Better(-informed) critics than I will do a great job of untangling Gemma Ray's influences and musical touchpoints. I'm hesitant to do that lame shtick all reviewers do pointing out "You might expect something like Winehouse or Lily Allen, but (female artist) is a true original!" Everyone who's any good is an original, don't be a maroon. It's just that Gemma Ray's way of being original is more original than other originals. It's not a pastiche or a callback: this album would be out-of-place in any time period, except this one, where time doesn't really exist anymore and you can sound any way you damn well please. It's too lush and wall-of-soundy for nowadays, but too weird and dark for olden times. It's not cafe music and it's not quite psychedelia.Take the windy Ennio Morricone-style strumming from "100 mph (in 2nd Gear)," which sweeps you up in itself, turns you around, and leaves you wondering where you've been. Or the disquieting Stepford quaintness of "Tough Love," or the wilting wailing guitars of "1952." There's something dark and unseemly laced all throughout this album, like it has buried ill intentions, peeling back the covers on romance and nostalgia and innocent girlhood pledges of love. The meanings of songs like that are obscure, jumbled up lyrics that send a negative vibe with sweetened vocals that seem to be longing for something far beyond reach. Some, like "(You Got Me In A) Death Roll" are more overt, chugging along ominously with those dark male background vocals and quivering harmonicas in the mix, it chants like a chain gang song, but Gemma's breathy vocals seek relief. Then it ends abruptly and leads to the arcane, nervy "Goody Hoo." Later great moments include the spooky, bluesy "Dig Me a River," and the empty-sounding "If You Want To Rock and Roll" provides, if not the most gripping pop musical moment of the disc, an atmospheric break between the ever-swelling tide of sound surrounding it.
The album is consistently good, and plays well with its musical style. All the songs sound distinct without seeming to come from different sources. Despite this consistency, there are two tracks that stand high above the others for me, that if I felt I could leave the rest of the album behind, I'd still want with me. "Fist of a Flower" is the apex of Gemma's darkly orchestrated self-harmony, as she slides some really twisted, unnatural-sounding Beach Boys "oooo-oooos" in under her own chorus, echoes calls and answers herself, and creates this massive, claustrophobic feel like all the music of the world is slowly closing in on you. The other is the sweet, soaring "No Water," which rises above somehow. It's Gemma's best vocal performance on the thing. The thing about her, unlike many female vocalists, is that while she sings extremely well, her voice isn't the attraction itself. It's always part of the larger sonic texture, hence all the harmony, the double-tracking, the studio sorcery. The refrain of "No Water" is a beautiful incantation, obscure like the rest of the lyrics (to my ears anyway,) but never meaningless, thanks to her delivery and the arrangement.
It's hypnosis. It's mind-control. It grabs you on some deep level so that you zone out and don't even completely remember what you've heard. It's not easy-breezy pop, it's full bodies and rather intense. The closing track, "So Do I" is one of the few apparently-affirmative tracks on there, the one that sounds most like the Shirelles, but also has those pounding drums to go with the sweeping strings and the infinite harmonies. I always love albums that feel like they end with a sense of resolution, catharsis, elimination of demons... and this one manages to spend the preceding 35 minutes gathering those demons into one place.
If it were what they call a "retro" act, it would do more to invoke a specific time and place. Gemma borrows freely from wherever, inventing new tactics of using the sounds as she pleases rather than follow orthodoxy of pop. She's not working to recreate someone's ideas, she's looking to take you into her own, and it works. It hangs together amazingly well, and the songs string into one another beautifully.
I like it. Like everything I enjoy, it fit a everyone's pre-arranged notions of what they'd enjoy. It didn't fit mine. But of course the point of this blog has been for me to push against my own boundaries, and of all the albums I've bought that I wouldn't otherwise have glanced at, this one surprised me the most. I came in with zero expectations... a vague remembrance of how "100 mph" sounded and the impression that this was some sort of retro-pop affair... but coming out of it, I found something more satisfying by miles than just a tribute or rehash of old styles. It's moving without being obvious about it, evocative without ever laying out what it's trying to tell you: difficult to truly feel like you've got a handle on it, but not resistant or off-putting in the least. Great music often does that, and leaves you feeling different than you were before.
Buy this album from iTunes now!
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