I don't really have much truck for the kind of stuff that's award-winning and critically acclaimed. Its not that I'm being willfully perverse or obstinate: it's just that the kind of music tastemakers and awards panels is rarely to my taste. I couldn't care less about musicianship or the detailed compositional skills for the most part. I can admire such qualities, of course, and sometimes marvel at the scope and ambition of a piece, but above all I'm interested in how music makes me feel. Does it excite me? Does it drill into my brain, one way or another? Does it have the capacity to change or reflect my emotional state, make me think differently about something? Does it make me feel... well something, anything (preferably other than rage or frustration)?
Sawhney's ninth studio album – initially released in instalments on-line – is essentially a concept album and began life as a script before evolving into an album proper, and as such, it has very much a 'soundtrack' feel to it, with a short interlude of narrative - an embittered, fearful Hurt chuntering about his life and the world around him, between each song (recorded with a procession of guest collaborators).
'It's so bloody cold,' he grumbles breathily as he launches into his first monologue on 'Reflection 1'. It's also bloody difficult to get into. Hurt voices his opinions and reveals his innermost thoughts, not all of them pleasant as he plays out Sawhney's contemporary retelling of 'A Christmas Carol'. However, while the style of the recording gives these sections a grainy immediacy, they're rather quiet and it's not always easy to make out exactly what he's saying without straining. Moreover, with the additional background sounds and occasionally clunky scripting, it sounds very like a second-rate Radio 4 drama.
|
Despite the intention of creating a thread of narrative and chronology - the songs on the album are supposed to be the songs that are on the album Hurt's character, Donald Meaning, has with him and listens to - there's a a sense of disjointedness; instead of complimenting or adding to the spoken-word section, the songs disrupt the flow. or, to consider it from another angle, the talking pieces break the flow of the album, and all too often, the alternating sequence of music and dialogue feels forced, not to mention highly predictable.
'The War of the Worlds' it ain't, and while the interplay between the two strands, and the range of styles that inform the songs on the album might get some critics fawning over Sawhney's musical dexterity, you won't find me amongst them.
Nitin Sawhney Online
|
