Audio Journal: 03/03/2014 - Rufus Wainwright 'Vibrate' + 'Live From The Artists Den'

To appreciate Rufus Wainwright's idiosyncratic approach to music, one only needs to listen to the all-too-brief 'Oh What A World' which opened the singer's third album, Want. Here are all the sides of the artist compressed into a three minute curiosity - a bit of Leonards Bernstein and Cohen, a spoonful of Stephen Sondheim, a pinch of George Gershwin, a lot of Judy Garland and a measure of Antony Hegarty and Holden Caulfield. Theatrical, wistful, louche, literate, spoiled, yearning - 'Oh What A World' is all of these things and maybe more, a soaring, triumphant overture for the both throwaway and the earnest.

Not for nothing did Caitlin Moran describe Wainwright as having 'all the quiet don't-mind-me demeanour of a pissed rainbow on a trampoline', but the extravagance for which Wainwright has been known is, save for the poppy 'April Fools' and decadent 'Foolish Love', is either missing from Vibrate or exposed as the mere fallacy of reputation. Instead, the compelling singer-songwriter is allowed to emerge, the sensitive soul blessed with a beguiling voice as comfortable singing about promiscuity, Greek boys and addiction as he is a perpetual romantic yearning for the world to stand still, for love, for appreciation or for the admiration of his father; a self-proclaimed gay messiah capable of giving his old friend Jeff Buckley a run for his money with his cover of Cohen's 'Hallelujah' or singing irreverently about dancing hopelessly to Britney Spears on the whimsical baroque track that gives this best of compilation its title.

In time Wainwright may receive the same critical appreciation that his mentor / saviour Elton John or Billy Joel now humbly accept, and Vibrate will go a long way in raising the profile of one of modern music's most original voices.

Released concurrently with Vibrate, Live From The Artists Den captures Wainwright performing at The Church Of The Ascension in Manhattan, and possibly provides more evidence of the singer's flamboyance than on Vibrate, mostly thanks to a pair of outrageous gold lame slacks, red metal-studded loafers and sideburns that are reminiscent of Travolta in Pulp Fiction. Running through most of his Mark Ronson-produced sixth album Out Of The Game, that album's mature pop leanings transfer far better to a live setting than on record. 'Rashida' and 'Welcome To The Ball' swing with a glam insousiance, while the rueful 'Out Of The Game' (complete with a paper mask of Helena Bonhan-Carter) and the optimistic 'Montauk' finds Wainwright putting his past to bed with a polite sense of humour.

The set also includes 'One Man Guy', originally recorded by his father Loudon Wainwright III, a track which would sound positive and affirming if it didn't have an onanistic undertone, while the dutiful son also tearfully tackles his late mother Kate McGarrigle's 'On My Way To Town'. Ronson puts in an appearance on the synth drama of 'Bitter Tears', but inevitably it's the fan favourites of the stirring '14th Street' and 'The Art Teacher' that are the major highlights.

Vibrate and Live From The Artists Den are released 03/03/2014

Thanks to Louisa

Audio Journal : 03/05/2010

Two albums in one week from two of your favourite artists is a rare treat, but so it was in April with Rufus Wainwright's All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu and David Byrne's collaboration with Fatboy Slim (and just about every female vocalist under the sun) on Here Lies Love.

Both albums, coincidentally, are 'tributes' of sorts to women. In Wainwright's case that woman is a character played by actress Louise Brooks in the 1929 movie Pandora's Box, but also serves as a tribute of sorts to his mother, the late Kate McGarrigle, who passed away at the start of this year; whereas Byrne's album depicts the life of shoe-addicted dictator's wife, Imelda Marcos and juxtaposes that with the life of Estrella Cumpas, the woman who raised her.

Both also have their origins in theatre. Byrne's project with Fatboy Slim was originally conceived as a performance (albeit in nightclubs), while Wainwright's recent opera success with Prima Donna and love of all things Wagner has informed much of his work; the live performance of All Days Are Nights I went to on 13 April at Sadler's Wells saw Wainwright performing the entire album, almost faultlessly, in a 17ft ball-gown as a song cycle with the express request to the audience not to applaud until he had left the stage; theatrical indeed. As an album, All Days Are Nights sits neatly into Wainwright's opera-inspired oeuvre, and despite being just the man and a piano, is his most dramatic album to date. Mrs S says it's dreary, and at times it is certainly more plaintive and reflective than previous albums (check out the takes on three Shakespeare sonnets), but it is also by subtle shades uplifting and humorous (as on the most upbeat piece 'Give Me What I Want And Give It To Me Now' or the positively euphoric start to 'The Dream'). My personal favourites are the opener, 'Who Are You New York?', a ruminative long song to the City itself, and 'Martha', a song whose lyrics comprise the answer machine messages left by Rufus to his sister while their mother's illness worsened; it also signals the recent tentative reconciliation, through grief, of Rufus and his father Loudon.

