point of being wholly unmemorable? Perhaps that’s me missing the point, and maybe it’s not meant to compete with Thorn’s excellent voice, but it doesn’t feel as though it complements it either, and leaves her carrying the whole album through the depth of her voice and the originality and scope of her idea.
Luckily she does, but it’s a close call.
55/100

Ian F
“I wish it could be Christmas everyday!” sang Roy Wood.  He wasn’t speaking for me.  Bah! Humbug! An all that.  Not being a fan of Christmas means that I have generally steered clear of recordings celebrating the season since somewhere around 1974.  I was less than grateful, therefore, to be invited to Tracey Thorn’s latest song gathering.   
The singer offers little in the way of Christmas cheer when welcoming us with the words “When someone very dear / calls you with the words everything is all clear/ that’s what you want to hear / but you know it might be different in the New year.”
Given that these lyrics are from a song titled ‘Joy’ I was a little happier.  The less than celebratory sentiments encouraged me to stow my hat and coat and to give the lady a chance to impress with her festive fare.
This is Tracey Thorn so I wasn’t really expecting frolicsome and frivolous seasonal fodder anyway.  My most lucid memories of Tracey and Ben Watt, apart from two or three excellent early to mid career albums, were of them as miserable looking couple with long coats to match long faces as they paraded around Hull when at the university and starting out as Everything But The Girl. 
I’ve followed our erstwhile adopted local lasses career from a distance since then and have always been interested, If not completely enraptured, by her her output. Given that her most recent efforts have taken a more electronic direction this, is almost, for the most part, a return to strummed strings and/or piano mid paced EBTG - and it does feature Watt on guitar. 
So, this brings us back to those opening lines.  They possibly refer to the life threatening illness her partner suffered a little while back but the song as a whole has more to do with the singer attempting to make the most of what joy the world only occasionally offers. 
Not a glad-tidings start to this ‘Tinsel and Lights’ party.  But, then, the  52 year has always been best when her voice is given is allowed to envelope true melancholy and that is certainly true with this album.
The opening track is only one of two Thorn originals.  It settles us into a run of four successive heart rending songs.  ‘Hard Candy Christmas’ - most famously recorded by Dolly Parton- follows ‘Joy’ and although not a great song it is carried by the always emotive yet warm Thorne vocals and perfectly compliments this opening serving of songs
The mood continues with the voice and piano dominated ‘Like a snowman’ which again like ‘Joy’ appears to suggest that you take whatever happiness you can get because it won’t last forever. It is followed by jaunty paced, jingly, ‘Maybe this Christmas’.  It has a happier feel and is faster than what has gone before and brings to a finish a fine first course of tunes.
We are now nicely settled in the comfy armchair of melancholy and looking forward to more songs sung with satisfyingly serious intent.  However, this is where Miss Thorn decides to liven up proceedings with Jack White’s ‘In The Cold, Cold Night’ and misses the spot.   The track injects a harder feel into the festivities.  A change may well have been needed and although it does add life to the party and I don’t dislike the song or its interpretation but it doesn’t really work and is the first track here where you feel something is missing.   The problem is that it’s not really a song that Miss T should be singing.  It is where she is least convincing.  For all her vocal qualities she doesn’t have the teasing timber in her voice to deliver lines like “I don’t care what people say/ I’m going to love you anyway” or it’s refrain “Come to me again in the cold cold night.”  Thorn simply can’t do cougar.  Her voice can be sensuous but isn’t sexually seductive.  Therefore the song doesn’t go anywhere.  It merely serves purpose as a toe-tapper. 
Happily, Immediately following this dip in quality we are treated to Randy Newman’s poignant and emotional ‘Snow’ which is a simple song sung with just piano accompaniment. It is achingly beautiful and the best this collection has to offer.   .
But, what could possibly be served up following that gem?  It would be difficult to offer anything as substantial. So, thorn doesn’t try.  Instead she covers Green Gartside’s middling pop trifle ‘Snow in The Sun’. This is another for those who prefer to just tap their toes rather than get into the mood or narrative of a track.
