The world of Helena Costas must be, at times, a terrifying experience. Joker's Daughter, her collaboration with Danger Mouse, is named after just one of her "many shifting personae". This one persona has produced an album overflowing with ideas and sounds, all rooted in a profoundly Alice Through The Looking Glass ambience. Ranging from the gentle neo-folk of "Nothing Is Ever What It Seems" to the deranged ghost train ride of "The Last Laugh", this album is never very far from the fantastical or the ridiculous.
Costas, Greek Cypriot by origin, clearly isn't lacking for originality. Her lyrics veer wildly from chivalric esoterica to hallucinogenic confiseries. The swaying bazouki-driven folk ditty of "Lucid" features talking owls and galumphing trolls, whilst the neo-mediaeval troubadour folk of "Go Walking", steeped as it is in the ancient Pagan legends of Arthur and round tables, is possibly the first pop song about Hadrian's Wall. Elsewhere, Costas departs on what can only be described as an orange-flavoured cake (and McVities has the court-case to prove it is indeed that) binge of gargantuan proportions ("Under The Influence Of Jaffa Cakes"), taking in "Giant Redwoods walking slow" (hardly surprising considering their age) before dissolving in a haze of white powder (sugar, before you ask) and epic comedowns. A Fear and Loathing in Middle England, if you will. I also thought it was mildly ironic that the garage-rock guitar riff reminded me somewhat of "I Wanna Be Your Dog", and we all know Iggy Pop's take on substance abuse. It's sometimes hard to get past the nonsensical nature of the lyrics, but occasionally they betray a seriousness which the folklore frivolity of witches and goblins serves to hide. "Cake And July" appears to be about the passing of time, as Costas questions "Where did July go/is it under my pillow?/How did I get here/Did I sleep through it all?" The line "At 4.58 the sun stroked the canvas of sky/but there was no sign of a break in the clouds up high", coupled with "It's too cold to stay now/it's six in the morning/the rain plays catch with the washed-out people/running on by" led me to believe that she is bemoaning the state of the typical British summer, but it's not particularly easy to tell. She finishes with a line profound in its nonsensicalness: "And behind the curtain/nothing lies certain/no nothing at all/And the years disappear/between somewhere and nowhere." Costas herself has stated before that the aim of her music is to draw from seriousness and present it in humour and it's clear that for all the infantile bovine stories ("The Bull Bites Back", a storybook shanty of a battle between man and beast) and gnome infested mischief ("The Running Goblin", a breathless vignette of sinister, if slightly tiresome, vaudeville chamber-pop), there is a depth to Costas' work. Her palate flashes between light and dark. A certain presence hangs over the album as a whole, permeating many of the tracks. And it's not Brian Burton.
At times melancholy, at times wistfulness, at times uncertainty, this presence serves to give even the silliest sounding tracks a dream-like hue that leaves the listener with a nagging feeling of discomfort; just try the ambient folk of "Jessie The Goat" with its ethereal, otherworldly-like lyrics (I'm guessing Greek). Each track's nagging je-ne-sais-quoi leaves the album, if not bordering on nightmarish neo-folk, then certainly as a psychedelic stumble through Costas' often fevered dreams.
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Evidently, a lot will be made of Danger Mouse's participation. Clearly a workaholic, Brian Burton can't seem to stay away from the job, although it should be noted that their collaboration began in 2003, before the Grey Album threw his reputation into the stratosphere. This sort of collaborationist imbalance could have made for a disjointed album, with Costas' originality overwhelmed by a big-shot producer. But Burton is better than that. Taking these folk snapshots, he at times adds the beats, samples and organ for which he is famous, at others a broad wash of string orchestration, provided by his frequent collaborator Daniele Luppi. His influence on "Lucid" is not at first evident, but soon electronic squelches are spewing forth, to the point that by the end of the track, it sounds like an electronic kazoo. He throws a peaceful ambient trip-hop curtain up behind "Jessie The Goat", all swirls and blips, giving it a feel of real freedom as the fragile lyrics hover in the air. The instrumental "Chasing Ticking Crocodile" (Peter Pan, anyone?) is all wordless lyrics, silent film piano melodies and ominous synth lines, whilst the title track is a comically awful carnival ghost-ride soundtrack cum marching standard for Tim Burton freakies. The at times genre-defying instrumentation brings to mind Efterklang at their most sedate, whilst the all-enveloping kookiness has more than a hint of múm, particularly on their latest album.
But the real revelation of the album is "Nothing Is Ever What It Seems", a pastoral ballad with neo-Celtic overtones and backed beautifully by Lippi's strings. Costas' voice takes on a siren-esque quality, while Burton takes a step back. It's lovely, tinged with a sense of humanity (and not fantasy), of life, and of warmth, and as such feels slightly out of place; in fact, it's an almost jarring presence, buried as it is under Costas' topsy turvy world of make-believe.
A collaboration out of left-field, this combination of modern-day electronica and romantic folk(lore) pop is unusual but well executed. Costas will of course be compared to Joanna Newsom, that other hippy folk minstrel, whilst others will wonder where this sits in Burton's body of work. But as an album of quirky esoteric pop, which exists on its own right, it's worth a go too. At times neo-folk for the Mabinogion generation, at others a chanson de geste for the trip-hop crowd, it has enough ideas to keep most listeners in between happy too.
www.jokersdaughter.co.uk/
www.myspace.com/jokersdaughter
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