Spain - I thought it was love

Music history has always been rather harsh on the children of famous artists: more often than not, what prevails is skepticism - often justified, admittedly - from those who see in them mere "nepo babies" riding a famous surname, or simple epigones carrying only a faint trace of the talent bestowed on their illustrious parent. Josh Haden is the classic exception to the rule: son of double bassist Charlie, one of the most important contemporary jazz musicians, celebrated above all for his countless prestigious collaborations (from Art Pepper to Ornette Coleman and Keith Jarrett), Josh has always kept a safe distance from certain typical mechanisms of the star system, rationing his appearances, interviews and record releases, both as a solo artist and as a member of the Treacherous Jaywalkers, an little-known outfit active in the early '90s playing a raw hybrid of Jimi Hendrix and Neil Young, and above all as a member of Spain, the band that brought him a bit - but only a bit - of the fame he deserved.

The band's debut album, formed in Los Angeles in 1993, came two years later, when Restless Records (the same label behind groups like Flaming Lips, Giant Sand and Band Of Susans) released The Blue Moods Of Spain, a record that, right from its title and its gorgeous Blue Note-style cover, reveals an intimate, minimalist essence, like a tragic sentimental saga.

The tracks are fairly long and draw in equal measure on (cool) jazz, blues and certain black-and-white noir shades, but also on the slowed-down pace of groups like Galaxie 500 and especially Codeine, from whom they nonetheless diverge in particular through their instrumental choices — predominantly spare and acoustic in the case of Spain — and through an underlying mood that favors an introverted, jazz-club melancholy over the “cosmic” desolation that is a typical trait of many bands of the so-called slow-core genre, of which Codeine are themselves considered the inventors.

The recurring theme of the record is love, mostly understood in the sense of loss and the guilt that often accompanies it. Faced with the great mystery of suffering and the sense of regret for what could have been and wasn't (for faults or events that Josh Haden, author of all the band's lyrics, never seems to attribute to cruel fate or indifferent gods), man has no choice but to surrender before his own sins (“Untitled #1”, “I Lied”) or to tenderly plead for divine forgiveness (as in the moving gospel of “Spiritual”).

Haden's talent and the band members' great chemistry reach their peak on “Ray Of Light”, an extraordinary blues track that fuses Tom Waits-style crooner intimacy with repeated, magnificent interludes of electric guitar and trumpet worthy of the contemplative Miles Davis of “Kind Of Blue”, while the very long “World Of Blue” echoes the heartfelt invocations of Red House Painters' “Mother”, rendered with an orchestral cast reminiscent of Rachel's.

Signs of a turning point were already perceptible by the end of 1997, when German director Wim Wenders asked the band to contribute to the soundtrack of his film “The End Of Violence”: Spain, in excellent company, contributed “Every Time I Try”, a track far sunnier than anything that made up “The Blue Moods”, and one that foreshadowed the band's new direction.

With She Haunts My Dreams, released in 1999 again on Restless Records, Spain set aside the learned jazz touch and the dark sensuality of blues in favor of a far more reassuring, traditional sound, rooted in the classic American singer-songwriter tradition made up chiefly of folk and country. The lyrics too seem to reflect the stylistic shift: the anguished spirituality of the debut gives way to languid elegies and lyrical sequences far less refined than before, marked by a contemplative innocence that is at times almost disarming (“There must be a way/ To feel like I used to feel before/ Before it all went wrong”). The result is a collection of dreamy, generally well-crafted ballads (“Nobody Has To Know” and the already mentioned “Everytime I Try” above all), with flashes of overt romanticism, as in “It's All Over Now” and especially in “Easy Lover”, a track marked by a lavish, poignant string arrangement that thousands of far more celebrated songwriters and bands would dream their whole lives of writing.

Spain's new direction would be partly confirmed on the ten tracks of I Believe, released in 2001, again on Restless Records. Of the three albums the band released, I Believe is probably the least successful, perhaps because the songs seem to linger in a limbo halfway between the songwriterly grace of She Haunts My Dreams and the shadowy refinement of the debut. Some tracks fail to convince, especially those in which Spain attempt the electric ballad route in the style of R.E.M. (“She Haunts My Dreams” and “Do You See The Light”, in particular), while elsewhere the songs recapture the minimalist, dreamlike spleen of the debut, and the results show: especially splendid in this sense is “Oh That Feeling”, a track built entirely on Haden's pained whispers (“Yes it was/ That was love/ Don’t let it slip away/ Love’s there for you to take/ Stop playing these games with fate/ Oh girl before it’s too late”) and on an electric piano figure that at times seems to summon the ghost of Tim Buckley's “Dream Letter”.

