Dr. Robert, née Robert Howard, blows into town with a lo-fi but twinkling collection of eleven tunes recorded at home in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in Andalucia. It is the tenth solo album in a long career stretching all the way back to the relatively recently reformed Blow Monkeys in the 1980s. Largely acoustic it nevertheless features some electronic bells and whistles. As one would expect from an artist who, whilst always being fond of classic songwriting, has never been afraid to embrace contemporary culture. Memorably he was one of the first mainstream artists to embrace house music when he teamed up with a doyenne of the scene, Kym Mazelle, to release the rather excellent Wait in 1989. He is an arch modernist within a quintessentially melodic mind.
“I wanted to make music for its own sake. Just for the sheer joy of it. The best moments come when you’re just sitting around in the kitchen or whatever, strumming and singing and laughing. That’s the approach I took in my little studio. First takes, mistakes and all – before self-consciousness sets in“, says Robert, and it shows. There’s an impulsive joie de vivre across the album as a whole, across each pluck and strum and the playful accordion by Jos Hawken. A sunny brightness is all pervasive and it sounds like everything was recorded in the afternoon heat, which it may well have been of course in that baked part of southern Spain. Couple that with a mellifluous and rich vocal style sometimes a little reminiscent of Lloyd Cole and the whole album is a warm experience indeed.
An air of sophistication as well on the likes of sax-heavy ‘Lost In Rasa‘. A curious ability to marry rustic acoustic guitar with an urbane sensibility. It’s no hillbilly affair – or whatever the Spanish equivalent to that soubriquet may be. Having said that, ‘Rack And Ruin‘ is blessed with a bluesy, country-stomp. Still simply recorded and built around a head-nodding, southern-fried swing, it’s excellent stuff and a fine vehicle for one of pop’s more richly accomplished voices.
In the highly unlikely event those of us in the UK get to experience a summer of scorched ruin, this album would provide a pretty apt and contemplative soundtrack. Simple songs, recorded simply for the most part. Reflective of their terror in some ways – witness the flamenco flourishes on ‘Here I Lie‘ – but pretty universal in appeal. Unless it’s raining. Perhaps even in that event one can shut one’s eyes and be carried off on the lilting melodies. The album’s high-point, ‘Still I Turn To You‘, being a case in point; the dusty track of the mind beckons.
In a contented way it’s beautiful stuff, beautifully realised. Drift on into a summer breeze…
