the fire never understands the spark the way it is with you and me

Okay, as I write these entries my love/hate relationship with the iTunes music store is becoming clear. I've been listening to what I thought was a 2005 release because iTunes says it was released in March of last year. Everyone else on the planet, however, has it that the record was released in October of 2004. Not only that, but I never heard the thing until the second month of 2006! So I really have no business talking about it here, in a series of entries on music from 2005. Maybe this is a short break, a nonsequiter, a digression, something.

Never mind, I don't care. Here's the thing (right-click, get some yummies):



Joseph Arthur, Our Shadows Will Remain.
The story on this guy is that he was discovered by Peter Gabriel in the 90s and signed to the Real World label. I found about him a few days ago by way of a (terrific, by the way) new single recorded by Michael Stipe, "In The Sun", released as a benefit for Katrina-folk and written by one Mr. Joseph Arthur.

The inevitable comparisons must surely be Elliot Smith, Jeff Buckley, Nick Drake, and any number of other sensitive singer-songwriter types. These comparisons may be apt enough, and he certainly has the talent to belong in such rarified company. But it's the Mark Eitzel/Leonard Cohen kind of brooding that he does that really excties me. If you're in songs-about-breakups-upset-me mode, then definitely avoid "Failed" and its fantastically pessimistic, guilty, and low-self-esteem-ridden lines "Now you're gone, and I don't know why/Maybe I failed, maybe I failed". Or how about a song whose chorus repeats, simply, "Wasted, I need to find a place to cry"? Being able to cry anywhere is one thing. Needing to find a place to do it implies needing to be away from people. In a song that starts out "walking in the New York night", such a place must be exceedingly hard to come by, making the need for it that much more acute.

It's not all life-rending dispair, though. "I Am" bounces along on the "When The Levee Breaks" drumbeat (I think it's been long enough since the last time we heard that - its appearance here is perfectly acceptable) while delivering an almost Bhuddist sermon about knowing one's self and living in the moment; and "Even Tho" is carried by a soulful falsetto that's playful enough to keep the transition from "Even tho I'm here you know that I'm already gone" to "We've got some time/So let's walk hand in hand together/And hold our heads up high" from seeming incongruous, instead both lightening the former lyric and adding weight to the latter.

I was going to say that the lush, multi-layered production is like nothing we've heard since Malcolm Burn produced albums by Lisa Germano and Midnight Oil in the mid-90s, but then I remembered the latest Elbow record (also a 2005 release, to be discussed later). Our Shadows Will Remain is an incredibly varied album, and that may be its biggest shortcoming: like Belle & Sebastian's The Boy With the Arab Strap (my favorite B&S album, cringe-worthy moments notwithstanding), this album has brilliant moments that far outshine some of the lesser ones. But there are so many of the brilliant moments here that the interims, which are not at all arduous by themselves (nothing cringe-worthy in this effort), pass relatively quickly and even seem to add insight to the bright spots.

One final note: did any of you, dear readers, know about this guy or this record? If so, why did I only find out a few days ago? Tsk, tsk, just in case.