Monolith Cocktail Blog

Anniversary Albums/Playlist: Dominic Valvona

It’s now been a decade since the passing of David Bowie. A decade that can only be described as depressingly bleak and hugely divisive in the extreme.

Alexander Larman’s Lazarus : The Second Coming of David Bowie biography, complete with, we’re told, the inside information on Bowie’s health scares over that same decade (apparently, as we are led to believe, and through inner circle confidents, he had an unnatural amount of heart attacks before being diagnosed in 2014 with the cancer that finally killed him two years later) was released at the start of the year. Pretty much the final word, or at least most comprehensive catalogue of not only the latter half of Bowie’s career, but also the events that led up to his death.

But rather than dwell on the subject, the eulogy, I wish to celebrate and honour; to escape from societal breakdown and the anguished age of high anxiety. And so, I once more want to share my original piece on Bowie’s last act: ‘★’ from 2016. I originally wrote a review like so many others, not knowing about Bowie’s fate – this isn’t entirely true; a musician friend, who’s father somehow was a pal or knew one of Bowie’s oldest school friends, relayed the info of Bowie’s cancer diagnosis to me at the time, but with no way of following that news up, of clarifying or getting confirmation, I left it at that. Just after the album’s release, and with the death of Bowie, I added a preface: my original review however did obviously pick up on the obsession and themes of mortality and death. It felt like he was leaving us a testament.

A special in fact, not only is Bowie’s epitaph ten years old this month but Station to Station is fifty years old this January. Both of my pieces on these albums can be found below, backed up with the playlist I made on hearing of his death and links to my long love letter, album guide in four parts.

‘★’ (ISO/RCA) 2016

A Preface

With hindsight, ‘★’ now seems an obvious epitaph. The clues where all there. The afterlife, resurrection and a string of final farewells hang over the album like a ticking countdown to David Bowie’s death. He did it all of course with a grand flourish, and in some cases, beautifully.

Not wholly plaintive and morose, his eulogy dared to offer up intriguing and ambiguous thoughts. The music itself both referencing some of his most experimental and edgy work, from Diamond Dogs to Outside, and up until the last daring enough to experiment as he adopted a West Village jazz troupe to play rock music in off-kilter, cerebral manner. And if it is true, Brian Eno’s tribute in recent days referred to a possible return to the duo’s Outside project: “About a year ago, we started talking about Outside – the last album we worked on together,” Eno wrote. “We both liked that album a lot and felt that it had fallen through the cracks. We talked about revisiting it, taking it somewhere new. I was looking forward to that.” Muted it seems as a serious potential, the often morbid, avant-garde and industrial art school concept album feels like it did seep into the fabric of, or at least influence ★. I for one will be gutted that he never made it. Cancer got there first. And so, we will never know how that Eno reunion would have turned out.

Looking back now, only actually a week on, at my review I was properly a little harsh on poor Bowie. Songs I mostly dismissed have seduced me since. Though, as I unfortunately pointed out, it did feel like a eulogy, an obsession with mortality. And now we all know why. Yet I will stand by it, as Bowie’s death shouldn’t change, what I believe was a balanced critique. So here it is again in full in case you missed it or need reminding:

Review

Still preoccupied with that old messiah complex and the anxieties of the times, David Bowie unveils his latest ode to resurrection ★ (pronounced Blackstar). Preoccupied with jazz, though as we’re told like a mantra, “This isn’t a jazz album. It’s a rock album played by jazz musicians”. There is a fundamental difference. Off-kilter leanings and daft nuances from the progressive jazz catalogue permeate this album, but that is all. There is no sudden embrace of be or hard bop, or spiritual, modal or psychedelic consciousness. There aren’t even any traces of that much maligned and cringe worthy offshoot “fusion”. Instead, Bowie’s recently recruited hip West Village jazz troupe, led by Donny McCaslin, adds an inventive, fresh lilt to the favoured rock and pop music tropes to create something unique.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise however, Bowie’s very first musical stirrings being on the saxophone as the young Mod about town in the early 60s before he changed his name from the one his mother gave him, David (Davy) Jones, to the immortal Bowie. The long hairs of the psychedelic age beckoned, and Bowie cut loose the restraints of jazz to wear dresses, take on mime and reinvent himself as a cerebral vaudeville troubadour.

He raises, he soars and then he falls, Bowie’s usual cycle of creativity builds and then wears out each new character he adopts. Yet left to his own devices, somewhere out in a metaphysical space, Major Tom is still causing Bowie sleepless nights it seems. The title track from his ‘Wide Eyed Boy’ meets Outside, ‘Blackstar’, was accompanied by a video that featured an unnamed astronaut, fallen and lain dormant covered in dust in Bowie’s apocalyptic cryptic world. Whether he comes to bury old ghosts or inject life into them, the leitmotif of resurrection once again looms large. Mortality preys upon his mind, and why wouldn’t it, as his own trifles with death and the rate of ageing starts to take its toll. Despite the shuffling but tight jazz drum breaks and mourning on a New York dock scene saxophone, these elements are attentive, dampened even, and composed. The title-track a flat beat ten-minute minor opus, rich with hints of Black Tie White Noise, Diamond Dogs (6:50 minutes in) and some melodious reverent classicism, is a song in more or less three parts. Strewn with those obligatory clues and references (which have nothing to do with ISIL and the present Syrian crisis we’re told) it is an ambitious if ambiguous start, and like many songs from the Bowie cannon, its cunning and complexity unveils itself on repeated plays.

