Whether we like it or not, we live in a world where an increasingly desperate industry is trying all manner of things to sell and re-sell songs to fans. We are tempted and enticed by free downloads, tasters, subscriptions, competitions and all manner of 'USPs' and where it will all end, God only knows.
However, while re-releasing an album with additional tracks is commonplace, RUBY THROAT appear to be pioneering a new way forward in the re-release game. Namely to keep releasing the same album at intervals, but each time with freshly-minted additional tracks. Thus, it's quite possible their album 'The Ventriloquist' may actually remain unfinished forever. It's a concept the band themselves apparently see as “an ongoing experiment, trying to find the ideal order in which the songs want to play.”
We could of course argue the toss about whether this is an innovative approach or merely a rip-off all day, but ultimately RUBY THROAT are the kind of band who will probably inspire obsessive devotion on the one hand, but anathema on the other. They are, in effect, a duopoly of guitarist/ instrumentalist Chris Whittingham and vocalist Katie Jane Garside, who you will no doubt know either from ragamuffin punksters Daisy Chainsaw or heavy-as-feck noiseniks Queen Adreena, but when you have a butcher's at the insert poster of Katie Jane (looking like a bonkers cave-woman in a lake not unlike the bizarre poster Julian Cope gave away with 'Fried') you begin to twig that 'The Ventriloquist' is not here to knock off Girls Aloud's pop crown.
And so it proves, for 'The Ventriloquist' is certainly one of the most intensely obsessive albums you'll hear all year. It's spare and sparse musically and Garside's ultra-spooked vocals are placed uncomfortably high in the mix. At times, this can be a good thing, mind. Songs like 'Naked Ruby' and 'House of Thieves' have a murderous, folk-noir intent while 'Swan and the Minotaur (Troubled Man)' is pure goosebump time: all wind, crows, Macbeth and lyrical images of dead bodies in reservoirs.
|
From around the middle of the album, there's a distinct Americana-tinged feel to Whittingham's music. The Delta-style twang of the guitars and deceptively pretty timbre of Garside's vocals lifts tracks like 'Dear Daniel' and the spectral lullaby 'Lie To Me', but eventually the relentless intensity of all the songs conspires to turn off all but the most fervent of admirers. Tracks like 'John 3.16' or the multiple, spooked vocals of 'Ghost Boy' are technically impressive, but extremely hard to love, while the matricide-soaked 'Salto Angel' and the smouldering jealousy of 'Happy Now (Pt.2)' (“I'll break your legs if I find out you are fucking him”) are enough to turn anyone off. Well, unless your idea of the ideal date is the woman stalking Clint Eastwood in 'Play Misty For Me'.
'The Ventriloquist' has precious little room for compromise. Stylistically, things like This Mortal Coil's take of Tim Buckley's 'Song to the Siren' or indeed the avant-garde title track of Buckley's 'Starsailor' are among the most obvious references, but while this is laudable artistically, such measures often equate with the sort of sales figures to send careers to Siberia in terms of commercial standing. And Garside and Whittingham are intending to keep re-issuing these songs? Jesus, they must have nerves of steel and a very patient accountant.
|
