Graham Coxon, The sky is too high (Transcopic) CD
Much has been made of the fact that Graham Coxon was supposedly
dissatisfied with a lot of Blur's output and was given leeway to drown
the last album in dischordant guitar and feedback as a result. The
logical next step is to assume that his solo LP was written for the
same reason but, if his self-analysis is to be trusted, Coxon reckons
it's more to do with drink or, rather, the lack of it: "...this is a
rough journal of the wanderings of an abstainer's mind." Which two
conjectures make for an ironic observation: much of this album sounds
like a maudlin Blur recorded in their cups at 4 am. Coxon's voice is
reminiscent of Damon in character: dropped-h and glottal stops, and
the pacing and phrasing of the songs is come-down, hang-over onset
moody. But there's exhilarating stuff too: cat-strangling, cathartic
total guitar onslaught Sonic-Youthisms, controls set for fidelity low
and Graham buried deep in the mix. It's not an easy listening
experience, nor is that the intention, but it's not the sound of
someone reaching for (sky) heights he can't obtain either. It's the
sound of an honest set of songs: As at the start of this review,
there's been a lot of pseudo-psychology about the origins and
motivations of thie record; disections of the form and content and the
obscure record collection attempting to explain why it was written,
what the message is etc etc. Basically it boils down to a bloke who'd
got some songs and wanted to record them the way he wanted to record
them. And he did. Wouldn't you?
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