From then on, for many years, Spain went off the radar. In 2003 Spirituals – The Best Of Spain was released, a compilation of their best-known songs along with some unreleased live tracks, while in 2007 Josh Haden released his first solo album, Devoted, a collection of generally uninspired songs that wink at a certain retro soul/R&B vibe, as if Spain were having fun playing Beck songs, with results that, truth be told, aren't particularly memorable.

Two years later Spain released (as a free download from their website) “I'm Still Free”, their first new track in many years, one that doesn't stray far from the clear, dreamy sound of “I Believe”. The release of the band's fourth album was announced.

December 2010, however, saw the release of Blue Moods Of Spain: A History, Pt. 1, a collection of unreleased tracks dating back to the period before the release of The Blue Moods Of Spain (though they actually have very little in common with it), which also includes a song by the Treacherous Jaywalkers, Josh Haden's first band. The second volume came out the following year.

But for the real comeback we'd have to wait until 2012, when The Soul Of Spain saw the light of day, an album that picks up a conversation that had never really stopped, both in terms of themes and sonic attitude. That doesn't make it a “dated” record, even though it's fully rooted in the band's classic groove, with the exception of just two tracks marked by an unprecedented electric blues edge. For the rest, the album offers, for long stretches, the comforting feeling of rediscovering familiar modes of expression: in narcoleptic ballads like “Falling” and “All I Can Give”, in the many elegant piano melodies that wrap around Haden's hushed vocals in melancholy chamber-music atmospheres, and above all in the lyrics, which tackle the band's usual themes of faith and love with ease, in some cases even overlapping the two.

Narrative simplicity and emotional candor are, once again, the strong points of Haden's songwriting, still capable of striking at the heart with the romanticism of strings and a few but deeply felt words.

That's enough to ward off the suspicion that usually greets the now-frequent comebacks of bands who made their mark in the Nineties. Spain's case stands apart, as the natural continuation of a stylistic path that has reached, with no hurry at all, a new and spontaneous maturity.

Josh Haden seems to be getting a taste for it. With a highly acclaimed album and a couple of tours of the highest caliber, his Spain 2.0 made it clear that in their case it makes no sense to talk of a “reunion”, but rather of new momentum after a long hiatus. To lend further weight to this claim, the Los Angeles band wasn't content with critical praise alone, and chose to record their fifth LP, Sargent Place, relatively soon — just two years after its predecessor and barely three months after the evocative mini-album capturing their radio session for The Morning Becomes Eclectic.

The hushed lights at the start, the photographic black and white with its thin spirals of smoke, stand as the ideal continuation of a captivating experience that is now well over twenty years old. Spain do not betray their proverbial attention to detail within confined yet never cramped spaces, through a simply prodigious sense of control. A dissonant bass line sets the mood, more austere than ever, but also opens the stage to brushed drums and electric gusts, for a track with faint jazz aromas in which the band's distinctive traits tend toward an essentiality that is never raw. The mysticism for which the quartet is known seems, however, to have lost some ground, all to the benefit of a much more tangible concreteness. But then comes “The Fighter”, one of Josh's heart-on-sleeve numbers, with that gentle, whispered delivery of his (his sister Petra contributes, here also on violin) that caresses and radiates warmth. Nothing new or truly unforgettable, beyond a sensational class that, sadly, no longer makes headlines.

“Let Your Angel” is another extremely delicate passage, chasing a grace that once again strikes special chords but risks, more than once, fading into tedium — the flip side of the coin that has always had to be factored in with this Californian band. The patient listener who happens to be familiar with Josh's music will nonetheless be easily won over, since the mild-mannered, bespectacled songwriter's knack for beautiful songs has certainly not faded with the passing seasons. Haden and company once again prove themselves unmatched masters of languid rhythms, of distillation, of a craftsman's cleanliness and an elegance that are genuine spiritual hallmarks, with not the slightest whiff of formula. In this light, “It Could Be Heaven” has the makings of an instant classic, the typical simple, recurring Spain-style ballad, if anything even more languorous than its counterparts from the band's distant past. Every element is in its place, the shading intrigues just as it should, the sound is impeccable and has once again begun to flow as thick as — if not thicker than — before, after the (convincing) rock ripples of the comeback album, The Soul Of Spain.

