ALASDAIR ROBERTS – The Amber Gatherers
(CD, Drag City)
At first glance Roberts sounds like a beaten and broken
soul dwelling in its own misery and singing about all the things that have
went wrong in his life and turned his existence towards an endless cycle of
disillusionment and desperation. But it is not true. Sit down and take a
closer listen and you’ll find happy melodies, harmonies full of brave hope
and brightness. And if you start to compare the sensitive, breaking quiver
in his voice with the one of Will Oldham you’ll find that their universes
overlap in more than one place, and that means not only that Oldham produced
Roberts last album on Drag City. Roberts misses out on the overt obscenity
and the will to rock out live that Oldham likes to surprise close listeners
with, but he puts more weight on the sensibility of finely drawn out
emotions and on guitar abilities. In a lot of ways Roberts is the much more
old fashioned songwriter of the two, but in this field this is never
something bad. Just a description.
As a very big Oldham-fan I am bound to compare all
music like this to Oldham, and I apologize for it, even if I can’t help
it. I sit and listen to this record and like it a lot, but suddenly wonder
how it would have sounded if Oldham put his guitars live to the jangling
“where twines pass” or recorded “waxwing” on his backporch. And then
I cringe because it is unfair to Roberts to think this way, so I apologize
in thought, but can’t help it anyway. Knowing your own shortcomings, being
ashamed about them and even more ashamed about how helpless you are when
they strike, can exhaust you and wear you out. I am weary and tired of a lot
of things, but there is not second chance to existence. If there was, I’d
be in Glasgow right now in a small pub listening to a double-pack show of
Roberts and Hobotalk.
If there was I’d own the “amalgamated sons of rest” EP where Roberts
plays together with Oldham and Jason Molina, and I’d be a lot wiser instead of
having to add this one to the endless lists of records I still have to hunt
down. And I’d be able to get out some older records by Roberts or his
former band Appendix out and re-listen to them and find out where he comes
from. And I’d know a lot more about traditional music from the British
isles instead of having to guess from what I hear from these songs.
Shortcomings wherever I look.
Once more Roberts goes into old-fashioned issues, both
musically and thematically, in his songs, which has become some sort of a
fashion in indie-music the last years. But his interest is deeper and more
substantial than for instance the one of The Decemberists, who at times seem to polish the
surface of their songs with 19th century wax and remain on a more
literary level, seeing the historic background of their song’s themes as a
backdrop to tell great stories. But sense of place and the ability to spawn
roots into the soil of the earth and feel its history is what makes the
southern gothic tales of William Faulkner so great and that of lesser
writers mere pulp. Roberts seems to be able to feel his way back by using
knowledge and emotion, which adds several levels of meaning to the songs.
Some draw back ostentively, like “The old man of the shell” while others
are more modern in a lot of ways.
