boffo's Full Review: Oedipus Schmoedipus by Barry Adamson
Barry Adamson is an artist who became interested in creating a cinematic sound long before it became fashionable with the rise of trip-hop. He started his solo career in 1988 after stints as bassist and multi-instrumentalist in first the punk band magazine and later in Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. His solo work has sounded very little like any of those bands. Instead he took inspiration from some of the greatest film composers and his work has often sounded like a modern version of a Hitchcock soundtrack or noirish take on John Barry's james bond music.
Oedipus Schmoedipus from 1996 was his third full lenght album. He has also released a couple of EP:s and composed film music.
This album was different from his earlier albums. this time around he relied heavily on the human voice both his own and that of several different guest vocalists of varying fame. On his next album he would take this a step further and sing lead vocal on most of the tracks but here his voice only appears in spoken form.
The album opens with Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Pelvis a song sung by Jarvis Cocker from Pulp. This is a rousing track with a gospel like choir, a quick beat and funky sounding strings. It actually has almost a disco feel to it. Jarvis sings one of the more perverse lyrics of the album and his voice leaves no question to what this track is about. He sings in a moaning, whispering and whimpering voice about masturbation as the gospel choir sings "save... me... from my own hand!"
This is followed by the instrumental something wicked this way comes. This song can best be described as a slightly menacing and trippy lounge/cocktail-number. It was used in the David Lynch movie Lost Highway during a slightly menacing cocktail party. lots of jazzy organ and saxophone playing.
Barry then takes his turn as storyteller on The Vibes Ain't Nothin' But The Vibes a slow vibraphone driven noirish jazz-number. The song is recorded as a fake live performance with crowd noises such as laughter and applause. Over the music Adamson tells a cynical story about a sexual encounter between a young black boy and a white girl. The songs crowd effects are added at all the wrong places so that when adamson says "um, yeah, likley story!" after telling how they finally learn to love each other it triggers a wave of laughter and hearty applause.
The fourth track of the album It's Business As Usual is easily the albums most menacing song. The music consists of lopped dark strings and weird sound effects. Over this three different answering machine messages are played. A woman leaves a message on a mans machine telling him that she feels abandoned by the man and wonders why he left. She urges him to work things out with her. Later a message by the man is played and he makes several threats to her. The actors providing the voices are good and the woman sounds really desperate and the man has a truly psychotic sound to his voice. A powerful but unplesant piece of music.
This is followed by Miles, a cover of a Miles Davies. Adamsons rendition keeps a jazzy and bouncy flair to the song and it helps add variety to the album since the song is put in between two really dark pieces.
Then comes Dirty Barry. The track is more of a sound collage than an actual song. A strange drone and semmingly random outbursts of heavily distorted and treated instruments makes up the first few minutes of the song. After about three and a half minutes a pounding omnious rhythm takes over. A woman moaning can be heard and the song grows truly chaotic before the instruments are then stripped away one by one until only a loop of the woman moaning can be heard. An Omnious track.
next is In A Moment Of Clarity, a melancholy jazz piece. The music consists of brushed drums, an acoustic bass, piano, strings and a flute. A pretty beautiful piece of music and one that lovers of pure jazz music might appreciate. Adamson's take on jazz is often modernised or experimental but this is jazz played straight, and to my ear it's quite nice.
Then follows Archived In The Valley Of Dolls. This is fairly close to a poppy trip-hop song along the lines of massive attacks catchier numbers. Guest vocalist is a woman called Billy Mckenzie whose voice is that of an old-school soul singer. One of the more lightweight songs but still quite nice.
Then Adamson's dark sense of humor makes an apperance on the adult fairytale Vermillion Kisses. A woman reads a fairytale about a prince and a beatiful maiden in a cheerful storyteller-voice. Her voice remains just as cheerful as the story ends in a brutal murder. The music takes a backseat to the song with only some atmospheric strings, flutes and keyboard noices.
The same second her voice grows quiet the next track starts, the crashing jazz number The Big Bamboozle. Think of a heavier version of the Bond theme and you have a pretty good idea of what this track sounds like.
The next track is really short. State Of Contraction is a very sad piece of piano music. It sound more like a classic song than a jazz one.
Then Adamson's former band leader Nick Cave makes an apperance on the albums last full lenght track The Sweetest Embrace. This is again a melancholy song. The lyric is man ending a love affair though in a very poetic and elaborate way. The song is a bit jazzier than Cave's own work. With some gorgeous classical guitar, organ and bass. Other than the jazz/noir feel of the music it could pretty much fit into one of Cave's two latest albums. It would be quite a strong cut on them as well. a good song.
The Albums closes with Set The controls again. wich is simply a short instrumental reprise of the albums first song. This ends a fairly dark album with a cheerful note.
I would recommend Barry Adamson if you'r into trip-hop like portishead or if you like jazz-noir and film-music. If you want pure jazz-noir his debut Moss Side Story is a better buy. For fans of Nick Cave and similar music his most recent album As Above, So Below would be better since it has more emphasis on lyrics. Oedipus Schmoedipus is a combination of both and a very nicely done album.
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