Yet something of this collective's enchantment seems to have been lost, or at least appears a little dulled. In this renewed embrace of regularity and calm, the magic sometimes gives way to (admittedly excellent) craft, and a sense of absence, of something missing, creeps in. Not even the talented Gus Seyffert, already a member of the folk supergroup Headless Heroes, manages to remedy this. The ultra-slowed folk-blues of "From The Dust" isn't exactly memorable, where the chiaroscuro contrasts of old spirituals are translated into a stylized, monotone formula that's as rigorous as it is uninspiring. Moderation, discipline and placid tempos inevitably struggle to find favor with listeners because, beyond lacking the fervor or freshness of the early records, tracks like this and "To Be A Man" also seem to lack the typical rawness of slowcore, its urgency. In "You And I" - with a special guest appearance from father Charlie, a double bassist from another planet - the admirable frugality of the picking mimics an inner peace that remains, as ever, the great strength of this extraordinary artist, straddling genres and instinctively resistant to convenient categorization. Here he opts for a genuinely radical acoustic bareness that, perhaps, doesn't impress quite as much as it would like to.

Far more passionate and overflowing with feeling is the gem "In My Soul", built on minimal emotional shadings to which Haden, as usual, is excellent at giving the necessary soul innervation (nomen omen, then). "Sunday Morning" is also livelier, a track that undoubtedly shows the right touch but betrays the ecstatic inclination of the band's most touching moments. In short, there's less wonder, replaced by a happy noir leaning that inevitably opened the door to a quite different presence on stage, more physical and corporeal. Of course Spain remain a kind of blessing, a reality more unique than rare, to be jealously guarded and loved unconditionally, even when - as is the case with this Sargent Place - they don't shine quite as brightly as their class would demand.

After the more than worthy Carolina (2016), which brings their classic style back up to the level of their best days, Josh surprises with the unusual Mandala Brush (2018). It's a strange object, introduced by a late-hippie cover in the style of Holy Modal Rounders, titles steeped in new-age incense, and a few teasers featuring crooked gypsy ragas - symptoms of a mystical bender that goes beyond his already steadfast spirituality. However, if this love-at-first-sight with a highly psychedelic, Indian-tinged free-folk might seem like a stylistic joke, the skill with which he tames it fits right into the bittersweet delicacy the artist has accustomed us to for twenty years. Moreover, alongside these spiced-up fractals we find tracks perfectly in line with Haden's usual thinking, with no friction created between the two.

The keystone is the vibrant religious theme that ties the whole work together, allowing a trance-like vision to be juxtaposed with a heartfelt invocation within the same hypnotic musical flow. It matters little which deity one addresses, the singer seems to suggest - what matters is finding comfort from one's own suffering.

A good summary of these intentions is the opening "Maya In The Summer", not by chance chosen as the single: the Iberian matrix is plain to see, what's surprising instead is the unusual tension in its development and the raw use of the voice, somewhere between Tim Buckley and Pall Jenkins, landing on a finale with Morricone-esque overtones. Evidently it's no longer enough for Haden to murmur his torments - now he feels the need to chant them, shouting, though still relying on the same narcoleptic arrangements.

From here on, the two souls coexist politely, taking turns one after another: so we get "Sugarkane", as gaunt as a Jason Molina lament, overtaken by "Rooster Cogburn", which could pass for an unreleased Fred Neil track, followed in turn by the rounded country-soul-gospel of "You Bring Me Up", unseated by the ethnic-tinged haze of "Tangerine", worthy of a Bruce Palmer backed by Charalambides.

The central portion settles into drier vibrations, between the Mitteleuropean bellows of "Holly" (with a touch of Matt Elliott), the nocturnal trumpet of "Folkstone, Kent", and a gem of horizontal landscape-painting like "Laurel, Clementine", 100% Haden-esque. But it's just when we've let our guard down that the ineffable "God Is Love" arrives to abduct us, an astral journey somewhere between Third Ear Band and Popol Vuh, holding us captive for almost a quarter of an hour with its liquid weave of bagpipes, flute, violin and Carnatic vocals. The Mexican solemnity of "The Coming Of The Lord" is an awakening marked by a more familiar Christian minimalism, before the definitive Spirit-ual ascension of "Amorphous", from which we inevitably land changed.

Often accused of being too much the same as himself, with this fascinating work dear Josh has taken a kind of revenge that, perhaps, has also helped him come to terms with his own deepest demons.

Contributions by Raffaello Russo ("The Soul Of Spain"), Stefano Ferreri ("Sargent Place"), Ossydiana Speri ("Carolina", "Mandala Brush")

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