Perhaps not as instantly, and bombastically accessible as previous Wainwright fare, All Days Are Nights is probably the most authentic, personal album Wainwright has produced thus far. Previous albums have always featured pieces for piano only, and in the live setting are always firm favourites with the audience (especially when Wainwright messes up, plays the wrong section or ad libs theatrically – think of an extremely camp Les Dawson); in an odd sense, the scaling back of the instruments to just a solitary piano ties in neatly with the reconciliation with his father, who has made it his business to produce album after album of music consisting of just his voice and a guitar.

David Byrne and Rufus Wainwright have worked together once before on a song, and that song was also theatrical in origin. 'Au Fond Du Temple Saint' appeared on Byrne's 2004 album Grown Backwards. The former Talking Heads front man's voice may have not been perfectly matched to Wainwright's dexterity on this piece from Bizet's Les Pêcheurs de Perles but all I wanted was a segue in this blog from one album to the other, and that seemed to work. Plus, more earnestly, the idea of Byrne tackling an opera track would – when watching the videos for 'Road To Nowhere' or 'Once In A Lifetime' – have seemed nonsensical; however, Byrne was an art student before starting Talking Heads and his interest in all manner of art forms is manifest (check his blog for the proof). And so I stand by my segue. The other possible one would have been Martha Wainwright, who is one of the female vocalists employed by Byrne on this project.

Of this album, critics have dubbed it the most accessible David Byrne album he's produced since the Talking Heads days, thanks to the input of Fatboy Slim, but I'd disagree; yes, it's more obviously 'pop' than other Byrne albums, but with the exception of albums like My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts (with Eno) or Big Love: Hymnal, Byrne is no stranger to traditional song structures, albeit conceived with his typical vision and the odd Brazilian flavour here and there. Plus Talking Heads weren't exactly what I'd describe as 'pop' anyway.

It certainly sounds more like a Byrne album that a Fatboy Slim one, but it serves to remind that Norman Cook is a brilliant producer as well as a purveyor of daft chart-bothering fare. The sound leans to a glossy funky disco blend, which apparently has something to do with Marcos' fondness for Manhattan nightclubs, although I don't know anything about her so can't say if I just made that up or not. I opted for the limited edition version – two CDs, a DVD and a 120 page book detailing the background to each song (which, hands up, I haven't read completely yet therefore this review isn't as well informed as it could have been). The lyrics for each, according to Byrne's typically exhaustive introduction notes, were centred around actual Marcos quotes (so shouldn't she have a writing credit?).

Byrne adds backing vocals to a number of tracks and delivers the superb 'American Troglodyte' himself, but in truth this is a vehicle for the assembled ranks of female vocalists, each hand-picked to provide a depiction of Marcos / Cumpas according to the theme of the song. So you get the likes of Tori Amos, Santigold, Cyndi Lauper, St. Vincent and Florence Welch (who, sans Machine, delivers the gorgeous title track). At 22 tracks it requires quite a commitment on the part of the listener, but it makes most sense when heard in a single sitting. I was really excited about this release, and suffice to say I wasn't disappointed.

Vinyl Corner



LFO 'Tied Up Remixes' (Warp Records 12”, 1994)

Some people know the Warp label as the home of leftfield bands like Grizzly Bear, Battles and Broadcast; others remember when it was the principal go-to label for the leftfield electronica of Aphex Twin, Autechre, Sweet Exorcist and the duo of Mark Bell and Gez Varley – LFO – whose Steve Wright-bothering sub-bass anthem 'LFO' kicked the Sheffield label into existence.

From humble origins as a behind-the-counter indie label at a Sheffield record store, Warp has become a well-respected, broad-minded label that's also branched out successfully into film, examples including the new Chris Morris movie Three Lions and the excellent documentary A Complete History Of My Sexual Failings.

