Everything/Everything Simon Bookish Artist

Switching from electronics to live instruments for his first album for {|Tomlab|}, the science-informed concept album {|Everything/Everything|} finds the wonderful work of {|Simon Bookish|} -- somewhere between the informed wryness of {|Ivor Cutler|}... Read more

Switching from electronics to live instruments for his first album for {|Tomlab|}, the science-informed concept album {|Everything/Everything|} finds the wonderful work of {|Simon Bookish|} -- somewhere between the informed wryness of {|Ivor Cutler|} and the continuing impact of {|David Bowie|}'s archly English romanticism -- in full flight. With the music provided by orchestrations from woodwinds, strings, brass, and much more besides, the feeling is one of playfulness, a resistance to and celebration of easily grasped pop forms and a sense that the world is there to be amused at and with. Even so, there are a couple of overarching models or two {|Bookish|} can't quite escape -- {|Stereolab|} is almost the gimme, thanks to songs like {|The Flood|} and the juggernaut of {|Alsatian Dog|} suggesting the meta-'60s pop of that group well at work, but with {|Bookish|}'s none-more-English vocals in place of {|Laetitia Sadier|}'s understated calls. The feeling overall is of self-possession -- there's a confidence in the sound, an inversion of indie as either withdrawn moping or rehashed anthemicism in favor of playful and direct collage. Therefore the smoother feelings of {|Dumb Terminal|} play perfectly against the stiff art-jazz breaks on {|Carbon,|} and {|Il Trionfo del Tempo|}'s dramatic sound textures against {|Bookish|}'s spoken words. To spiral from that into the immediate pop merriment of {|Synchrotron|} almost without a break -- and with no apologies for pushing one side of the approach and then the other -- is the sign of someone who has it just right. ~ Ned Raggett Less