Michael Kiwanuka - Home Again

Being the winner of BBC’s Sound of 2012 comes with some stresses. The champion of a panel of music experts naturally draws huge industry attention, especially in recent years when the competition has acquired a sort of officialdom, and analysis, expectation and counter-analysis ensue in near-molecular detail. Industry hopes revolve to a certain degree I feel, around the idea that the champion will bring music sales up, and cultivate a new collective confidence in mainstream music.

 History has shown there are two generalised ‘camps’ available for such labelled messiahs to fall into. They can either rise above the circus and keep on like nothing has happened (which it hasn’t) (Adele in 2008, Arctic Monkeys’ Mercury Music Prize in 2006): GOOD. Or spin into an over-exposure nightmare, fight media radiation poisoning, and finally supernova: BAD (The Bravery, 2005 and Little Boots 2009). Nuff said. Well it isn’t quite as clear as that, but evidently the award is no Willy Wonka ticket, self-fulfilling prophecy for glory and recognition.

Anyway, if you’re a cynic, the fact Kiwanuka won the BBC poll in 2012 is as big a revelation as PJ Harvey taking the Mercury Prize for Let England Shake (not a very big one). Putting aside his voice and songwriting- which are probably the real reasons why he won, let’s be fair folks- his warm, folksy image and familiar sound fitted perfectly with the anxious public mood. Our country is facing financial hardship in case you didn’t know; we are all suffering socially, and we want an easier time, back when things made sense. So cue the present day Bill Withers slash Otis Redding, slash nice guy with a nice voice wearing a nice wooly jumper. Aw. If that deconstruction sounds quite close to home, The Observer took similar cues from the artwork, for its inspiration: “it desperately wants to be a 33rpm vinyl record with a faded sleeve that first entered thesecond-hand record market around 1973…” Yeah, so 1973 wasn’t all roses. But that needle hitting the worn out vinyl is powerful and iconic. The nation inhales its sound and smell wistfully, into its deepest recesses at times of worry. 

Yet the guy really is good. Contemporary scepticism shouldn’t detract from what a marvellous voice Kiwanuka has, and so gentle and nuanced. He writes with a composed maturity that is wise beyond his mid-twenties years too. *….Scratchy beardy….* It can be beautiful. It is often remarkably precocious. So who cares if Kiwanuka is what we want? Let us have him!

It was with the fanfare of 2012’s bestowed honour that debut LP Home Again was ushered in on 12^th March on Polydor (part of Universal Music). On the day, Kiwanuka played a low key set at Rough Trade East (review), London, his home taaan. Back in November 2011, he was first introduced to mainstream audiences on BBC’s Later with…Jools Holland, arguably the perfect medium for his music, with its liberal, intelligentsia-leaning mid-thirties fan base. The wonderful performance was followed by a sold-out live UK tour, and the limited numbers ‘Tell Me A Tale’ EP quickly became hot property. ‘Tell Me A Tale’ and ‘I’m Getting Ready’, which he performed on Jools, became the album’s two openers. Following generally favourable live press, ( although some note he is quite the better performer without accompanying musicians), Kiwanuka will take to the road, touring Europe, before playing UK festivals at home and abroad.  

So what about the album? Is it much cop? Well the good news is Home Again is easy to get a grip on. Its melodies are soft, warm and the arrangements bristle with familiar flourishes of jazz, folk and soul. You won’t take much adjusting, and your mum can sit comfortably in the next room (or with you even). But, as much as Kiwanuka should be nailing that whole mature, soulful  tenderness thing, which he does at times, something is missing. Sometimes, the band’s accompaniment makes a steady groove languid, rather than heartfelt; a bit glazed, rather than reflective; such as ‘Bones’, in which the band arrangement makes it sound like it should be sung by Amy Winehouse a la 50s supper club style, not a straight-talking guy in a wool jumper muddling his way through. Compare the recording with the version you can hear live at the Union Chapel, and you can see, easily and plainly, that Kiwanuka draws a better solitary, impassioned figure, guitar casually slung around his front, than a sassy know-it-all with sophisticated backing. I wouldn’t direct that possible shortcoming at Kiwanuka but it is an observation I would make, and it has the potential to breed disappointment, or at least, confusion.  This style sits in stark contrast to ‘I’m Getting Ready’, perhaps the album’s most multi-faceted track, with its bare and simple arrangement. It just shows how brilliant Kiwanuka is as a talent, that he is more captivating alone.

