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Artist: Lies Damned Lies
Label: Sticky Music
Length: 9 tracks / 48 mins
In their pursuit of musical excellence, Lies Damned Lies have had quite a ride. Once signed to Siren (Virgin) with recording budgets that almost embarrassed them , they then ran their own label and had artists like Juliet Turner arriving on their doorstep to record with them. Now they are a minimalist three-piece touring living rooms.
For the whole journey their touchstones have been originality and melody.
After Virtue is the production antithesis of their multi-layered and multi-coloured late-'90s disc Lamentations (rightly given five stars elsewhere on this site). Here they wanted to create something uncluttered that could be toured simply, while retaining the high song-writing standards that have always been their hallmark.
Seeing them live brings home just how many of their simple gems come from this disc – and what an encyclopaedic variety of topic they have put into it.
The thought-provoking "In a Different Voice" shows them skilfully crafting both words and melody as they argue that the way we say things and listen to one another is more important than what we say.
"We Bring You Flowers" recalls a funeral procession in a small village where half the community attended the ceremony.
In another track that typifies their preoccupations with both beauty and the difficult side of life, "Glorious Land" was inspired by the diaries of Etty Hillesum, a Dutch Jew who died in Auschwitz, yet looked for beauty and would appreciate a patch of blue sky in the midst of the death camp.
"I'd Make It Up" claims that if God and heaven were not real, it would be worth making them up because of how good they are. Yet the verses go on unpredictably to talk of how values like hope and love affect the way that heaven meets earth.
So stripped is this music that no note is wasted (it's almost as if Dot Reid is afraid to touch her keyboard) and notes are left to ring until there is nothing left. Yet still there is adventure. On "Underneath the Sky," she runs a sparse piano line under the song at a different rhythm to the rest of the music, and somehow it works.
This disc will calm your body and inspire your imagination to colour in the gaps between the notes. (And if you buy it, make sure that you get a copy of Lamentations at the same time – you will soon be recommending it to your friends).
www.stickymusic.co.uk
Derek Walker 6/18/2007
