ALBUM REVIEWS
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ALBUM REVIEWS |
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Rodriguez
COLD FACT & COMING FROM REALITY LIGHT IN THE ATTIC 4.5.09 @www.vanguard-online.co.uk
Sixto Rodriguez is one of those lost performers that you might find on vinyl in the local charity shop and take a shine to, wondering “how come no-one’s ever heard of him”. That’s if he had sold enough records in the first place for them to still be circulating. Sometimes people are just in the wrong place at the wrong time and Rodriguez’ first album, Cold Fact, was a flop in 1970. His label let him make one more album, this one, released in 1971 and that flopped too. So Sixto had to get a proper job. Then the wonders of the internet brought resuscitation to cult heroes and the discovery that Australia and South Africa held a torch for him still, in the eighties and nineties. In fact, he was a star there, who had disappeared, whereas at home he was utterly obscure. You could buy his two albums in South Africa but not in his own country. Who knows why he didn’t make it the first time. Was he just too like a lot of the other things going on? Was Detroit not the right spot, when New York and California were the forcing grounds for folky stuff and hippy work? Detroit was making dance music and heavy-sounding rock (MC5, Iggy Pop, etc). Or was it his insistence on performing with his back to the audience?! It’s a marginally acceptable affectation in Miles Davis, then pushing limits with his invention of jazz-fusion, but not a trick for a neophyte. The first album, Cold Fact, was re-released in 2008 and got good reviews in oldies places, like Mojo, The Observer and The Telegraph. There is a period charm that is endearing. Arrangements are slightly strange - it appears Sixto wasn’t a great collaborator and they had to record him on his own and dub the other musicians on afterwards. Rodriguez fancied himself a poet of the streets, chronicler of street people and challenger of the oppressors. He’d been listening to an awful lot of Bob Dylan too. With a more musical voice than Zimmy, he might have caught the tide of fame if he’d been a little more unique. The albums wanders through talking blues, ballads, stories and anthems. The ambience is intriguing, conjuring up a time, forty years ago, when Rodriguez thought he could change the world by singing songs. It’s been a few years since we last had that sort of impetus. Coming To Reality is an awful lot more gently groovy than his first album, Rodriguez had the clout (and good sense) to blow some cash on quality sidemen, meaning we get rolling basslines, funky clavier and soaring, noodling guitar leads. Chris Spedding’s guitar is much in evidence as well as Rodriguez’ eclectic stylings. It makes for a much more easy listen than the earnest intensity and busy-ness of the first and its reaching for Dylan’s mantle. There was a lot of money spent on this and a month in the studio. It really pays off in the sound and earns it the patience for us to take in the songs. The work is still dated: “Just climb up on my music”, “there was a girl… she wasn’t very hard to capture”. But dated in a good way – I can accept it for the time it was made in, perhaps Mike Myers helped make it acceptable to revel in the slightly naff! Tracks like “A Most Disgusting Song” and its low-life narrative show their era, with talk of faggot bars, etc (hint: they’re not places where you get tasty meatballs in gravy). It reminds me ever so slightly of William Shatner being copied by Tom Waits’ bank manager brother…… Other songs, like Heikki’s Suburbia Bus Tour, tell tales of counter-culture fun, kind of an alternative to The Grateful Dead’s “That’s It For The Other One” or “Trucking”. “Silver Words” is sweet and rides on some John Martyn-esque textures. Strings dress up the song-speil of “Sandrevan Lullaby” with swoops. The songs are generally gentle and relaxing, often tipping the hat to some other sound made by a contemporary. The rolling funky groove provided by Dennis Coffey helped with his rediscovery by dance-geeks trawling the work of the producer, looking for obscure gems to tantalise colleagues with in their mixes. It looks like Light In The Attic have hit on an interesting hobby – trawling obscurities in search of glimmers in the gloom and you might choose this to soundtrack your next love-in…… www.lightintheattic.net |
