I’m not sure if it was just me who was in the dark about this one, but the first I heard about a new album from Joseph Arthur was through his Twitter feed on Sunday evening, which stated simply and cryptically “Redemption City 011812″. The following day, a further tweet announced that this is a double album which will be released on a “pay what you want” basis, erm, the following day. This was sensitively put back when the SOPA/PIPA protests were taking place, but here it is now – an early contender for “biggest surprise of the year”.
Appearing on the heels of SOPA/PIPA, this is a very apt release. This is a piece of work designed to be experienced and shared, and the reward lies in the immediacy (Joseph’s word of choice) of the project. As has been ably demonstrated by Jeff Klein previously – whether on his own or as part of My Jerusalem – there must be something pretty exciting about having the freedom of being involved in something wholeheartedly and then being able to say “This is something for right now, so that’s when it’s going to be released”. Not something to be slotted into someone else’s schedule, not for others to determine where and how it can be heard to maximise profit, but because It Feels Right To Do So. This is the sort of model that the internet should be excelling at, but isn’t because presumably it makes marketing departments twitchy about their own future employment prospects.
Because, at 24 tracks and not far off two hours long, it’s a bit of a sprawler, it’s probably best viewed as it’s presented to us: as two complimentary entities, with the second half feeling somewhat more experimental than the first.
Part one begins with Travel As Equals, opening with Joseph speaking urgently and Nick Cave-like over something that wouldn’t feel out of place on last year’s Danger Mouse / Daniele Luppi Rome collaboration before launching into a huge, multilayered chorus containing many mysterious bleeps and chatter that will become more apparent in the second half. There’s no shortage of spoken verse/harmonic chorus in this section and they’re all very welcome, especially the choruses that have that unashamedly rousing anthemic quality that many rock artists across the spectrum have seemingly been going out of their way to avoid of late. Early immediate highlights here include the dissolute drawl of Mother Of Exiles, reminding this scribe of Greg Dulli’s Twilight Singers (and again during Night Clothes) and the melancholy reminiscing of I Miss the Zoo, cataloguing a whole youth in a wistful nutshell. All in all, it’s a happy indie rock collection that isn’t afraid to be cheerfully pop whenever the occasion demands, dipping into the early-to-mid-’80s for assistance every now and then (and nowhere better than with No Surrender Comes For Free, which could sit proudly on Big Audio Dynamite’s 1st album as a standout), and if these twelve tracks were all there was of this album, then it would still be highly praised as a great accomplishment. Thankfully for the listener, there’s another twelve available…
The second half opens in spectacular style with the whole set’s standout track Surrender To The Storm, a Floydian epic that burns slowly and brightly. Elsewhere, it all goes delightfully askew with Kandinski which comes across akin to Crispin Helion Glover having a go at Kraftwerk with delightfully odd results, with more Kling Klang reminiscences and elektronik lyrical imagery (“We are figments of the internet, it’s haemmorrhaging out”) in the deliberately dispassionate Humanity Fade. There’s plenty of fun to be had on this somewhat funky second disc with Joseph’s poetry spoken over some very synthsploitational fuzzy keyboard riffs such as Touched and It Takes A Lot Of Time To Live In The Moment. The freedom afforded by the format of this release is evident in this second half, where he allows himself the space to go places where he wouldn’t necessarily go in more traditionally-structured affairs. In this respect, I’m reminded in spirit of Matthew Ryan’s last two albums where he goes altogether more electronic in his approach in a way that expands his songwriting style rather than clashes with it, and – also as with Matthew’s albums – maybe it sometimes takes doing something completely solo to push this as far as one dares. And, while it takes a little bit more of a sideways mind to initially get into Part 2′s grooves, once you’re in there you’re stuck for good until it ends as Part 1 begins, with a reprise of album opener Travel As Equals.
This is available from Joseph’s site for free, with the option to fork out for a Ltd Edition vinyl edition. For those who plump for the digital editions (mp3 and FLAC available), while it’s lovely to enjoy these free of guilt and financial responsibility, it’s only fair to reward the guy who’s taken the time to share these with enough money for a drink or two by way of appreciation by virtue of having a little clicky on the “Donate” button on the main page. It may not be a business model that the majority of the music industry will embrace as they’re not fond of anyone sharing anything whether they have a say in ownership or not (indeed, as I write this, Megaupload has been shut down), but it’s one that bridges a gap between artist and consumer in the nicest possible way.
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