{"id":11973,"date":"2023-11-09T00:57:46","date_gmt":"2023-11-08T23:57:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/roglacup.com\/klaus62\/?p=11973"},"modified":"2023-11-09T12:41:46","modified_gmt":"2023-11-09T11:41:46","slug":"morning-songbort-waeve-canicallyou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roglacup.com\/klaus62\/2023\/11\/09\/morning-songbort-waeve-canicallyou\/","title":{"rendered":"Morning song#WAEVE\u00a0 #Can I Call You\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Centuries of obscure folk tradition and a mistrust of isolated rural communities have helped birth a rich vein of pastoral horror in British music and film, from Incredible String Band<\/a> and The Wicker Man<\/em> in the late \u201960s and early \u201970s to Broadcast<\/a> and the Focus Group<\/a> in the 2000s. On their eponymous debut, the WAEVE<\/a>\u2014aka Blur<\/a> guitarist Graham Coxon<\/a> and former Pipettes<\/a> member Rose Elinor Dougall<\/a>\u2014become the latest act to dip into this disenchanted stream. Far from the urbane chatter of Blur\u2019s greatest hits, The WAEVE<\/em> reflects the turbulence beneath the soil of Great Britain: an album of pastoral disquiet and itchy post-punk edge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not the record you might imagine from the pen of a Britpop guitar hero and a onetime \u201950s girl-group revivalist. For a start, the WAEVE don\u2019t use much guitar, leaning heavily on saxophone, piano, drums, and synth. Coxon even breaks out the cittern (a medieval lute) on \u201cAll Along,\u201d where it bumps up against Dougall\u2019s piano and an ARP 2000 modular synth in what might be the catchiest piece of lute work since \u201cGreensleeves.\u201d When the guitar does arrive, as in the warped blues solo on \u201cOver and Over,\u201d it is used sparingly, to shift compositional gears rather than as the sine qua non of rock melody. The lyrics, too, lean on images of nature and antiquity: the \u201cjagged shore\u201d and \u201cancient tides\u201d on \u201cUndine,\u201d or \u201csilver moon\u201d and \u201cecstatic, magic night\u201d on \u201cKill Me Again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Broadcast purists might be annoyed by how much the WAEVE borrow from the much-lamented Birmingham experimentalists, down to Dougall\u2019s delivery of the word \u201csurrender\u201d on \u201cUndine,\u201d which comes straight from the Trish Keenan<\/a> school of detached seduction. But Dougall has the songwriting talent to pull it off: Her 2017 solo album Stellular<\/em><\/a> joined lovelorn synth-pop with Broadcast-esque dreaminess to enchanting effect. Add the saxophone and Coxon\u2019s naively charming vocals, which share the limelight with Dougall\u2019s Keenan-ian tone, and the WAEVE become a far more intriguing beast: a band with its own distinct musical palette.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The saxophone in particular is key. In rock music the sax is often used to mark an almost orgiastic explosion in emotion\u2014\u00e0 la Don Weller\u2019s fabulously overblown saxophone solo in David Bowie<\/a>\u2019s \u201cAbsolute Beginners<\/a>\u201d\u2014or played deliberately against type, as a signifier of sleazy grit, as in New York no wave. Coxon wields the instrument as a weapon of dissonance and unease. \u201cCan I Call You,\u201d the album\u2019s excellent opening track, breaks down into a series of droning chords, while a rogue sax calls from the wilderness on \u201cDrowning\u201d like a woodland animal in distress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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https:\/\/pitchfork.com\/reviews\/albums\/the-waeve-the-waeve\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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