Never a man to let the grass grow, Belfast-born, Melbourne-based ANDY WHITE continues to live the travelling troubadour’s life to the max.
As I write this, he’s on tour in the UK; there are more dates to come later in the year and a second LP with on-off collaborator Stephen Fearing from Blackie & The Rodeo Kings is quite possibly in the offing. Then there’s the release of his semi-autobiographical second book ‘21st Century Troubadour’, while a second volume of poetry (‘Stolen Moments’) was recently released through Another Shark Press in 2011.
It’s the sort of mind-bending schedule that would induce a lengthy period of bed rest for this writer, but Andy’s not finished yet, for there’s also a new double-CD set ‘21st Century Troubadour’ just about to blink in the glare of the marketplace.
Neither a new studio LP or a ‘greatest hits’ as such, it’s a 22-track affair, split into ‘Songs’ (Disc 1) and ‘Stories’ (Disc 2). There are a couple of older selections – not least the dreamily graceful ‘Berlin 6AM’ (“in the loser’s lobby, they’re shifting the coffee to the hungover crew from the West”) which conveys some of the surreality of life in the formerly divided city – but predominantly CD1 is made up of songs adroitly selected from White’s last four studio LPs, culminating in two tracks – including the plaintive ‘If You Want It’ - from 2009’s excellent ‘Songwriter’.
Even if you’re not all that au fait with White’s oeuvre, there’s plenty for all lovers of wry, well-crafted tunesmithery to enjoy here, taking in the unashamedly punchy pop of ‘Jesus In A Cadillac’, several key tracks from 2006’s densely-layered ‘Garageband’ and the cute ‘Italian Girls On Mopeds’, wherein our hero’s perfect girls are: “always at the traffic lights, waitin’ for the change/ wearin’ no helmets ‘cos it never rains.”
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If you think Andy White is just about wittily acerbic wordplays, though, perhaps you should move straight to the dreamily gorgeous, but slightly bemused nostalgia of ‘Twelfth Of July’ or the stripped-down melancholia of ‘Deeper Water’ where White’s heart-breaking description of losing a loved one (“when the time comes, which one of us is truly ready?”) is rendered to absolute perfection.
White describes the ‘Stories’ peopling CD2 as “an audio book with a soundtrack”. It features him reading extracts from ‘21st Century Troubadour’ over a sympathetic, but never obtrusive musical backdrop. There are six such selections, including the hilarious ‘Sting Is Hot’ (involving two ditsy Californian girls and a re-discovery The Police’s ‘Outlandos D’Amour’ under controlled circumstances) plus the rapid-fire be-bop poetry of ‘In LA I Dream Of Books’ and finally the brand new song ‘21st Century Troubadour’. It’s a typically pithy slice of life and a reminder (if it was really needed) that the story-telling tradition remains in safe hands while the self-styled Bard of Belfast continues to live, breathe and make his regular forays around the globe.
Andy White online
Floating World Records online
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