It probably does mean something when a few recordings which were cut and subsequently abandoned in March 1963 sound like a breath of fresh air in June 2018. That's the case with John Coltrane's lost album Both Directions at Once, which was finally released yesterday. I have just listened to it for the first time, along some windy quayside that featured nobody else, and it sounded wonderful and so effortlessly cool that I had to put Kamasi Washington on hold. Indefinitely.
Having said that, Both Directions at Once is blissfully old-school and needs a little more time to properly sink in, and so my album of the past month is The Wave Pictures' Brushes With Happiness.
The story of Brushes With Happiness, The Wave Picture's brilliant new LP (another one is on its way), is a dangerous one. It's a story that could easily overshadow the music and ruin the experience. The fact that it does not happen is a testimony to the Wave Pictures' great musicianship and the remarkable talents of David Tattersall. The story goes like this: David came into the studio with hand-written lyrics (or else I just want them to be hand-written) and the band improvised and built music around them. All was done in one take.
A wonderful story, no doubt, one that would not be worth anything if the result was a bunch of slovenly, slapdash tunes you would never wish to hear again.
No, not even close. The nine songs recorded during that session are music in its purest form. Quite literally, each piece grows, meanders, and takes its shape, while you are listening to it. Now truly that is a rare treat, and the beauty is that these long-winded, bluesy melodies end up sounding no less convincing than what made A Season In Hull one of the greatest albums in recent memory.
Everything is intact: the lyrical wit (the recurring sunflower motif, the Mystery Train reference, the imagery of "Laces", "The Little Window" in its entirety); the part-mournful, part-euphoric vocals of David Tattersall; the beautiful, slow-burning tunes that don't rush to put their claws into your brain. Instrumentally, too, the band straddles the fine line between tight and loose, and I could probably make a case that the guitar hook in "The Red Suitcase" is what makes that song so good in the first place. Also, while the title song is melodically rather weedy, I just can't fault the guitar work.
These days, adventures equal over-the-top. Not here. Brushes With Happiness is a nicely balanced and beautifully restrained adventure that sometimes eagerly and sometimes reluctantly oozes charm as it goes along. Something that could confuse people who first heard the immediate delights of "Jim" and "The Burnt Match". Something they would later cherish, and find rewarding, and get lost in.
