BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2010 Richard Thompson: Dream Attic (Proper)

 |   |  1 min read

Richard Thompson: Sidney Wells
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2010 Richard Thompson: Dream Attic (Proper)

Quite what has enraged the exceptional and much admired English guitarist/songwriter Richard Thompson we can only guess, but let's hope he stays angry because this blistering live album -- of all new material, recorded at various venues in the States -- finds him in top form.

With a small band -- guitarist Pete Zorn also pulling out saxes, mandolin and flute; Joel Zifkin on violin -- Thompson straps on electric guitar and, taking a risk, delivers up unfamiliar songs to audiences which are silenced by the energy and politely enthusiastic in their appreciation.

Few artists would attempt such a conceit -- live albums are the hits, surely? -- but this approach allows these bristling songs their full rein of nerve-edge energy.

Financiers and bankers are the subject of the brutal opener Money Shuffle: "We never pimp, we never hustle, if you just bend over a little, I think you'll feel my financial muscle".

By the closing verses of the nail-hard Crimescene (which sets the scene of a long-dry love in "broken glass, broken chair, lamp hangs by a thread") Thompson sounds like he is channeling Nick Cave's acidic disposition and delivers a violently corkscrewing guitar solo, and he seems ambivalent about the Burning Man festival ("Hey ho pilgrim, spin the wheel of sin").

Elsewhere there are the seductive women on Chapel Street (Demons in Her Dancing Shoes) and the end of a relationship (Big Sun Falling in the River). 

Sting is the subject of Here Comes Geordie, and is nailed for a multitude of sins from not speaking in his own accent ("are you from Jamaic-ee?") to his acting ("stiff as cardboard") and arriving in his private plane "to save the planet once again". "Girls all love him, say he's the end. Boys all say, the mirror's his best friend." Terrific.

Musically this album stalks the edges of hard blues rock with Thompson's folk roots (references to Scottish balladry and Celtic drones) given important nods, and of course that guitar playing scattering shards of notes like a shattering windscreen.

Some of these songs are claustrophobic in their tension (Haul Me Up), but the slower pieces such as A Brother Slips Away -- while not exactly easing the tension -- allow this album to breathe.

Thompson is so far into a long career -- it's been more than four decades since he appeared with Fairport Convention -- that these days we might have simply expected box sets (and there have been a few) or retrospectives.

But this album -- which comes in an edition with an important extra disc of acoustic demos for all the songs -- finds him still taking chances, writing material which can be counted among his best, and delivering with a rare passion.

Highly recommended . . . except perhaps if you are Sting.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

The Brian Jonestown Massacre: Something Else (A Recordings/Southbound)

The Brian Jonestown Massacre: Something Else (A Recordings/Southbound)

The title on this new album by the very prolific Anton Newcombe and his fellow travellers is interesting of itself. It may refer to the Beatles album of a similar title (the typically... > Read more

Bonjour Swing: The Flame (fragilecolours.com)

Bonjour Swing: The Flame (fragilecolours.com)

Those with a long memory may recall multi-instrumentalist Robbie Laven who impressed discerning ears back in the Seventies with the short-lived band Red Hot Peppers. Their Toujours Yours album (see... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

India: A nation on steel wheels

India: A nation on steel wheels

Look through any window . . . For the past couple of decades I've taken a quick and unfiltered photo out the window of every room I've stayed in, if there's been a window. The views are... > Read more

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . JO ANN CAMPBELL: Another case of the singer not the song

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . JO ANN CAMPBELL: Another case of the singer not the song

If you were to believe standard histories of Fifties rock'n'roll, women were marginal figures at best and, in some books, non-existent. The great Wanda Jackson often gets... > Read more