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. (more…)