The latter part of the album contains some aesthetically wonderful accoutrements to the lounge style (‘Always Waiting’ notably, and ‘Any Day Will Do Fine’), but it’s noticeably more coffee shop pleasantries than tender momentum. Closer ‘Worry Walks Beside Me’ is an enjoyable ballad laced with troubling minor chords, but somehow you want Kiwanuka to be leading this homage to fear and worry, not his band, and for some of the smooth edges of the album's rich, oaky construction to be chipped away a bit, with the imperfections but reality of Kiwanuka’s own personality, whatever that might be.    

Overall, Home Again is a mixed prospect. To this novice’s ears, the songs you’ve already heard might be the best (‘Tell Me A Tale’, ‘I’m Getting Ready’ and ‘Home Again’) but there’s no doubt they are great. Additionally, ‘I’ll Get Along’ is another blitz of retro pop equal to those tracks. Yet, much of the rest sounds a little bit too much like an album going through the motions, hitting all the right references for vintage Seventies soul, from jazz flute to rich marinated verses, but for the personal touch that executes a great record. Home Again was charged with lofty things, but Withers’ Still Bill it most certainly is not.

On the upside, the label should realise what a prodigious talent Kiwanuka is and perhaps cut him some slack for a freer reign in the production process of his next album. Home Again did not conjure rave critical responses, and its commercial fate is unknown, but the strength of the appeal of an artist like Kiwanuka should not make numbers a problem for record bosses now. I don’t know what impact the artist had on the arrangements here but instincts tell me it would be surprising if Kiwanuka, with his gentle vocal style and immediate emotional proximity to the listener when alone, doesn't prefer little accompaniment; the maximum of, say, bass, a second guitar and brush drums.   

             

LIVE REVIEW: Hypnotic Brass Ensemble @ Jazz Cafe, London

Twirling care-free in a field of anonymity like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, Grapevine draws resolve from all your charming reading. You survive this tautological word racket, and hopefully gleam some new music in return. It’s for you that I tune in, turn on and drop out or whatever it’s called, and do this wacky nonsense after work when the laptop flickers and the world is but a husk of numbers on a computer. Yet, despite this, if a tree falls in woods and no one is there to hear it, it makes a seismic sound...because that tree will soon be on Grapevine, heralded as some brilliant new band and splayed like a drab strumpet for all her glory in the naked stocks of Soundcloud shame.

Could being covered on here really sound anyyy more saucy? Maybe...if there were pictures.

Today’s post is from a Hypnotic Brass Ensemble gig. The Chicago band who played London’s Jazz Café Monday night, but missed the pages of the national press (it soon transpired) are not your ordinary show-stoppers. Fans include Jude Law and Damon Albarn, the Blur liberal world arts genius. The band have tirelessly toured their back yard for 10 years, busking (check out some of their videos on youtube), ducking and diving, making self-released records- working their way towards these sorts of moments: gigs with roomfuls of warm, pre-disposed crowds. Their self-titled album- their first in the UK- was released by distinguished label Honest Jons in 2009 after the band were spotted busking near the record store in Ladbroke Grove. Sooner or later they were on Later…with Jools Holland. This, quite literally, is an urban hip-hop nine piece brass band, EIGHT of whom are brothers (awkward for the ninth member, eh?) and sons of jazz musician Tony Cohran. HBE smack you with something so direct and- as anyone who was there will testify- insanely loud, that you will be jolted to recall that brass is not only something heard in the grounds of Buckingham Palace or at the local arts centre. It has a historic place in music: the street, community life.

