Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan
Ramblin’ Man
(V2)
Who says long-distance
relationships never work? Despite being separated by some 8,000
miles, Isobel Campbell, of Glasgow, and Mark Lanegan, of Los
Angeles, have brought us Ramblin’ Man, a four-song collaboration
that wouldn’t have been possible without the Internet (tsk,
tsk — and you thought it was all about the free porn!).
Campbell, former cellist/chanteuse of Belle & Sebastian, and
Lanegan, ex-singer of Screaming Trees and Queens of the Stone Age,
met in Glasgow, where Lanegan, on tour with the latter band,
suggested that they make an album together. For the most part, the
pair traded tracks by e-mail, although they did manage to be in the
same studio at the same time for a few recordings. Given that
it’s impossible for the listener to guess which songs were
recorded with the principals together, physical proximity, it would
seem, is overrated. Although the twee diva and the glowering
howler might seem incompatible at first, the EP proves that they
bring out the best in each other. Whereas Lanegan’s craggy
rumble and doomy, dark-prince proclivities have, at times, verged
on the parodic, and Campbell’s little-girl lilt could, after
prolonged exposure, precipitate a hyperglycemic coma (or at least a
raging toothache), each singer’s strengths counteract the
other’s flaws. With Lanegan, Campbell has never sounded
sexier or more grown-up; with Campbell, Lanegan has never sounded
more human. Their joint effort evokes the masculin/féminin, beauty/beast polarities of classic ’60s albums by Serge
Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot or Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra
— almost cartoonishly gendered, sexy in a way that’s
politically suspect, the sonic equivalent of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.
Take the opening track, a spare, ingenious,
and deeply naughty cover of Hank Williams’s
“Ramblin’ Man.” As Lanegan lusts for the open
road, Campbell coos an almost subliminal countermelody devoted to
the allure of her kitchen and bedroom. Granted, the struggle
between noble itinerant and domestic siren is as old as time itself (or
at least as old as The Lockhorns), but the hoary stereotypes are leavened by the
contrast between Lanegan’s implacable self-importance and
Campbell’s wheedling availability, a playful dichotomy punctuated
by the sound of a cracking whip. No less appealing is “(Do You
Wanna) Come Walk with Me,” a Campbell original that pairs winsome
harmonies with lyrics that straddle the line between tender and tawdry.
Campbell sings alone on the two remaining tracks, the Lanegan-penned
“Revolver Pt. 2” and the traditional country-blues number
“St. James Infirmary”; although the songs are pleasant
enough, they lack the frisky frisson of the preceding duets. Nevertheless, the EP seems too short, and as
an amuse-bouche it fulfills its purpose, leaving the listener hungry for
more. As luck would have it, the duo’s debut full-length, Ballad of the Broken Seas, is scheduled for a spring 2006 release.
Cass McCombs
PREfection
(Monitor/4AD)
On PREfection, his second album, enigmatic troubadour Cass
McCombs invokes a wide array of indie-rock/guitar-pop influences
without resorting to rank pastiche. Traces of ’80s icons Echo
and the Bunnymen, the Go-Betweens, and the Stone Roses dovetail
surprisingly well with Radioheadesque experimentation, and the
lyrics strike the right balance between oblique and ingenuous. In
McCombs’ compact and oddly compelling universe, Motown and
Manchester are just a heartbeat apart, and unexpected confluences
form among unlikely tributaries. There’s something uniquely
satisfying in the way that “Subtraction” anchors a
soaring shoegazer anthem with a time-tested Bo Diddley beat, the
way that “Bury Mary” combines Velvet Underground jangle
with Soft Boys snarl. McCombs isn’t breaking any new ground,
to be sure, but few contemporary singer/songwriters cover the same
terrain so competently.
This article appears in Dec 29, 2005 – Jan 4, 2006.
