Perry Blake: Death Of A Society Girl (Moochin' About)
There's an elemental European air to Perry Blake, a songwriter who transcends the limitations of geography and perception. Though Irish, he could be French, where indeed he commands cult status. His songs are subtle, refined, and timeless. It is tasteful, like a cascade of warm velvet and cool silk, without alienating the listener. Elements preside of David Sylvian and a restrained inflection of Bowie, but without the histrionics. Languidly precise, he has plowed an individualistic path, a secret that should be more widely shared. With the release of Death Of A Society Girl, he may finally garner the attention his work so achingly deserves. Blake has written songs for the late Francoise Hardy and, in the past thirty years, become a touchstone artist whose refined maladies wander gently into the ear and tug gently at the heart.
"Requiem" is the perfect introduction to the uninitiated, reassuring the faithful. As languid as it is engaging. This intimates a journey of subtle delights. Restrained by an easy elegance, it suggests Scott Walker on a Sunday afternoon of fog and blurred sunshine. With "One Of These Days," delicate piano notes swish and sway over a hand-clap series of beats. It could be an out-take from Bowie's Lodger album. But stems perfectly from the interior world of Mr Blake. There's an eerie, almost operatic female vocal ghosting the proceedings, and the song drifts away on a small river of strings.
"If it's not broken, I'll break it.
That's just what I do.
If it's not real, then I'll fake it.
Just like you. Just like you"
These lyrics reveal a dark awareness of the soul, especially his own.
"Nobody's Child" sways, glides, and resolves upon a hauntingly beautiful violin line that dances over gentle stabs of piano. As late night as it can respectably be, this is a song with moments of Tin Drum by Japan that winds like a reptile waiting to strike. In "Song Of The Wind," there's a sense of a slow rolling train on a track of beguiling strings and neat acoustic guitar. Blake's voice has a warm resonance that draws the proceedings along.
"They don't seem to notice.
They don't seem to mind.
They don't seem to know
That they were less than kind."
"Let's Fall In Love" presents a louche plea of longing, but with epic proportions beating at its heart's core. A concise piece of ear candy, it builds and glows like an ember that never quite ignites, which is all part of its discretion of charm. Oriental folksiness pervades "Concertina" like a madrigal of sighs this sophisticated jewel casts a strange reflection in the soul of the listener. Deceptively effortless, here belies an inherent craft and beauty that wanders off into a mysterious distance. If you could make a road movie on a pagoda, this would be your soundtrack.
"Rules Of Love" delivers the swerve and masquerade of a perfect pop song in the restraint of its commercial conceit. As neat a summer radio accompaniment as a wish could require. this is simply sublime; a stream of strings and light splashes of piano creates a sense of past evenings.
"Death Of A Society Girl," the album's trailer single, again ghosts Bowie in a vocal that is effortlessly underplayed. The well-known actor Paul McGann (Withnail & I, Empire of the Sun, Alien 3) handles the spoken-word section. There's a burgeoning rise within the melody that never bursts forth, held in place by a spoken word aspect akin to stolen diary entries. Like rain through the moonlight, a quiet brilliance of confection.
Farewell arrives in the form of the brooding "Hummingbirds." A neat goodbye, sad but rather joyous, is Blake at his assuredly deceptive but assertively artistic best. Unshowy but latently powerful, the subdued beauty holds the song in a place like frozen lace.
"Maybe that is why these birds fly solo
Far away from land.
Far away from earthly sorrow.
Far away from man."
This work deserves a wide audience and should find one, but it remains to be seen in our unfair world. If you wish to steal some moments with an artist at the height of his understated powers, this is the ticket you require. Rarely has sophistication seemed so effortless. Refinement takes effort and time like fine wine, but you can't see it. It merely becomes evident when one is privy to the experience.