|
Too often, a band's "comeback" album provokes only a "go away," as the band turns out to have said everything it had to say the first time around. For every Wire or Pere Ubu that produces viable, interesting music after getting back together, there's any number of...well, I've repressed memory of all the horrible reunions I've had to listen to. Fortunately, XTC never really went away, and thereby niftily avoid this problem. Struggling to get out of a record deal even more abusive than the standard, songwriters Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding simply went on strike, refusing to record any of their newly written material. After finally inking a deal with TVT to distribute their own label's releases in the U.S., XTC returns with the first volume of a projected two or three releases devoted to the material written since their last recording, 1992's Nonsuch. Apple Venus Volume 1 is, in the words of leader Andy Partridge, an "orchustic" recording: orchestral and acoustic (Apple Venus Volume 2, out later this year, is said to be briefer, more rock-oriented songs). In this it descends from English Settlement and from songs like Nonsuch's "Rook" or Skylarking's "1,000 Umbrellas." Partridge's approach to orchestration is as original as his approach to songwriting: the opening "River of Orchids" knits pizzicato strings, multiple vocal parts, and muted trumpets harmonizing seconds in an agitated mesh of short, sparkling lines. Steve Reich might be a point of comparison, but despite the maze it must emerge through, the song is paramount in Partridge's scheme, and Partridge, unlike Reich or those influenced by him, never lets you forget he's a songwriter, not a composer of extended orchestral suites. One of XTC's rare gifts has been its ability to write catchy, immediate tunes even though closer listening reveals them to be rather tricky and complex little compositions. The lyrics Partridge writes for this CD seem suspended between optimism and a bitter despair. "River of Orchids" is perhaps a descendant of Talking Heads' "Nothing but Flowers," envisioning roadways replaced by rivers of flowers, but Partridge seems unsure whether to mourn or hope for this vision. "Knights in Shining Karma" and "The Last Balloon" are both mysterious, haunted, the sound of having given up hope. Although it's not obvious, the first song's title isn't just a throwaway pun. Lines like "jealous winter sun, cold as vichysoisse, steals your smile for food" and "poach your dreams to ash" suggest that love cannot be guarded or held safe like treasure: jealousy turns love to a hollow, sepulchral shell (an idea expressed less obliquely in "I Can't Own Her"). "The Last Balloon" ends the album on a note of sheer despair, Partridge seeing nothing in this world our children should save: "you should drop us all, drop us all like sand." The most direct juxtaposition of Partridge's conflicting moods is in the stunning "Your Dictionary." Written in the throes of his divorce, this is perhaps the most personal song Partridge has ever written. In both words and tune the song is cousin to XTC's biggest hit, "Dear God," as a cry of anguish toward an object unworthy of the singer's faith. While the bulk of "Your Dictionary" is as bitter a record of betrayal and lacerating despair as Lennon's "How Do You Sleep?" it's also as self-aware, even self-hating, as the song that follows "How Do You Sleep?" on Lennon's Imagine, "How?" ("how can I feel something when I just don't know how to feel?"). After lines like "S-L-A-P, is that how you spell 'kiss' in your dictionary? / C-O-L-D, pronounced as 'care'?" Partridge offers this self-portrait: "S-H-I-T, is that how you spell 'me' in your dictionary? / Four-eyed fool you led 'round everywhere...." Seeming to recognize that dwelling in despondency will get him nowhere, Partridge ends the song in a stunning and powerful about-face. After an upward modulation into a major key, the song ceremoniously ends with the lines, "Let us close the book and let the day begin / Let the marriage be undone." This idea of renewal informs another of the album's most impressive songs, "Easter Theatre." Another of XTC's nature songs, this one opens with a stunning and beautiful erotic metaphor evoking springtime. Along with "Reign of Orchids" and "The Green Man," this song suggests that Partridge views the natural world as more than just an interesting metaphor but as nearly the sole source of hope. That, and sex - so he's not merely a misanthrope. Sandwiched between these two complex yet hook-filled pieces is "I'd Like That": simpler, driven by propulsively strummed acoustic guitars, and another in XTC's long string of hit singles in a perfect world. Colin Moulding's two songwriting contributions at first seem a bit of a letdown, merely filler, almost comic relief. Both "Frivolous Tonight" and "Fruit Nut" saunter with music-hall jauntiness, and Moulding affects a flat, heavily accented singing voice in both tunes. But since Moulding's in some ways an even catchier tunesmith than Partridge (he wrote their early hits "Making Plans for Nigel" and "Life Begins at the Hop," along with shoulda-beens like "Generals and Majors" and "Love at First Sight"), the songs take hold after a while. In the context of the album, their lyrics prove an effective counterwieght to the seriousness of Partridge's emotional concerns: "Frivolous Tonight" is just that (and in so proposing, sneaks in a fairly serious philosophical concern as well - we are all frivolous, in the end, and could stand to realize it sooner, perhaps) and "Fruit Nut" speaks to the importance of having something, anything, to do, even if we're a bit obsessive about it. In sum, not only is this a fine return for XTC, it's one of their better records period. |
