Before reading any of the accompanying notes, my very first thought on seeing the album’s title was ‘Laurel and Hardy’. And, sure enough, the album’s title track is subtitled ‘(For Laurel and Hardy)’. As comedy catchphrases go, it is one of the most enduring and definitive of all time, and while writing, it struck me that there will be generations coming through now on whom it will be lost. As times change and culture moves on, cultural references which we grow up and live our lives in the assumption will endure for all time are fading.
I vaguely recall a later interview with Leonard Cohen in which he lamented that a diminishing knowledge of biblical tales meant that the meaning of a song like ‘The Story of Isaac’ was lost on younger audiences. Perhaps what’s more disconcerting is that people shrug off ignorance of the (fairly recent) past with the excuse that it’s ‘before their time’. I’m not even talking about The Beatles or The Rolling Stones: I’m talking about people so oblivious of cultural history that they think Ramones and Nirvana are T-Shirt brands, and I can’t help but despair.
I mention this because ‘Another Nice Mess’, the latest release from Curtis Eller’s American Circus is littered with what to many will be historical references, spanning Laurel and Hardy to heavyweight champion boxer Sonny Liston, who lost to Muhammad Ali, via circus star Lillian Leitzel, who died tragically during an ariel performance.
The album’s 11 songs all centre around the human condition and the fragility of life in some way, with mortality being a major theme in these gritty bluesy slices of folksy Americana. There’s a strong hint of Tom Waits in the blend here – and it’s a blend that’s strong and dark-roasted, smoky and toasted. ‘I’ve wasted, wasted, wasted my youth’ Eller sings in a voice rich with the heavy-patina of a life lived, but delivered with a rare vibrance and audible twinkle in the eye.
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‘Goddam Loser’ is a chunk of classic country, and whether it’s uptempo or downtempo, the songs are steeped in melancholy tinged with the kind of inwardly-focused anger that one really only finds in country. There’s also a keen focus on war – and opposing it. ‘Carry the Faces (for Matha Wills)’ is exemplary, and also reminiscent of Leonard Cohen: largely stripped back, but with so much detail which springs seemingly from nowhere, adding layers of texture. The tile track is a soft and sedate ode to friendship, with only acoustic guitar and understated violin augmentation by way of instrumentation, while the intensely personal ‘An Only Child’ is as powerful as it is sad.
Curtis Eller’s American Circus are appropriately named: ‘Another Nice Mess’ packs in so much stylistic range, so many instrumental bits and pieces from flute to whistles and more adding depth and colour to the songs which range and rove every which way, but never shy away from real emotions.
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