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Album Review
by SashaS
1-9-2003
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| Scout Niblett: one-woman-renegade |
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Scout Niblett: 'I Am'
(Too Pure)
Scout Niblett: some disturbing beauty this way comes
Women in music have one of three routes to follow: puppets-on-a-string (‘sexed-up’ image-floggers, everyone bar Aretha Franklin and Patti Smith), clandestine erotica in lieu of talent (Kylie, Dido, any R&B act) and stand-on-your-own femme artistes, such as Cat Power, Martina Topley-Bird, Natasha Atlas, Anjali… Add to this list Scout Niblett whose second album, ‘I Am’, is disturbingly beautiful, dilettantely valiant and yet stripped, straight trip down your soul’s byways.
As many CDs pass under a laser, there are some that politely attract, more go by like a rain and the best ones – simply occupy your worldvison far beyond the ear-actual-blast. The last group is where Ms Niblett belongs with her three kinds of songs: Sonic Youth/Nirvana/Pixies (she is also produced by Steve Albini) style noise avalanches of a three-piece combo, solo acoustic (ukulele) songs and drum-and-voice numbers. The latter have become her signature and suchlike tracks simply freak you out with the primal, tribal, the most basic musical expression and yet so damn mesmerising...
‘Miss In Love With Her Own Fate’ casts an instant spell and you visit highs and lows, calmness and frenzy, lack of rhythm and total fury of beats, whispers and screams… ‘No-one’s Wrong’ ends with her yelling “Reach out for a song!” that gave us an insomniac night. ‘You Beat Kicks Back Like Death’ is the prime example of her minimalistic approach where she repeats “We’re all gonna die! We’re all gonna die!” over a drumbeat that threatens to hibernate all your organs!
This album took just four days to be recorded and it shows, it is spontaneous, raw, dramatic, like nothing else around but, as the clichés go, it is the truth for once. The laziest comparison would be Cat Power, with whom this young lass toured but she equally owes to a lot of ladies that came before her, from Patti Smith to Laurie Anderson, from Julianna Hatfield to Tori Amos, from Courtney Love to PJ Harvey…
Scout, born Emma Louise but chose her alter-ego after a narrator of ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ movie, grew up in Staffordshire and attended arts college in Nottingham before releasing her ‘Sweet Heart Fever’ debut LP in 2001. ‘I Am’ is gutsy, bare, bold, sexy, strong, dynamic, resolute, desolate, scary…
There is plenitude of foci on this taut album that is about “affirmation of life,” Scout explains, quickly adding, “It’s about loving your life, really loving being alive. And with that, the celebration of death. Basically.” Simply another rare one-woman-renegade…
Scout Niblett has a major knack ready to deafen you with beauty. This album’s made me realise that I’ve never been less (or more) than a flawed human. Cerebral victuals…
8.6/10
SashaS
1-9-2003
Scout Niblett’s album is released 01 September 2003 by Too Pure
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