The Slow Review

There is a special, resonant magic that happens when a song’s lyrics and melody mingle and merge. Take the gently meandering poetry of “Maryan” off the Shleep album. The lyrics unroll and bend with the melody like a river unrolling to its delta. There’s a tonal consistency to the song, a timelessness like a drone with downstream force ― addressing only its own flow (cue Wagner’s Rheingold prelude). It’s a beguilingly complex-as-simple song structure that comprises a long melodic verse, and some equally long instrumentals over basic but unexpected chord changes. There is no chorus, and then the verse is repeated ― the last word ‘Maryan’ stretching and rising in extended harmony. But it’s one of the longest verse-melodies in the business ― I think only Prince’s “7” comes close in duration ― and there too a distinct chorus is lacking, unnecessary. The lyrics and words pitch and bend to conform with the colourful melody just as the sound and vibe of the song remain harmonious with the natural setting.  Continue reading “Robert Wyatt ― Maryan”

I can say, without equivocation or pimply hyperbole or puffed-up superlative, that “Diamonds and Pearls” is one of the greatest pop songs of all time. No question. It’s got it all: funky tight rhythms, catchy melodies, affecting and natural choruses, light but definitive hooks and the surest pop touch (the kind of pop mastery that Prince would barely shrug his shoulders at). Chintzy synth lines, call and response harmonies, soul-pop vibes and trademark Prince guitar licks. Add the supremely tight & varied changes ― indeed, about four times the amount of changes you’d expect in a regular hit, including a major key change and turnaround. And it never seems to waver for a second, every part interlocks and leads to the next, every drum fill & lick sits tight in the groove ― it’s perfectly crafted and flowing. It’s an ecstasy of tight song arrangement… with slick and layered production values and ferocious bottom and snare attack. I remember an interview with Michael B saying they nailed it in a single take in Japan or someplace; which, considering how long it’s taken me to get the bass part down, is testament to superior musicianship. Listen to the subtle bass-behind-the beats play from Sonny T at 1:20 (‘Which one of us is right…’) to about 1:40 ― supremely funky and deep in the pocket. The pompous key change to D# at 2:06 leads to tight funk at 2:24, repeating the opening bass riff. Sonny’s work is amazingly nuanced at every point; it’s not until you play along that his pacing and emphasis come out clearest. Compared to the rather straight-ahead “Cream”, “Diamonds and Pearls” has all the intricacy of a Swiss timepiece. Pure pop with deep grooves and soul stacked on top. Catchy as all hell. Saccharine and sincere. Bright and sassy with a silken trim: pure Prince.

A genial plateau of near-religious, sublime music melding lightness with gravity. Sublime is the operative word ― I don’t generally go for Hegelian definitions of The Sublime, but if I was pressured to analogise the cool, abstracted air of Sublimity and had sufficient leeway of criteria, I’d tick the box marked Beethoven and lock in this Adagio (molto e cantabile). Continue reading “Beethoven — Symphony #9, 3rd movement”

Commencing with the nightmarish traffic shot of silent, hemmed-in despair, and ever after that open to dream, suggestion and imagination, this is the culmination of a kind of cinema we’ll never see again. The era of Cinecitta, of oligarchic producers and fabulous set pieces and swirling arrays of extras, littered with personal recollection, wish fulfilments and fear. And total dubbing. And wholly personal, boyish, poetically inventive direction. I love that his critic-character, besides spouting an endless bilge of intellectual clichés (all of the time), states early on that his film is nothing more than a sequence of disconnected scenes — a film about filmmaking must employ self-criticism at some point, and when he talks about the failure of a scene with the dream-girl at the therapeutic springs, which we’ve just seen, well, it’s significant that it doesn’t deflate the narrative at all. And of course the critic hangs later on (how could he not see that coming). Continue reading “Federico Fellini – 8½”