Label owner Steve Beckett mentioned in a recent Esquire interview that after a while he began to find the slew of acts producing electronica in the Aphex template – which could be summarised crudely as distorted beats and glacial synths – wearying. He began to turn his ears towards the kind of alternative rock music being produced by the likes of Jason Pierce's Spiritualized; as such, this out-of-print Warp 12", remixed by Pierce, could well represent the point the label began to think more eclectically.

Pierce's nine-minute mix is a beautiful thing, a phasing and shifting drone work that has little or nothing to do with the harshness of the original. I'd call it 'ambient', and it does share much with Eno's brand of 'discreet' music, but it also has a depth best observed by listening on headphones.

The B-side, a remix by LFO of their 'Nurture' is more dancefloor-focussed.

I sold my copy of this recently to someone who, coincidentally, works at Warp.

Audio Journal by MJA Smith : A Not So Silent Night Review

Go to: My Other Blog / twitter.com/mjasmith

Now that we are some way along on the runway to Christmas, seasonal songs have begun to pervade the airwaves in ever greater quantity; in our house it's no different. Our two favourite albums for the Christmas season are Phil Spector's A Christmas Gift For You and a compilation album given away years ago with Mojo magazine called Blue Christmas. The former is dominated by the joyously murky sound of the youthful Sixties pop groups that Spector produced, while the latter consists of a bunch of miserable songs by artists prone to introspection and cynicism. One such artist is Rufus Wainwright, whose 'Spotlight On Christmas' from an album recorded with his wider family is a folksy number with lots of festive tinkly bells and whatnot.



The Wainwright-McGarrigle clan, a family so talented they really shouldn't be allowed to have children just so other people can have a chance, descended upon the Royal Albert Hall on Wednesday for an event called A Not So Silent Night, a charity event for matriarch Kate McGarrigle's cancer foundation. This on-stage family get-together usually takes place at New York's Carnegie Hall, and this is the first time they've taken the festive jamboree off Manhattan Island and all the way to London. They were joined by a cast that included Boy George, various members of the Thompson family, including Linda Thompson and various grandsons and daughters, family friend Ed Harcourt, Elbow's Guy Garvey and Jenni Muldaur (also from a famous musical family – enough already).

Somewhat needlessly, the event was kicked off by Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders, which I could have done without, though they did make amusing reference to the apparent complexity of the family affair about to take to the stage. In essence, here's the score (as I understand it): Kate McGarrigle and Anna McGarrigle are sisters who have recorded many albums of American folk music over several decades; Kate married Loudon Wainwright III and produced two children, Martha and Rufus; Loudon's sister Sloan Wainwright is also a singer; Loudon worked with and became good friends with Fairport Convention guitarist Richard Thompson, who, with ex wife Linda produced a number of offspring (including Teddy Thompson, absent from tonight's proceedings), all of whom are talented musicians as evidenced at A Not So Silent Night. One can imagine that the stage performance is simply a public version of the family and extended-family get togethers this esteemed bunch of individuals would have had each Christmas. Imagine the impromptu sing-alongs that might occur at that party.

Highlights were many, and often from the most unexpected quarters. Ed Harcourt, for example, came a close second to Rufus as most impressive male vocalist here. His duet with Martha on The Pogues's Christmas hit 'A Fairytale Of New York' was probably the finest, most louche cover of the song I've ever heard, with both singers acting like the seasonal drunks in the song; later, his version of 'Merry Christmas Baby' descended into jazz nihilism and was arguably the most impassioned performance of the entire night. Imagine a more credible Jamie Cullum to the power of ten and you'd get somewhere close.



Far from being an uplifting pre-Christmas spectacle, the evening had a maudlin tone only leavened by more uplifting performances such as Boy George's take on 'White Christmas', here rendered as a cod-reggae song; working with Antony Heggarty has clearly emboldened the troubled former Culture Club vocalist, his voice now able to resonate with a new, treacly depth. His duet with Rufus on 'What Are You Doing New Year's Eve' was as camp as you'd expect from these two individuals combined, but again provided one of the most joyous sections of the show. Guy Garvey leading off all the singers in a version of the Lennon / Ono staple 'Happy Xmas (War Is Over)' was another, only bettered by Sloan Wainwright belting out a gutsy, bluesy take on Queen's 'Thank God It's Christmas'. Earlier in the show, two performances from members of the Thompson clan – the Chuck Berry song 'Run Run Rudolph' by Thompson grandson Zac Hobbs and another by Kami Thompson (who Rufus described somewhat unfairly as a 'Dickensian slut') – served as rock 'n roll interludes, both displaying a brilliant rawness that the Royal Albert Hall didn't seem to know how to respond to.

