na: nick lowe
New material from Nick Lowe, a live cut from Tom Waits and a double-album from Sinead O’Connor.
Nick Lowe, At My Age: So not my kind of record — it reminds me of the comebacks by Solomon Burke, Bettye Lavette, etc — but this new one from Nick Lowe is actually very good. But first off, what is it that sends geezers back to Memphis and locales of the like when they’re looking to re-establish their artistic voice? Is it the nostalgia of the boomers for rock & roll’s origins? Is it tied to their actual youth, or the youth of rock & roll itself? I guess what I’m asking is, will one of the kids from Hanson revisit the Seattle sound in 2050 when he’s ready for his big comeback, or will he be popping out a soul/blues/R&B amalgamation, too?
Rhetoricalizing out of the way, here’s the story with At My Age: it’s better than any album Elvis Costello has made since… Get Happy? (I am an Elvis Pharisee when it comes to anything after the first four or five records.) There’s a bit of over-orchestration (more horns than there need to be) that’s reminiscent of McCartney and Paul Simon, but the songs are very Lowe: wry, skeptical and hopelessly cynical. Good stuff.
The Self-Righteous Brothers, In Loving Memory: A ’90s indie throwback record, reminding me sometimes of Dinosaur Jr. (”LeeTorsee”) and early Wilco (”Alan Watts”). It flirts with goofiness, of course (the name), but there’s a winning charm that’s consistent across the whole record. Nothing great, but absolutely enjoyable.
Tom Waits, Healing the Divide — Diamond in Your Mind: A track from a recent benefit concert. Waits live. Classic material.
Various Artists, 12″ Rulers: Henry “Junjo” Lawes: Compilation of 12-inch mixes of classic reggae cuts from Eek-a-Mouse, Clint Eastwood, Yellowman, Barrington Levy, etc. An extraordinarily strong collection.
Sinead O’Connor, Theology: Have yet to try this one, but Joe digs the second disc (the London sessions), which is more orchestrated, much more than the first disc (the Dublin sessions), which is more acoustic.
The Rentals, The Last Little Life EP: First Rentals material in a dog’s age. Wish I could say that the wait was worth it, but Matt Sharp sounds very, very normal here. Bizarre.
This is no comeback for Nick Lowe, and certainly not a stylistic shift. He made this turn years ago with “The Impossible Bird,” stripping down his sound and finding vast amounts of space in which to work as he explored the more soulful, subtle parts of his talent. “Dig My Mood” and “The Convincer” followed. “At My Age” is a fantastic album that, like “the Convincer,” seems to find Lowe at a perfectly comfortable crossroads between his older, playful work and his more recent contemplative songwriting style. There were growing pains on “Dig My Mood” (mostly because that mood seemed to be “profoundly depressed”) and “The Impossible Bird” was more of a transition between the new and old styles. A long way of saying that he has been heading in this direction for more than a decade and seems to have slipped into a vein that I hope he continues to mine for a long time.