I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: JACOB COLLIER-Tiny Desk Concert #869 (July 22, 2019).

I’ve never heard of Jacob Collier, but wow is he an impressive figure.

the North London 24-year-old can hardly contain his creative energy. It comes out in his wardrobe and most definitely in his music, but it’s not misdirected or out of control. These are intricate and precise compositions, like a ship in a bottle made of thousands of planks of wood, yet light enough to sail in a breeze.

He starts with “Make Me Cry.”  Collier plays a fascinatingly deep-sounding acoustic guitar (with amazing flourishes).  But the biggest shock comes when he sings.  He has such a deep sonorous voice.  The backing vocals (from Becca Stevens–who also plays the charango–and MARO on the acoustic guitar) are high–a real contrast to his voice. That is until he switches to piano (while still holding the guitar) and then his voice reaches the high notes as well. Drummer Christian Euman adds some nice xylophone bells to the song as Collier’s voice soars impressively.

After the first song he says “I’ve spent the last year or so making four full length albums [called Djesse].  I don’t know why, its quite exhausting. But its fun.  Each is it’s own musical universe.”  All three songs today are from Vol 2.

But another example of his excess is this:

This year he covered Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer’s “Moon River” by recording himself 5,000 times and working in 144 other vocal submissions, and then he printed and sold signed copies of his Logic Pro audio session for fans while on tour.

“Feel” opens with a simple drum pattern and everyone giving some gentle oohs before Jacob plays a slow piano motif.  Robin Mullarkey switches from acoustic to electric bass.  This song is a more jazzy composition with some lead vocals from MARO (Collier sounds great doing backing vocals as well).

Before the final song,”It Don’t Matter” he explains that he wrote this song about five days ago specifically for this event.  It starts with him making a fascinating array of sounds with his mouth–clicks, hisses and water droplets–and then adding percussive elements like the top of the piano. Then he plays a funky bass line on the tiny acoustic bass.   Becca Stevens gets a lead verse.  And the middle of the song has a melodica solo.

Virtually every combination of band members harmonizes at some point in the show. It’s reflective of his philosophy on music as a connecting tool, to use the instrument we all possess, which drew me to his art in the first place. And as if to make good on those beliefs and bring all of us into one moment, he invited the crowd to sing the final lyrics of the concert together.

The NPR employees are always good sports (and have good voices) so the end of the show is a good one.

[READ: August 1, 2019] “The Alps”

I noted the last time I read a story by Colin Barrett that he writes about Ireland and drugs.  This story was also about Ireland.  But not about drugs.

It’s also not about the Alps as you might expect.

In this story, The Alps are three brothers: Rory, Eustace and Bimbo.  Bimbo was 37, the other two in their fifties.  They claimed to be tradesmen, but none of them have a trade.  Rather they painted, wired, tiled and plumbed at a competitive rate.  They ate too much take out, and downed vats of Guinness.  They traveled together, they worked together, they drank together.

As they pull into Mikey’s pub, Bimbo sees a light up in the sky. It’s behaving strangely and for a minute I thought this story was going to be about UFOs.  But instead, Bimbo realizes it’s a drone surveying the landscape.  Its owned by Landry, a rich man with a lot of land.

One thing I loved about this story was the language that everybody spoke with–in a kind of posh, but not exactly, sort of way.  I like to think that working class pub goers do actually speak in this way instead of the mumbles and curses that I hear when I go out.

Bimbo said, The surmise is some intrepid gangster is poaching them on him.
That would be the surmise, alright, said Rory
Drones, said Eustace. Would you be well.

When they walk into the pub, Bimbo asks, “Anyone clap eyes on that peacock outside beyond the goals?”  Softly (a retired footballer who earned the nickname from his loping running style) responded, “I did not but in any case I’d wager that would very much be a pheasant you were looking at.”

They order drinks and survey the bar  Softly is sitting with Denise, the sister of Softly’s fiancee Stella.  There was also the elderly Peadar (with oxygen tank) and his daughter Moira who takes care of him.  The story seems like it’s just a night in the pub–taking the piss, taking a piss (and a bit more) when after a few pages something unexpected happens.

Bimbo comes out of the bathroom to see a young man sitting at the bar with a sword in his lap.

The man is standoffish and kind of unpleasant.

Rory asked the stranger What has you all the way out this way?
None of your business, the young man said
I was just being polite
I don’t think you were just being polite
I think I was, as a matter of fact.

After the young man says he does not drink or at least should not drink, the Alps brother buy him a pint.  Although the stranger quickly says he’s not buying anyone else a round.

Finally they get around to asking about the sword. He says he has it for protection against his nine brothers. Then he says it’s not so much a sword as a katana.  And its not a katana so much as a replica of one.

Bimbo asks him to take it out and Mikey says, “I don’t think I can entertain a drawn sword on the premises, lads.”

But so, given some space and some promises the young man takes out the sword and brandishes it in an somewhat impressive way.

Meanwhile Denise tells Softly they they have to go.  Softly says no and throws his keys into the lot–if she wants to leave she can take the keys and go.

Bimbo asks if he can have a go but the man says no.  Quickly, Rory is behind the stranger with his arms pinned.  Then he puts him on the couch and sits on him. Bimbo tries the sword but is none too impressive with it.

Then two men entered the bar.  One starts giving a hard time to whoever left their keys in the lot.  Even more so when Denise says that Softly threw them out there.   While he is bantering about the keys, the other man yells that Rory is siting on their little brother.

They get off the little brother and then one of the men hits the little brother with a golf club several times until the young man (whose name is Derek we discover) hides under the table.

The brothers are after Derek because he “topped Mammy’s Sphinx” (the explanation of this is wonderful).

The end of the story sees the Alps brothers trying to protect this stranger, both from his brothers and himself.

As with many of Barrett’s stories, nothing much happens exactly–a small incident to be sure–but the writing is great and the whole piece is very compelling. And the language is wonderful