The man with the Midas touch is back
Artiste: No-Man
Nationality: British (English)
Album: Schoolyard ghosts
Year: 2008
Label: Kscope
Genre: Progressive/Art Rock
Tracks:
All sweet things
Beautiful songs you should know
Pigeon drummer
Truenorth
Wherever there is light
Song of the surf
Streaming
Mixtaped
Chronological position: Sixth album
Familiarity: Nothing other than via Porcupine Tree and Steven Wilson's "Grace for drowning"
Initial impression: Melancholy, haunting, ethereal, both laidback and unsettling at the same time.
Best track(s): All sweet things, Truenorth, Wherever there is light
Worst track(s): Oh yeah, right! You are of course joking?
Comments: The stripped-down nature of this album hits you from the beginning, with acoustic barebones piano following the aching vocal on the opener,
All sweet things, before the soft acoustic guitar strums its way into proceedings, and I'm reminded in ways of a more emotionally upbeat Antimatter. If there's ever been an album that lived up to its title it's this one: I can feel spectres from the past crowding around me as I listen, and it's ethereal and eerie, strange and sad yet shot through with a vein of hope that life gets better.
No-Man is the result of a collaboration, in case you didn't know, between Porcupine Tree maestro Steven Wilson and vocalist Tim Bowens, one of over a half-dozen projects Wilson is involved in, not counting his day job with the Porcs. As I said in the review to his solo album, “Grace for drowning”, how the man gets the time and energy to do all this is beyond me. This album, far from being something thrown together to gain a few more record sales, or an offhand collection of ideas, is in fact the sixth album from No-Man, and it's a mini masterpiece, absolutely beautiful in its fragility. It's so good in fact that I have no doubt I'll have to give it the full review treatment on the Playlist, as there's just not enough space here to do it justice.
But for now, soft, warm vocals edged with pain and loss, sumptuous arrangements alongside the most simple of instrumentation, tracks like the achingly brittle, country-styled
Wherever there is light with its pedal steel and
Beautiful songs you should know with its mournful violin and harmonium stand with the stunning twelve-minute epic
Truenorth, an example of how No-Man can move you without even trying. And then there's the frenetic madness of
Pigeon drummer: just amazing.
I can't recommend this album highly enough. If you want more, keep an eye on my main journal, as this has impressed me so much that I will definitely be doing a full, more in-depth review of it there.
Overall impression: Still trying to get up! Holy ****!
Intention: Review this in more depth, and listen to a lot more of these guys' albums!