Weller finds his GROOVE again
EVEN a musician as restless as Paul Weller sometimes feels the urge to return to the sounds that first inspired him. Since taking a leap into the unknown on 2008’s 22 Dreams, The Modfather has regularly wheeled away from the mainstream with detours into tango, free-form jazz and abstract electronics — to the ire of his more traditional fans.
But alongside a long-standing affinity with The Beatles, he has always been a soul man at heart. He grew up in Woking, Surrey, listening to Stax and Motown singles, and his 15th solo LP couples tuneful songs with rich grooves.
He has made albums similar to On Sunset before, but you’ll have to go back to his days with blue-eyed soul duo The Style Council to find them.
He’s also back with his first record company, Polydor, although he insists the return isn’t a nostalgic move but one inspired by the label’s work in helping to turn singer-songwriter Michael Kiwanuka into an albums-selling artist rather than a pop act. That makes sense: Weller is a dab hand at producing a textbook ten-song album with no filler.
He has roped in some interesting guests this time, too. As well as his regular band, there’s a return for Style Council keyboardist Mick Talbot and cameos by Madness saxophonist Lee Thompson, Slade violinist Jim Lea and female trio The Staves. With Irish composer Hannah Peel adding opulent strings, On Sunset sounds big and warm.
THE album opens with a typical Weller curveball. Originally intended as a bonus on 2018’s True Meanings, Mirror Ball begins with twinkling piano and fuzztone guitar.
Before we hit the three-minute mark, though, all formal structure breaks down and the song turns into a lengthy sound collage featuring tape loops and quacking ducks. Just when you think Weller has taken leave of his senses, normal service is resumed.
We then head to the sunlit soul uplands. Baptiste is built around guitars that recall Betty Wright’s Clean Up Woman, and Old Father Tyme is all disco hi-hat, handclaps and wah-wah guitar.
More, with one verse by French singer Julie Gros, feels contemporary, its flutes and saxophone underpinned by electronic beats. At 62, and with his signature mod haircut usurped by flowing white locks he has clearly been cultivating since well before the lockdown, Weller is contemplative but optimistic. On Baptiste, he hints at a spiritual awakening. The song Sunset finds him on LA’s Sunset Boulevard trying to find the long-forgotten venues he played on The Jam’s early American tours.
On Village, amid strings, vibraphone and Talbot’s Hammond organ, he celebrates home comforts: ‘Not a thing I’d change if I could,’ he insists. As a portrait of mid-life contentment, the symphonic soul piece is about as far removed from the raw fury of The Jam’s Town Called Malice as it’s possible to get. Having established a flavour, he tweaks the template. Equanimity, with
Slade’s Lea on Coz I Luv You-style violin, nods to The Kinks’ Sunny Afternoon. Thompson adds ‘nutty boy’ sax on Walkin’, and R&B singer Col3trane guests on Earth Beat.
Driven by a restive streak that he traces back to his love of The Beatles, Weller has never been one to stand still. Here, though, he has come full circle, revisiting some familiar styles — orchestral pop; sunshine soul — with new relish. His ever-changing moods may now take him elsewhere but he’s moving on in a rich vein of songwriting form.
THE David Bowie Glastonbury performance that aired on BBC2 last weekend was spellbinding. Dating from 2000, it fulfilled his promise to ‘litter the field’ with hits. The American gig captured on a new live album, Ouvrez Le Chien, is different. Recorded at the Starplex, Dallas, on 1995’s Outside tour, it finds him in a more adventurous frame of mind. Ouvrez
le chien is the French phrase for ‘open the dog’, an expression Bowie first used on 1970’s All The Madmen, and it’s an album thin on big crowd-pleasers. Experimental songs from the 1. Outside album, released just three weeks before the gig, feature heavily, as do older curiosities, including Berlin-era numbers Breaking Glass and Joe The Lion.
Powered by guitarists Carlos Alomar and Reeves Gabrels — plus stalwarts Gail Ann Dorsey and Mike Garson — Bowie’s band are superb, playing with a funkier swing than his Glastonbury line-up: bassist Dorsey duets on Nite Flights; pianist Garson is prominent on I’m Deranged; The Man Who Sold The World is revamped with synths.
These were Bowie’s unfashionable years. He admitted it could have been ‘commercial suicide’ to play so many unfamiliar songs live, and only Under Pressure and The Man Who Sold The World remained in his set by the time of Glasto. But Ouvrez Le Chien is a reminder that he was at his most comfortable when he was taking risks.
RAY LAMONTAGNE’S raspy voice has softened over the years but it takes centre stage on an acoustic album made in his home studio.
The New Englander plays everything himself, lending a rustic feel to his front-porch wisdom. He channels Don McLean on Summer Clouds and Neil Young on We’ll Make It Through, adding a touch of Midnight Cowboy harmonica.
He lets rip just once. Inspired by his tough upbringing, Strong Enough is a country-rocker that looks to Creedence Clearwater Revival. Elsewhere, he keeps things mellow, multi-tracking his voice to recall the Everly Brothers on Weeping Willow and Simon & Garfunkel on Morning Comes Wearing Diamonds.