Unfortunately, now as we should be getting stuck into the meat of the album we seem to get the stuck into the fat in the middle. The traditional ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’ is obviously a plate filler.  Does anyone really need another version even if our host does do one of the better ones by conveying its unassuming message with conversational pace and tone that showcases it best?  There are no vocal band histrionics and the backing doesn’t intrude making it a lot preferable to many versions but I still find myself asking why? 
A second helping of Tracey Thorn’s own composing skill comes next ‘Tinsel and Lights’ is lifts this flabby underbelly of the album slightly.  It has one or two good lines and has a nice feel about it does still pale compared the better songs here.  At least it references Mary Margaret O’ Hara with the line ‘we played Miss America again and over and over again’ A often ignored album that would, perhaps, perfect for the committee to review at some point.
Up there with ‘Snow’ as the best song here is Joni Mitchell’s ‘River’.  I’ll be very interested to know what the other reviewers make of this track.  I’m perhaps, being overly precious about this song as it is a very personal song from the singer song-writers cathartic album ‘Blue’.  Much like ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’ but for very different reasons I can’t see any reason for covering this song.  Mitchell has always been an inward looking writer and no-one could hope to do a better version than the originators raw original and as this song is part of a song cycle explaining the singers life and career disappointments, predominantly her recent relationship failures, and with  ‘River’ itself detailing with a particular love and stupid loss and the fact that Mitchell is stuck, making a name for herself, in the Californian sunshine while pinning for the winters of her Canadian home, and for a lake she where she could just skate away from her problems.  So, how does this apply to Tracey Thorn?  How can she hope to interpret this song to any level of understanding?  No wonder the emotion of the song has dried. 
And, with that the festive feast of salient sentiment is nearly at its close. The penultimate track ‘Taking Down The Tree’ is a return to Tracey’s more recent electronica.  It is interesting track but spoilt for me by Green Garside’s vocals gate-crashing half way through. Thorne has one of the finest voices around and although Green’s vocals are good why bring him in especially if you are going to then add treatments to the voice which make it sound like he is gargling.  Still the track adds another bit of diversity to the album and does so without it jolting out of shape.   
Then, to finish off, comes coffee and another slice of electronic cake.  Sister Winter’ is a Sufjan Stevens song that begins as a bitter warning but soon has us all singing its seasonal refrain. 
So, this is an album I didn’t really expect to like but have quite warmed to.  I think the fact that it isn’t a Christmas album as such more an album that features Christmas in life scenarios.  It could have been a collection of covers done in a Rumor style and aimed at the MOR market. It isn’t.  It is an album that I will play again – probably next year – and it could be an album that wins new listeners each year until in becomes a seasonal classic. 
77/100

Kev B
I am sure it is in ignorance but admit to have never heard of this artist nor to any of her music. But eh a Christmas album, what can go wrong !
I decided I wanted to be open and more importantly positive even before I listened to any of the tracks, however  I really struggled with the tone of the music. In the main  it was bland and at times on the dreary side and this is not how I want to remember Christmas. 
Anyway,  in my opinion the only two tracks which came out with any degree of merit and appeared to catch some of the spirit of Christmas were In The Cold Cold Night  and Sister Winter.
A short review but to be honest I was unimpressed with the lack of festive fare on offer.
30/100


Well that was the widest ranging bunch of scores we've had so far. I reckon it averages 58, making it the lowest scoring album so far as well. However if we do something statistically interesting and ignore the highest and lowest scores it comes in at 60, which is very nearly the same thus proving that statistical jiggery pokery is boring, dull and pretty pointless.

What will most definitely not be boring, dull or pointless will be next month's album choice, from Andy D, Royksopp's Melody A.M.

Have a great January!



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