Over the past few years, technology (not least the ability to e-mail MP3 files) has immeasurably changed the way artists collaborate. Especially if they happen to live in different continents, as DAVID JOHN HULL and TOM CURIANO do. For David and Tom are musicians who live in Berlin (Dave) and New York City (Tom) respectively. They had no idea of each other's existence until some European gigs brought Tom to Berlin in 1995 where he met Dave and a mutual respect for each other's abilities cemented a friendship which has thrived down the years.
I'm not sure that either of them imagined their mooted collaboration would take a Blue Nile-esque decade plus to come to fruition, but respective commitments on both sides ensured that finding creative windows was difficult. In the end, much of what would become 'Who Really Knows' was laid down when David headed off to Switzerland with his guitar to meet Tom and his wife Katia Bassanini and record his basic acoustic guitar and vocal frameworks.
Amazingly, Curiano layered most of the rest of the music in sessions alone in Switzerland, Amsterdam and his New York home and finally 'Who Really Knows' as we now hear it came together. But the amazing thing is you'd never realise the album had been subjected to such a chequered incubation if you didn't know better. For what you actually hear is a cohesive, layered pop album with an underlying sense of melancholy and a killer instinct for lilting melodies, not to mention the decency to respect the inherent quirkiness in David Hull's songs.
Everything here's worthy of your attention and there are some truly sublime moments along the way. Hull's lovely shaky croon has tinges of early Bowie or The Only Ones' Peter Perrett and the intimacy inherent in his songs immediately draws you in. Curiano's lush, chiming arrangements are the perfect velvet glove for Hull's bitter(sweet) lyrical fists, especially on songs like 'Again' and the title track, where a series of observations like “you've told me you are free/ if that's freedom don't call me” suggest these songs were written on the back of a devastating emotional bust-up. The dreamy, opiated ballad 'He Goes Away' is arguably even better, with a numbed-out Hull delivering his vocal with the sort of blank, barely-suppressed hurt Peter Hamill conjured on 'Nadir's Last Chance.
|
But none of these observations should suggest 'Who Really Knows' is ever anything less than an engaging listen because the songs themselves soon imprint themselves on your mind. Tracks like 'Ordinary Man' and 'Handed Down' have more than a twinge or two of bruised Kinks glory about them, while the excellent 'Free' is built around Tom's swerving Britpop riffs and plenty of sly swagger.
They bookend the album with perhaps the two finest tracks here. The opening 'Reality' benefits beautifully from Curiano's sweeping arrangement and Katia Bassanini's breathy, Beach Boys-style backing vocal harmonies and is simply stuffed with presence. It's a close run thing, but it's possibly bettered by the closing 'Easy On The Soul' where a supremely memorable descending keyboard motif sets up a valedictory shiver of a song where David sounds like he's shaken off the emotional turbulence to finally discover peace at last.
'Who Really Knows' is an album that's been around the block a few times and is often on first name terms with the slings and arrows of loneliness. For all that, it's a finely-crafted record chock full of warm and resonant tunes and it deserves a place in all discerning heads and hearts regardless of the vagaries of fashion.
|
