a chorus of storytellersA Chorus of Storytellers shimmers into existence to the chatter of indecipherable voices, glitchy noises and a sequence of chords remarkably reminiscent of Brian Eno's The Big Ship. The rest of the album has similarities to The Big Ship's parent album, Another Green World with its washes of electronically-treated noises interspersed with more conventional songs and the general aura of numbed surrender. In contrast to Eno's knowing camp though, Jimmy LaValle and his cohorts play things fairly straight. 'There is a Wind', the first track with vocals, has an understated grandeur typical of this collection. The lyrics, delivered in a manner not unlike a heavily sedated Michael Stipe, sketch out a quiet drama contained in pauses of conversation and tensions left unexpressed. 'There is something in the way/there is something I can't say' murmers LaValle, sounding somewhere beyond any intensity of expression. The contrast between the lush, romantic textures of the strings on 'Within Dreams', or the slide guitar in 'Tied Knots' which rivals the KLF's 'Light a Fire' in it's understated plangency, and the disconnected vocal approach inverts the more usual arrangement of a singer emoting over a relatively restrained accompaniment. 'Falling from the Sun' is something like how the Flaming Lips might sound if they were less self-consciously 'zany'. 'Stand Still' begins with stately grace of Massive Attack's 'Weather Storm' but ends with characteristically warm and lush sounding textures, by the time the pizicato string part arrives it has moved a very long way from chilly minimalism or claustrophobic paranoia as the whole thing tails off into a huge soft blur of reverb. The gentle, but epic nature of the arrangements also bring to mind Sufjan Stevens and despite the fact that less than half the songs have lyrics the cycles of undefined images leave a lasting impression on the listener. 'We Are' brings it all together: 'Under the night sky/ the twilight/ we find ourselves here again/ breaking out of standstills/ we are drifting from the shore/ we are covered in the landslide/ we are climbing off the floor'. Always a poet at heart, Leonard Cohen recently remarked 'most of us cherish some sort of dream of surrender', this music might be the sound of that surrender. -- Nick Ilott
:: The Album Leaf/A Chorus of Storytellers - Sub Pop/Cargo.
