The second album from Bo Meson this year finds his focus reverting to his own unstructured universe, taking the final opportunity to work with cellist Sarah Palmer before she departs these shores.
The group seeps and slips through icy streets, Bo’s voice with a similar tenor to David Bowie in places, partly surprised by the drama unfolding around him, folds in on itself, synthetic effects clawing and squeezing. The textured backing is like misty droplets, a slick, kaleidoscopic sheen that reflects details against the light.
His playful declamations are unpredictable, chopped and tossed, appearing and disappearing as the group constructs primal, rootless havens: “My glass is so half-full that it overflows … with revenge”. A great line delivered with the tendrils of Sarah’s cello lasciviously curling.The rhythm section scuffs and skips while Andy McAuley‘s romantic guitar, its doomed destiny in cahoots with the lines, delivered with a twisted pleasure, sucking on the words like spaghetti as Martin Archer‘s sweet sax offers support. A hallucinatory whirlpool appears, dividing up more structured pieces, evoking the group’s experimental leanings and desire to work everything into this final burst, a swansong of sorts.
The idea that Bo might be pope in an alternate universe is delivered in an unstructured yet considered scat and then we are tapping lightly at the doors of funk with Peter Rophone‘s lovely, slinky bass leading the way, Bo coming on like Dr John appearing as a Bond villain. The tracks run into one another with the voice changing surreptitiously to herald these artistic swerves, the group heading up some new alley or across weed-strewn lots, abandoned to the ravages of time, the guitar archaic and spindly like a freakshow throwback, hunched and gnarled. Peter’s bass regains the composure and Martin’s sax elevates and the poetry is powerful and beautiful, but ultimately skewers you with its distorted seduction, the highlights textured with Jez Creek‘s synth tendrils constantly searching.All this gently rolling turmoil has fractured precedents, but the unique mix of players and the hasty, heightened circumstances make this an unexpected and truly delicious recording of finely wrought, diverse soundscapes that leave you wanting more. The fact that there won’t be makes them only more poignant.
-Mr Olivetti-