In spite of the stellar talents on stage, it was clear from the audience reaction that the main draws here were Rufus and Martha. Mic-less performances from the former have become standard feature of his concerts, and here he decided to test how good the Royal Albert Hall was for acoustics with 'Minuit Chrétien', which was as breathtaking as ever. His duet with partner Jorn Weisbrodt on 'Silent Night' – two thirds of which was actually in German, so we should perhaps more appropriately label it 'Stille Nacht' – closed out the first half of the show, Jorn's lumpen tone somehow perfectly complemented by his partner's range. Martha, who became a mother just three weeks ago seemed to have adopted a maternal air in the proceedings, shepherding her tiny mother around with evident concern. The song 'Mary Had A Baby' was dedicated to the son she delivered less than a month before with the band's bassist Brad Albetta. Consequently, the quartet performance of the Wainwright siblings, their mother and Brad on bass on 'In The Bleak Midwinter' was appropriately sweet in a 'let's have a sing along round the piano' post-Christmas-lunch fashion, in spite of just how damn depressing that song is.

Rufus's début opera, Prima Donna, whose female lead Janice Kelly performed a duet with Rufus at A Not So Silent Night arrives on UK shores in April 2010 at the Sadlers Wells Theatre in Islington – tickets can be bought from here.

Audio Journal by MJA Smith : 05/10/2009

Go to: My Other Blog / twitter.com/mjasmith

I would describe my approach to music this past week as ‘restless’. I haven’t been able to listen to one band or style of music for very long, which has created a rather odd, disjointed play list for the week.

I started the week listening to some ‘arty’ music, namely The Knee Plays by David Byrne, musical compositions – principally for horns – written for a play by Robert Wilson in 1984. It wasn’t at all what I expected, but then again I’m coming to be continually surprised by Byrne’s eclectic output. Broadly instrumental like last year’s Big Love: Hymnal album, the brass instruments are occasionally complemented by Byrne reading in a flat, robotic monotone. From The Knee Plays I moved on to some Philip Glass violin pieces, driven by an ambition to listen to more of his works after immersing myself in his Low Symphony last week.



I stumbled upon my Inspiral Carpets album collection this past week. The Carpets, now seemingly permanently defunct, produced four albums of spiky organ-embellished indie pop that transcended the rest of the overrated ‘Madchester’ scene that sprang up in the late 1980s. Whereas at the time their quirky, pseudo-Animals type sound earned them a reputation as oddball leftfielders, with time their songs are found to have an earnestness and depth which few would have bothered to have noticed at the time. The track ‘Two Worlds Collide’ from Revenge Of The Goldfish, with its world-weary chorus of ‘What have I done with my life?’ remains my favourite Inspirals track.

I also listened to a Luke Slater DJ mix on the train home one night while frantically sending emails from my BlackBerry that had two effects – firstly, and positively, the music made me type faster and secondly, I was left feeling light-headed like I’d drunk way too much coffee.

As I write this I’m listening to One Of Our Girls (Has Gone Missing) by A.C. Marias, aka Angela Conway with production assistance from Wire’s Bruce Gilbert among others. Conway now makes films, which is a shame, as this single album from 1991 has an ethereal vocal quality while arch-sound smith Gilbert (who is, along with Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Robert Fripp entirely responsible for redefining how I listen to guitar music) adds obscure textural backdrops. I always think of the song ‘There’s A Scent Of Rain In The Air’ whenever I smell that freshness that prefaces a downpour. More on this album at my Documentary Evidence site.



Elsewhere, I watched the BBC Imagine documentary on Rufus Wainwright’s first opera which had Wainwright play a new piano song, ‘Zebulon’. Effectively a conversation after many years with an imaginary childhood friend and confidante, the track has a plangent Rufus expressing his sadness at his mother’s illness, and points to a more sorrowful sound on his next album. Rarely, I also found myself listening to Gideon Coe on 6Music, who played a Peel session by Glaxo Babies, a band I’ve never heard of. Their session version of ‘Who Killed Bruce Lee?’ is a Gang Of Four-esque number which was adorned by seemingly random, skronking, James Chance-style saxophone, an element missing from the vaguely inferior studio version. Speaking of sprawling music, I listened to Locust Abortion Technician by Butthole Surfers, one of the more challenging bands on the SSR label to emerge from the States in the 1980s.