The nine are lively, spinning their four trumpets, two trombones, one sousaphone (yeeeaah, that’s this) and baritone in different directions to Gabriel Wallace’s drums. Their unified and determined symphony is great, aesthetically as well as sonically. It’s a powerful, raw image, these nine lads bopping to brass. They punctuate the drive with raps, each taking turns to draw in the uncertain crowd and re-assure them. You can see this is something they’ve honed. Whether due to their roots on Chicago’s south side, personal gigging experience or a wilful effort to integrate rap into their recordings (see this year’s EP Bulletproof Brass, which has vocals), heavy crowd interaction is necessary for things to fully come to life and break down a difficult fourth wall that haunts many a contradictory musician. HBE look different, even if they’re just another band. Cynics won’t know what to think when nine men with tattoos and bristling egos turn up and start pushing their trumpets on everyone and then take off their shirts. What’s English popular culture’s point of reference for this? None. Audience interaction is necessary for the uninitiated to understand what HBE are to them. Lots of cheesy call and response gets the crowd going. Chanting before ‘Touch the Sky’, ‘Kryptonite’ and ‘Party Started’ among other tracks warms them to dancing and trusting this lot of American orchestra men before the raps step aside for brass. It doesn’t take long for these gestures to become reciprocal and soon we're part of the mix. The crowd finally chant the band back down from the Jazz Café’s high restaurant balcony in appreciation. HBE get the crowd down on the floor. Everyone- (even closet killjoys…it’s hard to tell what proportion of the audience are engaging in this sort of act of obedience because they genuinely want to) was down, groovin, before rising to touch the sky. THAT sort of infectious enthusiasm is hard. HBE must have realised that certain audiences want to be led, and once they are, the atmosphere can just build.

HBE’s music is assertive. The Hypnotic in their name, derived from when the group were busking and a subway passenger missed many trains to hear them play, is certainly apt. Each song marches to a defined formula; a deep, jagged groove rather than the soft melodies often heard in jazz. Tycho Cohran- who to me seems like the leader of group for his massive sousaphone - settles into a bass groove that the rest of the band follow. Energy is then brought on by trumpets. On ‘War’, their trademark track that they must have played hundreds if not thousands of times, this formula is clearest. Rumbles blaze from Tycho, and his brothers swirl around him with repetitious horns.

Looking ahead, how will HBE avoid being labelled one-trick ponies? They deliver hip-hop’s rhythm, but songs from the UK debut didn’t allow much room to manoeuvre. Most importantly, the band ultimately have to do what they want to do. The moment Gabriel, Seba, Tarik, Gabriel, Uttama, Jafar, Saiph, Amal and Tycho’s love for their instruments and inquisitiveness dies out, so too will everyone else’s. They’re integral. This is the same with many bands I’ve seen live who come out of leftfield to mainstream tastes, particularly jazz and ‘world’ musicians. The moment the love and soul is lost between the artist and his music, uninitiated music aficionado get all aloof from it. Bulletproof Brass is a good indication of future direction. The rapping works well as an extension to their energy, live and on record, and the samples show an interesting change of style. I hope, personally, that we get something like a brass version of The Roots from HBE: a band that’s reflective, single-minded and soulful, to join a great collection of modern popular hip-hop artists. HBE certainly have the independence to do that, and the road-hardened experience to find their way. As we’re seeing fleetingly on the new EP, and most notably in the calmer ‘Black Boy’, Hypnotic’s awakening might yet be to come.

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble - War by ChoiceCuts

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble bit at Jazz Cafe by MiCloud

RUMER

I was fortunate enough to run into Later…With Jools Holland last Friday night, because this excellent blues singer was on called Rumer. John Prescott of all people also saw it apparently, and posted as much on twitter to show his generous support (appreciation that is, not a belt.) Rumer's performance really was a stand out for the series: confident, elegant and most of all touching compositions. In her voice, an unassuming melancholy and gentleness eminates, like the great Carole King. The album ‘Seasons of My Soul’ is out 1st November.

Rumer by Rumer