Fans of Michael Nyman will have followed the career of our UK ‘house
minimalist’ from the early EG albums, his film scores with
Peter Greenaway and beyond, and more. The success of the Michael
Nyman band is also something of a phenomenon in the art music
world: the characteristic sound of growling or singing saxophones
and brass, chugging piano and electric bass, Alexander Balanescu’s
soaring violin, all contributing something to numerous ensembles
which have since followed.
All artists need to find new directions, to evolve and strike
out into paths which refresh their creative processes. Mention
has been made of a ‘new genre’ being created with
The
Glare, but with albums such as Philip Glass’s 1986
Songs
for Liquid Days and others, these kinds of collaborative
exchange between ‘art’ composers and popular performing
artists have cropped up before and since Mozart met Anton Stadler
and Stravinsky was introduced to Woody Herman.
In this
case, Nyman has forged a collaboration with vocalist David McAlmont
- famously re-connecting through Facebook in order to move into
something more ‘pop’ in conception without losing
that essential Nyman identity. My expertise on the subject of
McAlmont’s musical pedigree is alas non-existent, but the
quality of his contribution to this project both as a performer
and composer of both lyrics and tunes can take plenty of superlatives.
There is a serious theme and message in these songs, from the
media
Glare of the title, to their global news-themed
content. I’ve read some of the rave reviews, and while
I have to say I don’t actively dislike this album there
are aspects of it which make me uneasy. This leads me to conclude
that it is a qualified success and possibly more a work ‘in
progress’ and likely to lead to other more interesting
projects in the future, rather than achieving ‘classic’ status
in its own right.
Basically, what we have are a number of Nyman compositions with
an extra vocal part grafted on top. Where the accompaniment is
more sparing and the vocal part has a better opportunity for
emotive lyrical expression this can work well.
Secrets, Accusations
and Charges and
Friendly Fire are good examples, where
Nyman’s gently undulating piano and sustained strings create
a nice mood, and the effect of the lyrics can be freed from more
rigid rhythmic frameworks and extend McAlmont’s range of
colour and emotion. Where band and voice mesh less effectively
are the more groovy and urgent tracks, where we would be more
used to hearing the kind of soaring operatic voice which is equal
to and penetrates through the band’s playing in stunning
pieces like
Memorial. While McAlmont is an excellent vocalist
he is, by comparison with someone like Sarah Leonard, more of
a crooner and therefore reliant on microphone technique to compete
with the massed forces of the Michael Nyman Band. Nothing wrong
with this as such, but the result in this recording is Band shoved
further back in the aural picture - in the next room with the
door half open, and Singer doing karaoke on your living room
carpet. For my own personal worst case of this I have to mention
In
Re Don Giovanni. This I loved
on the
Live album,
and as a result I suppose I will have to admit to being less
well disposed to hearing it messed around with, but like Gounod
shoving a tune on top of Bach’s
Prelude in C major from
the Well-Tempered Clavier Book I it just seems ‘wrong’.
Just as every note in that Bach prelude has a melodic function
and is most definitely not an accompaniment, so
In Re Don
Giovanni - re-titled
In Rai Don Giovanni on this album
- suffers McAlmont’s vocals like a wasp buzzing around
your head in a summer park.
This effect is sometimes not really helped by the production
on some tracks.
Going to America has the backing musicians
in a bone-dry studio, vocals given cheesy reverb. This only serves
to enhance the ‘grafted’ nature of the collaboration
and doesn’t quite fit to my ears. Yes, it can be a good
idea to change the aural picture from time to time, but this
kind of tinkering seems a bit like scraping the bottom of a not
very deep barrel. Most of the vocals are straight solos, but
this track has some brief multi-tracked moments of chorus which
work well enough.
There are no lyrics given in the foldout sheet for this release,
but most of the words are easy enough to follow, and you can
resolve any doubts by reading everything on Michael Nyman’s
own website. No lyrics are required for
Songs for Tony for
saxophone quartet. I’ve heard this piece often enough in
concert, and this is a cracking performance. My only complaint
is that there are no access points between the various movements.
My only other only complaint is that it does seem something of
an add-on to the end of the songs, filling out the playing time
and with the title being the single tenuous identifying factor
it shares with the rest of the album. My idea would have been
to take the work, or something similar - Nyman has more than
enough instrumental material - and create a number of intermezzi
to fit between the songs, turning the album into more of an integrated
whole and heightening the effect and impact of the
Glare songs
by
releasing the ear from the voice for short periods. I’ve
worked with this kind of treatment and seen it linked effectively
to visuals in live performance, creating more of a dramatic narrative
to a concert or recording rather than having just a procession
of ‘numbers’.
So, I’ve had my few moans about this album, and must now
await the sticks and stones from its ardent fans on my own Facebook
page. To move onto more positive comments I would say the melodic
choices made to fit with the Nyman pieces are pretty good on
the whole. There are some powerful messages in the lyrics, and
what you most certainly get is well composed real music played
by proper musicians. None of the Nyman pieces have been ‘remixed’ to
any great extent as far as I can tell, and there is thankfully
no ‘pumping-up’ of anything by adding rock beats
or cheesy electronics. There are many moving and beautiful moments
here which avoid or allow us to forget the chimera nature of
these creations. These are foundations on which I feel he can
build - short of writing some new songs. This might well be more
of a stepping stone to more satisfying projects in the future,
and I do hope this will prove to be the case.
Dominy Clements
David McAlmont (vocals) 
