Grant Lee Buffalo - Shiva Burlesque

It's about time we put an end to the farce of cult bands — the deification of figures with questionable talent and contrived musical output, revered simply because they're unknown to the masses. Mythologizing is often a deviation, a genuine sickness. The point is that great musicians don't need obscure eccentricities, and that pleasingly accessible compositions, perfect in their simplicity, get filed away in the drawers of memory purely because of rampant ignorance (not only musical ignorance). In a world that isn't perfect but simply "fair," in short, Grant Lee Buffalo would have had every quality needed to top the sales charts while simultaneously being idolized by even the most cynical critics. Because their music flows from the soul with an admirable immediacy that actually conceals a sophisticated, intricately articulated artistic vision.

"Fuzzy" (Slash, 1993) is their debut and, perhaps precisely because of that, their most accomplished and well-defined work. If there is a perfectly focused representation of American Music (or "Americana," to use the trendier term), it can be found in this luminous jewel of eleven gems set by the most powerful power trio of the Nineties, led by that small giant of a genius who goes by the name of Grant Lee Phillips.

His visions, however, certainly don't express the pompous American "grandeur," but rather all the contradictions of a land that is as beautiful as it is (at times) horrific. The great American dream turns at times into a nightmare, and the stars and stripes are reduced to a filthy home for worms.

Here you'll find all the anguish of metropolitan alienation alongside the messianic hope stretched across the great plains of the West. Light and darkness, clean air and stench, hope and despair, utopias and disillusionment, all harmoniously rendered in a melting pot of styles that ranges skillfully from country to blues, from psychedelia to pop, from folk to hard rock.

Phillips is a cunning illusionist who seems to have stepped out of a late-19th-century caravan of hucksters. He presents himself deceptively, in tattered clothes, solitary and reserved, strumming an old twelve-string while seated in a corner. Then the magic happens. The sonic whirlwind instantly multiplies, the instrumentation blossoms into a multicolored rainbow, and there, beyond the rainbow, a hidden treasure of inestimable value gleams. A chest of ancient memory from which enchanting sounds and captivating melodies pour forth. All the more staggering when set against a historical moment (the early Nineties) caught between the syrupy leftovers of eighties style and the first noisy cries of grunge. A veritable Arcadia hidden within cosmic chaos.

That Grant Lee's role is central to the workings of this new band, born from the ashes of Shiva Burlesque, is made abundantly clear by more than one clue. Beyond the band's very name, which reprises the stage name the leader had already used in concert with Shiva Burlesque, the most obvious sign is the close-up portrait immortalizing him on the album cover, which foreshadows his prominence not just vocally but also compositionally and instrumentally. As soon as you start listening to the album, you also discover that you're facing a genuine singer-songwriter's work, one built not only on the leader's six-string (or rather, mostly his twelve-string) as the compositional cornerstone, but also expressing thoughts and ideas deeply rooted in his personality. Certainly, though, the musical palette is enriched, through sudden and disarming developments, by the undeniable professionalism of the other two members, Paul Kimble (bass and keyboards) and Joey Peters (drums), both also former members of Shiva Burlesque.

Folk pulls the strings behind every composition, but the album's essential merit lies in revitalizing tradition from an extremely modern standpoint, with a crystalline musicality that illuminates classic structures with a pure, innocent expressiveness. Recording at Brilliant Studios, housed in a former foundry, lends the sounds openness and vigor, as if they emerged, fittingly, from the skilled hands of a craftsman able to carve fine inlays out of shapeless masses of molten metal.

This is music that, from the very start (of the album and of every single track), draws you in and envelops you warmly thanks to rhythms that are never predictable. Whether it's the jazzy piano of "The Shining Hour," the haughty brushwork of "Jupiter and Teardrop," the loping cadence of "Fuzzy," or the arpeggiated intro of "The Hook." What shifts almost systematically, like a snake shedding its skin, is the approach, which turns from soft to hard with the entrance of electric instrumentation ("Jupiter and Teardrop"), reckless six-string solos ("Fuzzy"), or the leader's shift in vocal timbre ("The Hook").

What marks the change of pace is always an unexpected element that pops up like a ferret from its den, charting a sudden change of course, inducing a jolt, upsetting a fleeting balance: the stop-and-go of "Jupiter and Teardrop," the falsetto in "Fuzzy," the dreamy break that serves as the chorus in "Wish You Well," the hypnotic repetition of "Stars 'n' Stripes." In the latter, the vocal, set against an insistent, clockwork rhythm, evokes ancestral Native American dances around the fire under the magic of the full moon. Like a shaman, Grant Lee Phillips officiates a magic rite, repeating the same vocal sequences like a mantra, before slowing down and coming to a stop at the end, letting dreamlike voices and instruments in soft hues emerge from the darkness.

The instrumental mastery of the three members of Grant Lee Buffalo fills every track with substance, and the refined sophistication of the arrangements further enhances its uniqueness. Full-bodied, luminous, limpid sounds on which the leader can comfortably lay the burden of his inner turmoil without weighing down the result. His innate pop instinct gives rise to choruses that are easily recognizable and memorable, yet emotionally profound. From every single note pours forth the passion, emotion, and spirituality of Phillips, the Native American "half-breed," who illuminates everything with a worldview perpetually steeped in the magic of life and cosmic mystery. A deep beauty, one that can only be fully appreciated with time.

If the sound is essentially clean and polished (though it can turn dark, as on “Grace”), the lyrics flow perfectly smoothed and tailor-fitted (as on “The Hook”), the product of meticulous craftsmanship that demands talent, but also dedication and restraint. Genius placed at the service of the masses.

“The Hook”, with its arpeggiated country intro floating on a soft cloud, possesses a timeless beauty, built from shifts, pauses and hushed arrangements that only reveal themselves after repeated listens. The leader's deep Native American soul is pregnant and evident here, in the depth with which he manages to cloak every sound and every word.

Phillips and co.'s greatest strength lies in their ability to wring pathos and emotion out of largely pop compositional structures. This is achieved through above-average instrumental skill, the sacred fire that oozes from every note, and the leader's gift for communication and emotional engagement, as he openly proclaims his own “difference”, his search for a distance from the music star system that is substantial rather than snobbish. Hence the brief but intense piano solo, the wall of guitars and the vocal distortions complete with echo on “The Shining Hour”, with its devastating chorus, as well as the (controlled) final delirium of falsetto, driving rhythm and distorted solos on the title track, the ebb and flow of “Wish You Well”; and then the tears-in-your-pocket recitation of the closing country lullaby “You Just Have To Be Crazy”, set against the long psychedelic delirium of the album's most ambitious track, “Grace”. The calm after the storm, a classic that never goes out of style, not even in alt-rock.

Compared to its equally worthy successor “Mighty Joe Moon”, “Fuzzy” is fresher and more immediate, in contrast to the darker atmospheres of the second album. “Copperopolis” and “Jubilee” would later mark, not so much a decline, but the understandable inability to replicate such beauty.

Quoting a famous zen koan, in reference to the moving simplicity of this masterpiece, “Two hands clap and there is a sound. What is the sound of one hand?”. Well, we have no qualms in saying that the sounds of “Fuzzy” certainly won't be the ones to solve a riddle that must, by its very nature, remain forever suspended in a void... but they might just be the closest thing to an answer we've ever heard.

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20/12/2015