So far meeting with worldwide acclaim from critics – the ones allowed to actually hear the LP in its entirety before the official release – Blackstar is musically an improvement on the straighter laced rock songbook of The Next Day. That record is now considered a songbook of nostalgic reminisces; yet he apes if not carries on with the same concerns on this short – more a Station To Station in length and track numbers – follow up. He has even brought back or decided to return and finish the story of The Man Who Fell To Earth, revisiting the tragic alien stuck in exile figure of Thomas Jerome Newton for a Broadway play entitled Lazarus – see, again with the resurrections! Stupefied with the vices and almost resigned languid resentments of Earth, Walter Tevis’s original character made pallid flesh by Bowie in Nicholas Roeg’s stunning, evocative movie adaptation, was last seen in a near somnolent state, more or less beaten, his mission failed and his loved ones dying in the drought that parched his native homeland. The second track to be shared from the album, ‘Lazarus’ features that recurring sweetly forlorn saxophone – found throughout the back catalogue – played over a maudlin, and at first very stark, indulgent wallowing backing track. With usual ambiguity, Bowie once again croons about scars, heaven and breaking free, his slow building indulgence unfurling its depth and maladies at a crawl. Closer to Heathen and Reality, ‘Lazarus’ is influenced to a degree by the critic’s darlings of the music scene Kendrick Lamar and Death Grips but sounds more like TV On The Radio and The XX.

Already gaining airplay and floating around for a while, ‘Tis A Pity She Is A Whore’ is golden Bowie, and the track that gave life to the rumours of his acquired penchant for jazz. Riffing on the infamous 17^th century John Ford tragedy of the same name, a forlorn crooning Bowie sings oblique lines over a plaintive saxophone and heavy drum barrage on the fieriest track from the album. In a similar mode, a new punchier version of 2014’s ‘Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime)’ is a less shaky untethered rock and speedy break beat hurtling improvement. And once again features a resigned downcast Bowie taking on the role of a sucker-punched sap. This leaves a trio of material that hasn’t until the album’s release been aired or teased out over the net. ‘Girl Loves Me’ has a harassed Bowie yodelling, wistfully sighing and yearning with his Berlin trilogy style vocals to a methodical striding march, as he converses in a mix of Polari and A Clockwork Orange. Quite a change in tempo and style, ‘Dollar Days’ is again a reflective take, perhaps even a regrettable lament. Plaintive in a ballad style, Bowie almost eulogising, the lyrics are delivered and beautifully caressed. In a similar vein, the album’s finale ‘I Can’t Give You Everything’ is another wistful dip back into the Black Tie White Noise album. Repeating a most poetic set of verses that both unravel and confound, it is a majestic, diaphanous if sad curtain call.

Despite the gloom, Bowie is still a sprightly creative artist, celebrating his 69^th birthday with a new album that stretches the imagination and puts most of his peers to shame. Of course, it still isn’t as daemonic, unsettling and untethered to the boundaries of pop and rock music as we’re led to believe; Scott Walker it ain’t, Bowie still transmogrifying his Crowley/Kabbalah/Nietzsche/Occult/Norse and beyond cycle of references into a more sellable pop format no matter how many genres he absorbs. Walker has gone into the abyss in comparison and almost removed any earthly links to melody and song structure. Can the same be said for Bowie despite his recent long-winded jazz influenced opuses?

Saying that, this could be the purest, at least concerned, version of Bowie yet. Resurrected free of his characterisations, the gilded “Blackstar” is just as uneasy and scared at the anxieties, stresses and daunting prospects of the future as the rest of us. Fame, celebratory is mere smoke after all and offers little in the way of comfort and safety in the face of the impending end times. Yet despite being easily his best album since Earthling, it’s still underwhelming and falls short of being a classic. It isn’t even as experimental as Outside, which is a criminally underrated album, and lacks a real punch. But it is moving in the right direction, and instead of listening to those younger hip cats, he’d be better off paying more attention to that other famous Capricorn, Scott Walker.

Station To Station (RCA) 1976

A distressed primal howl for the alpine air and culture of Europe were the main motivations for Bowie’s Station To Station LP. It may have been recorded in L.A, but the intention was to reach out across the Atlantic: an escapist gesture of hope to crack the drug habit.

Imbued, or just unashamedly sucking up the innovative vapours of the Teutonic music scene, those previous soul allusions were now entwined with the pan-European express of Cluster/Harmonia (and all the various Roedelius and Dieter Moebius projects), Kraftwerk and Neu!

The autobahn was already spoken for, so it would be the allure of continental train journeys that oiled the wheels of the album’s minor opus title track. Heralding the “return of the thin white duke”, Station To Station traversed disco boogie funk (‘Stay’), doo-wop futurism (‘TVC15’) and featured Bowie the Shakespearian glib, warbled crooner (‘Word On A Wing’, ‘Wild Is The Wind’). Oh yes, the note register was high all right, a resounding plaintive cry before that all-immersive dip into the Berlin years.

The Playlist

A Most ‘Fantastic Voyage’, my eulogy to Bowie still stands. Added to sporadically since putting it together on news of his death, alt takes, live versions, sessions and those favourites of mine are all collated and curated for a most pleasing fashion/experience.

PS:

Links to my Bowie guide, written to celebrate the oeuvre.

A Celebration Part 1: Debut to Pin Ups

A Celebration Part 2: Diamond Dogs to Scary Monsters

A Celebration Part 3: Let’s Dance to Black Tie White Noise

A Celebration Part 4: Outside to Black Star

Here’s the message bit we hate, but crucially need:

If you’ve enjoyed this selection, the writing, or been led down a rabbit hole into new musical terrains of aural pleasure, and if you able, then you can now show your appreciation by keeping the Monolith Cocktail afloat through the Ko-Fi donation site.