Review:'Daltrey, Peter' 'Rhymer In The Long-Tongued Room'
- Label: 'Think Like A Key Music'
- Genre: 'Folk'
- Release Date: '8.11.24.'- Catalogue No: 'TLAK1188'
Our Rating:
The Rhymer In The Long-Tongued Room is the latest album by Kaleidoscope main man Peter Daltrey, who this time has enlisted the help of his son Oli Daltrey on his 27th album, including his work with Kaleidoscope, Link Becca, Fairfield Parlour, Asteroid No4 and others.
The album opens with Geranium Rain that is in no way as nasty as Acid Rain or even annealing rain, stripped back folk acoustic guitar with some gentle pattering tambourine, flute and harmonica for a drizzling day making you search for inspiration.
Give Me Your Tune and Peter will write the lyrics to it, making it into reality under your own private moon, somewhere outside of Idaho I'd guess, this has a bucolic plaintive feel, with carefully picked guitar and strings.
From the whispered wake up that leads into the chamber pop of Angelina a gorgeous evocation of the myths that have made many an artist sing songs about her, whispered aside backing vocals add an air of mystery, a rather wondrously evocative song.
Mr Nice is an acoustic Dylan style folk song, for choosing to be a fool rather than Mr Nice, Peter sets out how his life of a wandering troubadour got going, he has no regrets for taking a more adventurous path. It didn't matter if he ended up broke and destitute, so long as he was taking his own path and living the life he wanted too.
The Bird Hearted Man is stripped back, slightly sorrowful look at events on the night the world stood still.
Nothing Ever Seems To Rhyme a perpetual problem for poets and songwriters throughout time, how can he get past the impasse, baleful gentle folk rock accentuates the tortures of the lifelong songwriter.
Bethlehem has Peter searching for Bethlehem in England, which if he was a Victorian would mean a trip to the Bethlehem hospital in Lambeth, that was better known as Bedlam, nowadays the Imperial War Museum, this almost has a Nick Drake feel musically, seeking that wonder that's so elusive.
Green Tea sounds like he's all hopped up on one too many cups of sencha, he cautions against joining the latest craze, he is avoiding the latest trends, while using old campaigns like touchstones, for being able to live an old-fashioned life, where he still reads Kerouac and listens to Jazz, habits I share with Peter. He is now happily out of touch and time, many of my friends are with him in this endeavour, now he's become a real pipe and slippers man.
The Moon Fell opens with a long ambient tone that the guitar gently plays over before whispering voices, with Peter singing a sorrowful tale of village life, the sad death of 39-year-old Arthur Hall, the bleak obituaries of this star gazing man.
These Chelsea Butterflies recalls days of Sloane Rangers promenading on the Kings Road leading him into the Chelsea Drug Store, or into the Main Squeeze, underground intoxicating him with chamber folk and other ministrations, he's another gent entranced by the beauties of Sloane Square, he goes into the underground back in the day when he could buy them at drink at the pub on the platform, a horn blowing through the wind on this wonderfully evocative song, that personally took me back to working there in the very early 80s.
The album closes with Magda Bruer In The Rain that should have been the title of a play for today, this song would be the outline for a long lost love affair, for that vision in a blue silk dress, passions burning across the cultural divide, those dreams that never leave you of Magda Bruer In The Rain a distinct tinge of sadness that you'll never meet again.
Find Out More at https://www.thinklikeakey.com/release/466376-peter-daltrey-the-rhymer-in-the-long-tongued-room https://peterdaltrey.bandcamp.com/album/the-rhymer-in-the-long-tongued-room https://www.facebook.com/peter.daltreykaleidoscope