Finally, They Might Be Giants, that quirky pop duo who scored an unlikely hit in the shape of ‘Birdhouse In Your Soul’ in 1990. Since then I’ve always had the band on my list of acts I’d like to listen to more of, though so far this has only extended to the aforementioned song, ‘Istanbul (Not Constantinople)’ and the delicate postcard pop of ‘New York City’, a love song which also lists all the major well-heeled landmarks of Manhattan. So, I was pleasantly surprised a few weekends back, watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on Playhouse Disney with my two daughters, to find that TMBG had done both the title music and the song ‘Hot Dog!’ (see video below, or for those reading this on email, click here). So, er, ostensibly for the girls, I downloaded ‘Hot Dog!’ this week and have no qualms in saying that it is a delightfully infectious little song that worms its way, like all the best kids’ songs, into your brain and refuses to budge. Not that I would, for example, listen to it on the train into work. Never. Honest.

Audio Journal by MJA Smith : 21/09/2009

Go to: My Other Blog / twitter.com/mjasmith

Anyone who knows me well will know that I’m a big fan of Rufus Wainwright, the talented singer-songwriter son of Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle, and sister of similarly-gifted Martha. I’ve been a Rufus fan since a purchase of the Want collection in 2006 and his music has become a constant ingredient in the balanced musical diet that I find myself listening to as I mature nicely into my thirties. Generally speaking, if I head ‘out there’ into the more experimental reaches of my music collection, at some point I’ll swing back, pendulum-like, to artists such as Rufus, if only for a while before heading into esoteric territory once again.

I haven’t really listened to much else beyond Rufus this week; specifically, the Milwaukee At Last!!! boxset (you can derive much confirmation of Wainwright’s noted flamboyance from those three exclamation marks), comprising a live CD and DVD recorded at the Pabst Theatre in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on 27 August 2007 whilst on tour to promote his 2007 album Release The Stars.



Rufus, who Caitlin Moran described in The Times as having 'all the quiet, don't-mind-me demeanour of a pissed rainbow on a trampoline', has a singularly incredible talent to write heartfelt yet gauche songs filled with metaphor, innuendo and vivid imagery, ranging from the ethereal, maudlin simplicity of ‘Leaving For Paris No.2’ through to the strident near-jazz of ‘Release The Stars’ or the debauched shimmer of ‘Sanssouci’; it’s a rare accomplishment indeed to have such a constant stream of inventiveness from an artist with five albums under his belt.

And that, in a way, reminds you of just how disappointing Milwaukee At Last!!! is – not that I didn’t want this; I’ve been waiting for an audio recording of a concert on this tour since seeing him live in Oxford in 2007. Simply, it reminds you that it’s about time we had an album of new material from Rufus, but distractions such as his recent opera (in French to purists’ horror) have taken precedence. In the meantime I’ll be looking forward to Not So Silent Night, the Wainwright-McGarrigle family Christmas concert which for this year decamps from Carnegie Hall to the Royal Albert Hall in December.

Although Milwaukee At Last!!! has pretty much been the only thing I’ve listened to this week, I did find the time to listen to ‘In Your Heart’ by Brooklyn’s A Place To Bury Strangers, released on my favourite record label Mute (I love that label so much that I maintain a tribute site). This is the first time I’ve heard this band, and from what I can tell they seem to blend synths, guitars and drum machines together to create a modern reflection on the more urgent side of Jesus And Mary Chain.

Of principal interest was the remix by Vince Clarke, he of fellow Mute acts Depeche Mode / Yazoo and Erasure fame. Erasure remain my favourite act of all time and I’m not at all bothered today to admit that, and Vince Clarke’s particular brand of electronic mastery is entirely responsible for my deep love of electronic music. Having recently decamped to New York, and with Erasure on hiatus while singer Andy Bell completes his second solo album, Vince has strapped on his disco boots to remix a number of artists of late – Franz Ferdinand’s ‘No You Girls’ got a seminal Clarke treatment, as did The Presets and girl-pop group The Saturdays. Vince, by his own admission around 1996, wasn’t terribly good at programming drums and percussion, something he seems to have overcome given the steady 4/4 bass-heavy grooves he adds to all of these remixes, ‘In Your Heart’ included.