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G PageContents: Peter Gabriel, Genesis, The Go-Betweens, Goldenhorse, David Gray, Arlo GuthriePeter Gabriel has his own pageGenesis have their own pageThe Go-Betweens have their own pageGoldenhorseRiverhead (2002)After the demise of Bressa Creeting Cake, who split after only one critically acclaimed album in 1996, Geoff "Creeting" Maddock and Joel "Bressa" Wilton lay in hiatus for a few years before forming Goldenhorse, recruiting golden voiced chanteuse Kirsten Morelle as frontwoman, giving them a commercial appeal that Maddock and Wilson could never hope to achieve in their quirky and laid back trio. Singer songwriter Ben King, who had previously achieved recognition as a solo artist, is also included in the lineup. While the resulting album is accomplished, unsurprising with such a surfeit of talent available, there is an underlying tension between the artistic and commercial. The group manage to pack a diverse range of elements into the own Indie pop style, making the album cohesive musically. There is, however, an unsatisfying distance between darker, more complex material like the title track and the relatively straightforward radio oriented material like 'Golden Dawn' and 'Maybe Tomorrow'. Goldenhorse compromise successfully with the radio hit 'American Wife', which is evocative of the opening scenes of a horror movie set in smalltown U.S. in the 1950s; it's all bouncy and wholesome on the outside, but there's something off-kilter and unsettling lurking underneath, not to mention a terrific guitar solo. This unevenness in tone makes Riverhead somewhat of a mixed bag, even if it does hold together well as a whole. It starts in progressive rock like fashion with 'Northern Lights'; heavily orchestrated pop with mystical lyrics like the opening line "stones like these are just like fuel underground." 'Golden Dawn' is a gorgeously anthemic ballad, even if it does take the most commercial route by emphasising Morelle's vocals; the chorus is undeniably catchy and memorable. The centrepiece of the record is the title track - using a creepy male vocal from Maddock to set the dark scene before Morelle delivers the chorus punch line: "My throat cut open like a lily flower/On a thorny bed." Final track 'Dark Forest' ends the record on a high with another epic piece. Even the dorky 'Out Tonight', which incorporates Hawaiian guitars and uses the word "indisposed" awkwardly, has a worthwhile payoff with the gorgeous wordless vocal coda at the end. There's nothing particularly dead weight on the album; there's just an unsettling difference in the scale of artistic ambition between different tracks For their next record, Goldenhorse have indicated that they're aiming to complete a less overtly commercial record, with more dark folk-oriented music along the lines of the title track, and if they succeed I'm there with bells on. But for starters, this is an effort with tons of potential, with plenty of merit in its own right; it's a low four stars, but it's a four star effort nonetheless. At the time of writing, this album is #1 on the New Zealand charts after an amazing 57 weeks. 
David GrayWhite Ladder (2000)If music betrays its context, then listening to early records from The Kinks and The Beatles would allow the listener to visualise a swinging Carnaby Street full of mods with quirky dress sense. Listening to early seventies Genesis would give the impression of a pastoral England full of mythical creatures, all wanting to seduce Peter Gabriel. Judging from David Gray and Coldplay at the turn of the 21st century, and it sounds like England has lost its mystique and is now full of lovelorn young men moping through drab and miserable winters. Musically, Gray's just a whiney guy with a nasal voice singing relatively predictable singer-songwriter fare, replete with attractive arrangements and cool synth noises; I'm racking my brains to find a comparison with another singer-songwriter - maybe locking Bob Dylan up in a London bedsit for the first 25 years of his life might produce something similar. Some of the arrangements on this record are absolutely gorgeous, admirable when it's considered that Gray made White Ladder in his London apartment with traffic noises filtering in - the theremin like keyboard effects in 'We're Not Right' and the stately piano of 'Babylon'. This may be uncomfortably on the fringes of an adult contemporary focus, with its relationship deciphering lyrics and its restrained arrangements, but its at least infused with some creativity and imagination. And despite the self-obsession running through the lyrics ("I got half a mind to scream out loud/I got half a mind to die/So I won't lose you girl') Gray does put together a strong batch of songs here. It's no injustice that this record became a sleeper hit for Gray after he spent a few years languishing on the fringes with obscure albums like A Century Ends, Sell, Sell, Sell and Flesh, not hitting the big time until his 30th year. If you like one song on White Ladder, you'll like the lot - this is a well constructed record, with Gray working within a coherent range of styles without becoming too monotonous (at least musically - on the other hand his lack of humour and self-obsession wear thin pretty quickly). But songs like 'Please Forgive Me', 'Babylon' and 'My Oh My' are catchy despite their low key nature. In summary, a singer-songwriter who mostly annoys me somehow manages to come up with an album that's mostly pretty interesting.
 Arlo GuthrieAlice's Restaurant (1967)Arlo Guthrie came to folk music with an incredible pedigree, the son of folk legend Woody Guthrie ('This Land Is Your Land') and as a child meeting and jamming with other famous musicians such as Pete Seeger and Leadbelly as they visited his home. He rose to prominence at the 1967 Newport Folk Festival at the age of 20 where the lengthy talking song 'Alice's Restaurant' was first performed at a topical songs workshop. While the song continues the acoustic simplicity of early sixties protest folk, it's also laced with a humour that makes its slightly subversive litany on littering and the draft go down surprisingly easily. In fact, the song is much more notable for Guthrie's comic timing and laconic delivery than it is for its musical content - the almost incessant guitar riff only adds to the humour - he's as much a standup comedian as a musician over the eighteen minutes as he details his adventures trying to dispose of a half-tonne of garbage, in court and with the army psychiatrist, and the catchy chorus is only introduced towards the end of the song. The song's following was strong enough to spawn a full length feature movie in 1970, starring Guthrie. One interesting comparison for Alice's Restaurant, if completely different in style, is Iron Butterfly's contemporary In A Gadda Da Vida, which also features an iconic title track taking up an entire side of the record, and a comparatively disposable flip side. The second side of Alice's Restaurant isn't as unlistenable as Iron Butterfly's, but it's hardly a classic either; with pleasant but generic folk like 'Chilling of the Evening' and 'I'm Going Home' and assorted silliness like 'The Motorcycle Song' ("I don't want a pickle/I just want to ride my motor-sickle") and 'Ring-Around-A-Rosy Rag', which uses a riff that's too close to the infinitely loop of the title track. It's also noticeable that the mixing isn't particularly impressive during the shorter; inappropriate keyboards are intrusive, while the bass hits like a ton of bricks in the introduction to 'Ring-Around-A-Rosy Rag' and then all but disappears. Alice's Restaurant is an album that has been treated precisely right by posterity - it never makes top album of all time lists, and it doesn't deserve too, but it's still easily available and the title track enjoys a cult following and still holds up as a transcendent piece of work that should hold equal interest to rock fans and social historians.
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Written 2001-2009, Graham Fyfe
