Monthly Archives: May 2019

May 21 2019
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12" single, CD, vinyl

Nick Lowe • Love Starvation/Trombone [CD, EP]

NICK LOWE has latched onto a new way of making records in the last few years, and it’s a method that suits him. Instead of waiting until he’s got an LP’s worth of tunes, Basher has been releasing EPs of whatever he deems ready to record. Love Starvation/Trombone is his latest, another 4-song affair recorded with Los Straitjackets and released by his American label Yep Roc.

What’s great to hear is that Lowe has also landed on the perfect latter-day band to collaborate with. Los Straitjackets, those guys with the gimmicky Mexican wrestler masks, provide an expertly empathetic two guitars, bass and drums backing to Nick’s rockabilly tinged pop tunes. They’ve now appeared as his band on a couple of Christmas records and last year’s Tokyo Bay EP. Like those efforts, there’s nothing too slick or too raw here, unless you count the studio-enhanced “horn section” on “Trombone,” the co-title tune that features a ’60s almost-Tijuana Brass arrangement. “Love Starvation” itself is a typically Nick mid tempo rocker with some witty words, while “Blue on Blue” is a sleeper of a slower “blues” song, with some of his greatest, latest lyrics, like “I can’t sleep for all the promises you don’t keep / I wanna run but I’m in too deep, too deep for blue on blue” and “In my mind I’m on the end of a ball of twine / that she jerks from time to time, time for blue on blue.” Finally, “Raincoat in the River” is a cover of an obscure 1960 Sammy Turner tune (produced by Phil Spector, later covered by Rick Nelson) that nicely defies its title with a happy story of a guy whose gal is coming back to him. The song really fits with the other three original Nick Lowe-penned songs, which is no surprise because that’s a skill that the man has had for decades, dating back to his days in Brinsley Schwarz and later with Dave Edmunds in Rockpile.

There’s no telling whether the tracks from this Love Starvation EP and the aforementioned Tokyo Bay will turn up on a long player, but it would be a pretty safe bet. I’m sure Lowe and the ’Jackets  have either recorded more than what they’ve let out or they’re cooking up more tasty treats while they tour the UK and US this summer.

3.5/5 (Yep Roc YEP-2646, 2019)

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May 10 2019
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CD, digital download, vinyl

Wreckless Eric • Transience [LP, CD]

Our boy WRECKLESS ERIC is on a tear with this, his second album in a year. Transience is its name and “if you think that what you see is what you get / you haven’t seen the half of it yet.”

Out on his own Southern Domestic label, this lo-fi release is a worthy sequel to last year’s killer Construction Time & Demolition. On that album Eric and his conspirators laid down practically off-the-cuff recordings of the man’s musings about where he came from, where he’s been to and where he was then at. Transience (“the state of lasting only for a short time”) finds Wreckless Eric doing the same, and still trying to shake off the adjectivity of his stage name – something he apparently has been working on for a long time. Yet, the very fact that the cuts on these two albums have such a ramshackle (but riveting) feel make the task of trying to shake the stage name’s burden a relatively unsuccessful venture. Luckily, no one picking up one of his albums is going to give a shit about whether he’s now or has ever been wreckless. People new to his stuff will only wonder slightly about where the name came from, and those of us who remember “Whole Wide World” and “Semaphore Signals” (among others) are fine with it. Seriously, Eric: who cares? We love the semi-shoddiness of your albums, your quirky wit and cynical view of (the whole wide) world. Transience contains sarcastic songs like “Creepy People (In the Middle of the Night)” where Eric talks about having a predilection for suffering and the drag of “taking it up the ass” (figuratively), “The Half of It,” which hooks into subject matter first sung about by Ray Davies of The Kinks and Eric’s contemporary (and former Stiff Records label-mate) Nick Lowe, and six more tunes that show he’s still… if not wreckless, definitely wry and feckless. And yet, he’s still capable of writing engaging songs about whatever strikes him: tiny houses, dead end streets (hello again, Kinks), indelible stains, whatever.

Working with Wreckless Eric this time are Steve Goulding (of The Rumour) on drums, amour Amy Rigby on piano and backing vocals, Cheap Trick’s Tom Petersson on the bass and Alexander Turnquist on 12-string. Transience has a full sounding, freckles ’n’ all vibe, with thick low end and raw guitar and organ that make for a fulfilling listen. I’m really digging his latest work and hope he not only tours the US again (saw him last year in Seattle), but maybe even with a full band. But whether he’s solo or accompanied, Wreckless Eric’s music is definitely worth delving into, if not devouring completely.

4/5 (Southern Domestic SD 008, 2019)

 

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