It has been a couple of years since Carla Diratz‘s The Scale was released and you could be forgiven if the line-up for that album viewed it as a one-off; a unique meeting of post jazz rock minds.
But when Carla contacted Martin Archer to suggest a more blues inflected album, suggestive of the current world malaise, both he and Nick Robinson jumped at the chance to gather familiar players and provide another varied set of diverse backings for the weary wonder of Carla’s voice.
Split almost equally between Nick’s more blues rock-based full band workouts, Martin’s more experimental and suggestive collaborations and Carla’s bare-bones piano-based torch songs, the album is quite the journey, with Carla’s well-worn, carefully enunciated vocals the only link. In fact, the voice just seems to improve with age and she is able to lay out patterns that meander in and out of the various musical backings.The two opening tracks perhaps set the scene best as Nick and Carla’s “Drops Of Remembrances” give full vent to his progressive rocky blues demeanour. The strength of the rhythmic drive, allied to the gentleness of Adam Fairhall‘s organ, give differing backdrops in one song; while Martin and Carla’s “Consumed” is built from sine wave drones and harmonica. This ghostly feel adds to the haunted vibe of a heady, sweaty concoction that could almost come from Bad Seeds territory.
Dave Sturt‘s playful bass is an important element of the more stripped-down pieces and on “I’ll Be Gone”, Carla’s chews on the kiss-off tale, her vibrato and sparse piano merging with the clatter of Charlotte Keeffe‘s ’30s jazz trumpet. The album moves carelessly from one style to another, causing the listener to be constantly alert; the slow, gloopy sax of “Recalling The Fear” feels lighter than the rockier, guitar based “A Peak At Night”.
Carla’s piano playing is sometimes a stark frame around the doomed vocalising, depicting thankless situations, and Charlotte’s trumpet is often the thing to prevent it from slipping into despair; but Martin’s use of harmonica on some of the tracks gives a little more light, even if it is dusty from the road. The New Orleans wooze of “The Inner Island”, replete with foot-stomp percussion and Robert Johnson guitar puts us right down in the US South, but it shares space with the scat-sung freakout and hard-pushing rhythm of “Free Delivery” and the voice and organ ramble of “Puzzled”.Everywhere you step though, Carla’s voice lingers and even on the country blues cover “I’m A Drifter”, she makes the song her own, twisting it around her finger like so much golden thread. Towards the end, “Places I’ve Been” really brings the funk, shape shifting as the players jump in, stretching and contorting, playing against one another. Nick’s guitar chops it about like he’s swinging a cleaver and the album ends with the classic supper-club jazz of “You’re Nowhere”.
You can’t help wondering whether Carla ever has good romantic fortune or whether she is just fantastic at adopting that mindset as there is always strength in the message; but to be honest, whatever the source, on the strength of this latest album, we should just be thankful that she is still brimming with desire to tell the tales. The Discus family has done another great job of providing backing for her and Blue Stitches is really something to lose yourself in.
-Mr Olivetti-
