We first met Owen McAulay in Glasgow about ten years ago. He was doing a solo spot at the Thirteenth Note Cafe and he played a rolling little tune called "morning" from his 2000 album "six songs". The simplicity was unfathomably sad and the song has set up home in my psyche for good. It has no words and no more than a handful of notes but it remains complete and strong enough to ring through years of growing older, having families and considering the endlessness of mourning.
It makes me happy to report that there I now have one more McAulay album to add to my collection and I am confident in recommending it to you as a set of songs that you should buy without hesitation if you can find it. There might be some live appearances to look out for as well.
There are twelve tracks, rather like twelve handmade bowls in an exhibition of Chinese porcelain. Viewed in one light the minimalism is extreme. Each has its nearly discernible white lustre. All have the same touch of attentive sadness. Two chords and three or four notes are plenty. Heard on its own, each is unique and encompassing. Two are spoken with no instrumentation or tune. One is played on instruments with no voice. They all sound like songs because of where they are and because each has enough reverberation from earlier tracks to give them the dignity of imagined accompaniment or implied words without their actual presence.
As with many simple things, close examination reveals their considerable care and a long development. The album includes pieces written and recorded over a seven year period. As well as McAulay's sparsely played guitar, we also have his saxophone, pianos, organ, keyboard, percussion, accordion and the muted click of a bicycle making its contribution to "no defence". Gerry Elliot adds a gentle touch of drums to "wet country", a beautiful children's song that has a touch of Bonnie "Prince" Billy about it.
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If you listen carefully in a quiet room you will hear other ambient sounds passing through the songs. A dog barking. Something in another room. A voice in another world. Perhaps something in your imagination.
"the ball" and "funeral parlour" are the two songs without tunes. Between them they touch most closely on time's guarantee. "It resonates only in the past / and the present is cruel", he says in "ball". "stiff white fingers poking from the shroud" emerge from the mist of memory in "funeral parlour".
"October idea" is the wordless tune with guitar, saxophone and a plaintive banjo.
The room you are in will turn colder when "no defence" turns from gentle dirge to shockingly direct words. It is better for you to hear them than for me to tell you. The lyric ends "I hope your conscience is not dead" and the sounds of a strange place lead out to the silence before the aforementioned "wet country".
I might already have told you too much.
The album is to be available via www.smackvan.com
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