Swedes in Nashville

I have been lucky and pleased to work with talented and gracious musicians through my long association with Chris King. One of these, Lij Shaw, has a studio in Nashville called The Toy Box, where he engineers music ranging from illuminations of long poems to luminous Swedish pop.

It's the latter I bring to your attention in this space today. Anders Elfström's debut album, due to be released early this year, was recorded in Lij's studio. The process was documented in the 12-minute film below, shot and directed by Fabian Grapengiesser and edited by Edvard Heinmets.

Seeing an experience I've had through someone else's eyes was a curious experience. It made me nostalgic for the guitars and art and endless knobs and cords of the studio where I stood and sang last year. Emotionally, it made me both a little jealous (I forget, sometimes, that I have to share my favorite people) and thrilled that Lij's magic is being shown to the world.

My only criticism of the film is that it does not show enough of said magic, but I don't know that that's really possible. The visceral alchemy of working with a great recording engineer hinges on not only skill, talent and performance, but the ability to hear that last bit of something the music needs, and having the sense of how to get precisely that from the musicians. Lij is a past master of this, but again, I don't know how you'd capture that on film.

If you feel 12 minutes is too much time to invest, here's the video of one of the songs recorded at The Toy Box:

Love Letter to a Lily Allen Song

For a singer-songwriter-musician, I don’t buy a lot of CDs. It’s weird, but there it is. When I get hold of one I like, I wear it out, and if there’s a track I take a particular shine to, I’ll put it on repeat in my car’s CD player for days at a stretch. For the last month or so, the album has been Lily Allen’s “It’s Not me, it’s You,” and the track has been “Him.”

It’s a song about God that borrows heavily in concept from Prince’s “One of Us.” It’s also a bit sexy, but that makes sense given that Allen has never been afraid to be anything, least of all sexy whilst singing about God.

Fellow blogger Richard Byrne has convincingly argued that Serge Gainsbourg’s “L’Hotel Particulier” is as perfect as pop sex gets; meanwhile, I don’t think I’ll ever hear a song about God that’s more sensous than this one.

In particular, I’m talking about the instrumental break (at 2:05 in the YouTube track below). It starts with a breathy “ah-ah” vocal – an extended version of the lead-in for the second verse – that’s soon joined by a walking bass line. Then it widens into a fattened-up version of the chorus’ musical bed. The synth violins are still there, only now it’s impossible not to notice that they sound as if they’re being played through a trumpet mute for a pulsing effect. They’re propelled along by driving snare-based drum work and an elegantly simple single-line guitar solo. I crank this section up every time it comes on, because I can’t resist the impulse to take a bath in its warm, thick, loungy vibe.



One of the best things about this album outside of Allen herself is the producer, Greg Kurstin, and one of the best things about him is his egalitarian approach to instrumentation – banjo, accordion, and pedal steel are just a few of the pleasant surprises on these tracks. He’s also skilled at quoting musical styles without parroting them. I’m still working out why “Are You Mine” reminds me of the Beatles, though I suspect it’s the piano and the deft employment of the “rule of three” – repeat something twice, then shift away.

Getting back to “Him,” the verses wander through a series of amusing questions such as whether the big man in the sky would drive without insurance, and speculates about his favorite band. But the chorus is where Allen shows us what she really believes:

Ever since he can remember
People have died in his good name
Long before that September
Long before hijacking planes
He’s lost the will
He can’t decide
He doesn’t know who’s right or wrong
But there’s one thing that he’s sure of
This has been going on too long

Finally. Someone wrote a song about God that I can not only believe in, but feel the truth of in my bones. It’s about time. Thank you, Lily Allen.

Guitar Circle

I've just come home from this guitar circle. I did not want to leave, but since my body wakes up early regardless of what the rest of me wants, I did the sensible thing.

Sitting there, absorbing excellent songs performed by excellent people, I realized I was surrounded by snips of other cultures. In the songs were references to Ireland, lyrics that originiated as Turkish Poetry, and a Middle Eastern-tinged tune called "Minaret." One guy did an astonishing acapella version of Bob Marley's "Redemption Song."

I had to clip my nails with a device made in China before I started playing (it's been a while, and long nails do not make for good chords). The friend I brought with me wore a ring she bought in Ireland; it depicts the archetypal peat cottage of her ancestors.

The host brought out a Kilim rug, thin and beautifully rich in earthy tones, to mellow the garage floor. Judging from the parts on tables and the Sharpie-written label on a box, he's in the process of restoring a Norton motorcycle.

And to round out the international elements, there was homemade absinthe and African moonshine available.

Just another night in the American midwest.

Special Grammy Edition

Above: An Indian gentleman playing tabla. We're not sure if he's Northern or Southern.


I’ll start this post global and then take it local.

Mowgli and I have been listening to A. R. Rahman’s amazing Oscar-nominated Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack since we picked it up a few weekends ago. In particular, track six, “Ringa Ringa,” has been keeping us entertained.

I had it on repeat for a week’s worth of commuting, which means that for 30 minutes a day, “Ringa Ringa” was all I heard. Being a classically trained singer and songwriter, I’m a sucker for a song that’s complex, well-done, and moving. This song is all three. It has sections that come and go, different call-and-responses at different times, a wonderful vocal performance (which I have tried and failed to imitate – I really don’t understand how a sound that comes out of a human can be so ultra-nasal and pure), a killer set of beats that remind me of belly dancing classes I took a year ago, and, well, it’s rather sultry.

Mowgli flipped to it in the car the other day so he could tell me how Northern it is. This is an important distinction in India – just as in the U.S., Northerner jokes are told in the South, and Southerner jokes are told in the North. The food is different – rice-based in the South, wheat-based in the North, with various regional specialties. There are stereotypes: Northerners are burly and a bit dim; Southerners are puny and smart.

A. R. Rahman is from Chennai (formerly Madras), which is definitely in the South. According to Mowgli, “Ringa Ringa” is about as northern as Indian music gets, from the beat, to the form (which he thinks is Qawwali, or Ghazal), to the instrumentation. Rahman worked with many Southern Indian musicians on the album, but still, the overall sound he chose is very Northern, perhaps for increased appeal to Bollywood fans (some of the film’s dialogue was translated into Hindi to make it more relatable to Indian audiences).

And now, the local news: I have had the great pleasure over the years to work with engineer and producer Adam Long. He is an unfailingly positive, generous, sweet, red-headed guy from Minnesota who somehow became a go-to Hip-Hop and Broadway cast recording sound genius, a musical masala master with an ear straight from heaven. Two albums he worked on last year are up for Grammys, but since another friend has already written about this, I’ll simply refer you to his post about it.

I realize that last item doesn’t quite fit my stated blog parameters, so I’ll add that he’s an Anglophile from way back and loves the kinds of gooey double-cream cheeses that abound in Europe.