Richard Swift - The Novelist / Walking Without Effort (Secretly Canadian)
4/5
By: Chris Pratt
This two disc set (alternatively titled 'The Collected Works of Richard Swift Vol. 1') is one of the most genuinely refreshing musical assortments to grace these jaded ears in a long while. Although there's undeniably a plethora of singer-songwriters competing for your attention at the moment, Swift isn't one of those fashionably scruffy, freak-folk hippies - he's much harder to pin down than the hoardes of Banhart-fanciers, no matter how odd they'd like you to think they are. Take the first part of this double header 'The Novelist', with its intriguing eight-songs-in-twenty-minutes brevity, for example. The curtain rises on 'Foreward' with its deliciously vintage gramophone strings, which melt into pristine 'Smile'-esque harmonies that in turn make way for a dixieland jazz section - and that's all in little over a minute.
Beneath the crackling, second-hand veneer and unique, circa-1930's accompaniments from ragtime piano, raucous trumpets and brushed snare drums lie beautifully written modern pop songs, and when updated with present-tense touches such as the low-budget drum machine propelling 'Lady Day', the bridge between musical eras is strengthened further. Although the whole record sounds like it could've been lying untouched in a junkshop somewhere for seventy-plus years, it's far from a prohibition-era pastiche, with the spirits of '60s and '70s greats such as Brian Wilson, Jackson Browne and Bob Dylan also making their presence known, as well as the odd nod to the lo-fi pop of Eels and their ilk.
Boldly discarding the satisfyingly grainy production and bygone arrangements of 'The Novelist,' Swift showcases his range by switching effortlessly to the cleaner, more familiar acoustic rock of 'Walking Without Effort.' Although it initially seems like a cop-out after the general oddness of the first disc, Swift's simple songwriting exudes such bittersweet charm that the slight disappointment soon evolves into wide-eyed admiration for such unapologetic pop. There's more of a band atmosphere here, with crisp drums and bass beefing up the otherwise naive romance of 'Half Lit', and warm, vintage keyboard parts recalling 'Summerteeth'-era Wilco throughout.
Thankfully there's nothing forced or fashionable about Swift's summoning of previous musical decades to serve as vehicles for his admirably natural and genuinely unpretentious song writing, and miraculously he never once subscribes to bland folk-pop-rock clichés. Here's to the mouth-watering prospect of '...Vol.2.'
Artists in this article: Richard Swift
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