It's difficult to know where to start where JOHNATHAN RICE is concerned. Brought up by parents constantly shuttling between Glasgow and Virginia, he first performed in public at the tender age of 16 and spent a year attempting to break into the music scene in New York, working a precarious schedule of day jobs and playing Lower East side clubs and recording an obscure debut EP en route.
Then, just as he was knuckling down to his parents' wishes of further education and a possible application for Edinburgh University, he received his musical equivalent of a Willy Wonka golden ticket when he heard an exec at Reprise in California had heard his EP and was keen to sign him. The ensuing dream come true unfolded as the young Master Rice flew out to California and landed a record contract.
Since then, time seems to have sped up to an alarming degree. Since making the ominously-titled "Trouble Is Real" with producer Mike Mogis (on the recommendation of one Conor Oberst, no less), Rice's songs have been used in TV series such as "The OC", "One Tree Hill" and "Six Feet Under"; he's been cast as Roy Orbison in a biopic about the late, great Johnny Cash also starring Reese Witherspoon and Joaquim Phoenix; his debut London club show back in February saw scenes akin to Beatlemania and he was recently approached by REM'S Peter Buck to support the Athens, GA legends on their summer arena shows in Cardiff and London. Actually, on the face of this knowledge, I think perhaps Johnathan received all six Willy Wonka golden tickets.
The thing is, though, Rice has earned a lot of these accolades fairly and squarely when you consider the quality of "Trouble Is Real". Along the lines of mercurial characters such as Beck and, indeed, Conor Oberst, he's a prodigious young character who instinctively knows how to both pen a good tune and make an experimental leap of faith or three, and he brings these qualities to bear throughout the lengthy, involved emotional trawl of this debut album.
Comprising 16 tracks and clocking in just on the 1 hour mark, "Trouble Is Real" requires input from the listener, but rewards your patience and diligence tenfold over time and suggests Johnathan Rice is indeed a name to earmark for likely future greatness.
Not that it doesn't throw its' fair share of curves. Indeed, the record opens with something of a red herring with the dreamy, neo avant-garde "Short Song For Strings", which is pretty much what it says on the tin and not at all indicative of what follows. "Mid November", which eases through in the slipstream, is closer to the record's heart, introducing Rice's wracked, cracked vocal and fragile acoustic guitar. From apparently nowhere, it sunbursts into a cavernous full-band workout after 1 minute 30 and impresses immediately.
|
The Nick Drake-ish timbre in Rice's voice on this track indicates that "Ttrouble Is Real" is liable to be a fine singer/songwriter affair, but just when you're about to get comfortable, the album bucks you out of the saddle again, with tracks like "Kiss Me Goodbye" (strident, straight-ahead indie rocker with keyboards out of Wilco's "Summerteeth") and "So Sweet", which is menacingly dreamy with a cool "la la la" chorus and vocals more akin to Eddie Vedder or Mark Lanegan rather than Nick Drake.
The surprises just keep on coming from there on. "Lady Memphis" initially makes like a Smithsonian field recording until the band swing in behind and the song employs shuffly, funky drums and warm organ as it sets up a sultry Southern fried swagger; "Break So Easy" proves the earlier acousticism IS close to Rice's heart with its' nature-bound lyricism ("The promise of rain can be heard on the leaves) and "My Mother's Son" again pulls off a trick similar to "Mid November" by initially coming on like Nick Drake tangling with Mark Eitzel and then exploding into an orchestral frenzy Scott Walker would surely adore.
Arguably the album's finest achievement is the four-song section heralded by the arrival of "City Of Fire". This one's a slow-moving, Jeff Buckley-ish chamber-pop ballad of some depth, which is then superseded by the remarkable "Put Me In Your Holy War" - inspired by former Wilco man Jay Bennett apparently - which again harks back to America's grainily fascinating folk roots. Kinda like Woody Guthrie by way of M Ward, if I may be so bold. Once again you're marvelling, but "Salvation Day" - a bristling, crunching rocker - soon shakes you out of your reverie, and "Stay At Home" presents us with a playful, poppy diversion (again recalling Wilco) with plenty of textural diversions provided by organ, mellotron, bells and theremin.
But really, it's a thought-provoking programme from start to finish and its' sheer breadth and diversity establishes Johnathan Rice as an uncompromising force to reckon with. Of course, what a potentially mercurial character will do next is virtually impossible to predict, but assimilating the best of this album will provide more than ample diversion in the meantime.
|
