Brave Captain - 'All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace' (Wichita)
3/5
By: Thomas Hannan
It used to be that only when a songwriter had earned a considerable stack of cash from a previously fruitful recording career that they could afford to lay down their next effort with the help of a vast array of weird and wonderful new technology, slapping synthesisers on this, drum machines on that, and removing all but the most essential traces of human involvement from their previously very personal work. Now, people have laptops. In fact, everyone has laptops - especially musicians. If you harbour some desire to hold on to the values of strict analog-only recording techniques, you might want to look away now.
But if some light, oddly tuneful experimentation is the order of the day, do peer closer. 'All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace' ('AWOBMOLG' to you and me, OK?) prides itself on being a song-based record, but is proudly also a distinctly computerised one. The lad is Martin Carr, once of Boo Radleys fame, and occasionally the poppy songwriting prowess of his Boo days can still shine through, even if it does have to battle against a wall of buzzing and clicking of its own creation. The record works best when it can balance its quirkiness with its faintly disguised but still prominent melodic gift, and use its admirable innovative spirit to enhance the tunes rather than mask them.
Despite this being the second full-length proper using this particular guise, the laptop does still at times seem like something of a new toy, the 'Captain unwilling to put it down for any considerable period of time. Perhaps he was encouraged by his success with the finest efforts here - the bizarrely catchy title-track (based around a Richard Brautigan poem), the both bass and tune-heavy groove of 'Good Life' and peculiarly twitching ballad 'Big Black Pigpile' (which, although shares a strikingly similar title to Big Black's 'Pigpile' LP, sounds quite the sonic opposite) all manage to be engrossing examples of an artist at play, mischievously twiddling buttons, but more profitably, hitting the right spots melody-wise too.
But for every instance of Martin Carr hitting the nail on the head with 'AWOBMOLG' and its giddy mix of trailblazing electronic wizardry and traditional tune adoration, there are equal examples of him accidentally hammering his thumbs instead. Sometimes he drowns the tune (check 'Weaponized', why don't you?), sometimes it'll be lengthened and embellished beyond recognition (as on 'Flow Machines'), and occasionally he forgets to actually come up with something proper at all ('Metamorphicrocks' just repeats the title incessantly over an annoyingly uninspired backdrop).
Who knows, perhaps it'll be one of the most influential albums of the year, as any tech-heads going down a similar path can find enough of both ideas to inspire and mistakes to learn from amidst this slightly messy yet well-meaning muddle. But it does sound sincere, so grin and bear through the more self-indulgent patches. It suggests of the author a wide-eyed interest in everything music has to offer, and so it shall find favour with an equally courageous listener. But most critically, sadly it still sounds unavoidably confused, and as such struggles to be anything much more than a cluttered, albeit pleasant, curiosity.
Artists in this article: Brave Captain
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