A monologue labyrinthine enough to confuse David Lynch is performed by Anna Chancellor to open this album. The narrator could die at any moment, there is an organized operation controlling metaphysical principles beyond human recognition, and data is being processed in order fulfill some clandestine goal; Barry Adamson is still one strange customer, his music as varied as his imagination and resumé.
Central Control International
The film noir narrative that begins this disc is completely eradicated by "The Long Way Back Home," a country western pop monstrosity flung together on the breath of harmonicas and the rattle of galloping drums. That musical emphasis is again replaced by a song that could belong in an episode of Twin Peaks or perhaps on the radio; it is as ambiguous as it is entertaining. I suppose that shouldn't be surprising, Adamson has a history of riding that line, the one that sits between accessibility and complete artistic indulgence. He's played with Nick Cave and Lydia Lunch, contributed his work to soundtracks (including Lynch's Lost Highway) and released his fair share of solo material. Stranger on the Sofa might be a conceptual record, but without reference to stylistic content. Adamson separates his ideas from his music, preferring to let whatever is on his mind bleed out in any number of formats on this record.
For example, "Officer Bentley's Fairly Serious Dilemma" begins as a milkshake of '50s pop culture, rhythm and blues convention, and show tunes bravado. It ends in a flash of distorted guitar solos, police sirens, thumping bass, and whistled hooks. It's like Adamson is writing about a murder case with a giant smile on his face and a copy of a Monkees' album playing somewhere in the background. Jim Thirlwell would be damn proud. The next track switches things up a bit, using a set many Adamson fans will be familiar with: organ, jazzy drums, and a bit of distorted ambience. It's called "Who Killed Big Bird?" and it erupts with horns and programmed percussion, flutes and spats of rhythmic seizure, like an episode of Spy vs. Spy translated for an electro-jazz ensemble. I can't help but think of Chicago in the early parts of the 20th century: Al Capone and "Bugs" Moran taking care of business. This time, instead of being set in the real world, these characters are transported to a place occupied by Batman villains.
You can guess what the rest of the record is like; Adamson is a greater writer and on this album he is particularly good, perhaps even excellent. All the songs are memorable, sometimes gorgeous, and always a strange amalgam of past and present influences. The vocal delivery is smooth and dramatic, the work of the Rat Pack generation, but tempered by the touch of much broader influences. Things sound sinister and shady when Adamson wants them to, confusing or contradictory where appropriate, but more importantly the music is great fun. "Theresa Green" makes such vibrant use of its instruments that its almost cheesy arrangement at points is easy to ignore, or perhaps appreciate in this context. I'd never go in for this kind of stuff from anyone else, but Adamson is brilliant in this mode. His music is free to wonder where he wants to go and so he lets it wonder, from one place to the next, without the faintest hint of discontinuity or jarring incongruity. "My Friend the Fly" oscillates between a strange, poetic tale told under the air of brass instruments humming low in the distance before it breaks into a jam of big band proportions, saxophone letting loose next to an upright bass and an outright menacing sense of doom.
Adamson is an expert chameleon and it shows on Stranger on the Sofa. I'm not sure that I understand the whole conspiratorial tone that the opening piece set up, but Adamson has almost always been dark. The nice thing about this record is that said darkness isn't suffocating, it is told more from a distance, with a sense of humor healthily in place. It'd be a dream if he'd team up with Bohren and Der Club of Gore, the two evoke the same sensations in different ways. Until that dream comes true, however, Adamson has his unique take on intrigue, betrayal, suspicion, and mystery available right here.
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