 |
| |
|
| |
Album Review
by SashaS
5-9-2002
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| 'The King Of Nothing Hill' |
|
Barry Adamson: 'The King Of Nothing Hill'
(Mute)
Barry Adamson’s funky cool “Yesternow”
Pioneering artists get unjustly overlooked, almost regularly: Barry Adamson had been a bassist in Magazine, was a founder member of Bad Seeds with Nick Cave before moving onto a solo career that’s resulted in number of albums, soundtracks (notably Derek Jarman’s ‘Last Of England’, 1989, and David Lynch’s ‘Lost Highway’, 1996) and assorted other noises. Why Adamson remains on the cult side is simply because he’s never courted publicity, gone extra-mile on promotion or prostituted himself in fashionable drinkeries to become tabloid-celebrity. He’s always cared about music and his love has a giant embrace and substance…
Now, we get ‘The King Of Nothing Hill’, the follow-up to 1999’s ‘Best Of…’ collection, ‘The Murky World Of Barry Adamson’ and the first new material since ‘As Above So Below’ released in 1998. The new disc features ten brand new tracks, all produced and performed by Adamson, and a word such as idiosyncratic has been invented for him. But, the succinct description should be – a soundtrack for an imaginary movie.
The musical range on ‘The King…’ spreads from purely funkoid pieces to instrumental meditations (check out ‘J’aime Paris’): its opening track is ‘Cinematic Soul’ that toys with the ‘Shaft’-style funkiness, moves onto the poppier ground on ‘Whispering Streets’, with ‘Black Amour’ being perfumed with distinct French-flavour… ‘When Darkness Calls’ gets really nocturnally claustrophobic within its rock-ness, spaced-out jazzy is ‘The Second Stain’, journeying all the way to the New Orleans-y ‘That Fool Was Me’ and the emo-cum-magical ‘Cold Comfort’.
Born and raised in Moss Side, Manchester, Adamson is one of the most interesting artists on the Brit-scene, with his enigma further enhanced by his PR-writings (for this album, you can read it unabridged in Odditorium): “The deeper you go, the funkier it gets”, was the fitting tag line for this auteur’s main feature. Downtown Soulville sound that’s always been rated X… Remake/remodel it for a more desperate, tougher Yesternow. Right now.”
These songs are populated with pimps, private dicks, coppers such as Starskey and Hutch, broads of suspect morality, lost souls in the lust of night, murder victims in such convoluted cases even Philip Marlowe and Sherlock Holmes would have a tough task to finger the killer… Beats noir!
‘The King of Nothing Hill’ is a sonic moviola for all souls who find solace in picture houses, which means all of us. Grab this as you won’t get much more characteristic record these days.
8.6/10
Tour dates:
22 September - Placa Del Rai Square, Barcelona
24 September - Paradise Garage, Lisbon
28 September - Gagarin 205, Athens
03 October - Stadtgarden, Cologne
04 October - Loft, Berlin
06 October - Beursschouwburg, Brussels
09 October - The Marquee, London
09 November - Crossing the Border Festivals, Amsterdam
SashaS
31-8-2002
Barry Adamson’s album ‘The King of Nothing Hill’ is released 02 Sept. 2002 on Mute
|
|
|
