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Astrobotnia
Part 01
Múm
Finally We Are No One
Putloe House Collection
Let The Ugly Disappear
A Putloe House Collection (various artists)
Let The Ugly Disappear
Chuck E. Peru is the thread tacking track to track across this beatific collection: a document which celebrates and bids farewell to seven years of recording at the Gloucestershire-based studio, Putloe House. Peru's signature is across every one of these tracks – a deft ability to wrap each of his collaborators' gifts with just the right layers of sound: from confetti showers of chimes to blankets of throbbing bassline. Peru also has a knack for unifying disparate elements, latching all manner of electronic swirls and flourishes onto acoustic riffs (effortlessly seguing from warm pan-Eastern drones to parochial north-London laments) and for giving flesh and radiance to simple hooks and lyrics.
His most sustained involvement with any of the acts featured here is the work produced with Bobby Hacker and Annie Gilpin under the monikers of Florida and Morton Valence – practitioners of that style of pop music which Saint Etienne virtually slapped a patent on during the '90s. 'The Kiss' is the most resplendent of the trio's efforts here; a false ending splitting Peru's enchanting starbursts of shimmering electronica from the dovetailed beauty of Hacker's gravelled rasp and Gilpin's flawless reply. This is the sort of music that evokes memories of the smell and glare of a field of spring flowers after rainfall or a late-night cab ride through bleary city lights. You can follow every word of the joyous 'Girl On The Escalator' as though the memory belongs to you. These songs are a soundtrack to the pitfalls and pleasures of ordinary lives.
For the most part, the language of this album is prosaic, words like those you might speak over the phone or write in a letter, always offering up the minutiae of life – lives we understand, love we can believe in, heartbreak we can relate to. Quotidian reflection such as the pensive beginning of 'Brickbat' – I ought to leave enough hot water / for your morning bath – makes the more profound statements on the album all the more affecting, such as Solomon Hayes' I'd stay and see this through / but I know that I've got things to do / that don't include you ('A Dalston Of The Mind'). The beautiful chimes and eerie drone that begin Hayes' 'Sad News' underpin a wonderful mix of spoken word and soulful singing. It's Hayes' songs that are so arresting on this album – so wounded does their narrator sound. There's a bell that chimes through 'A Dalston Of The Mind' which evokes an image of walking the streets with Hayes on a late December night, watching each of his resigned breaths hit the bitter cold air. His words drape over the music so bewitchingly.
There's diversity across this album, from the slick rap and hustling beat of 'Sam's Big Day Out' to the breezy pastures of 'Slap and Tickle' (the latter track reminiscent of that style of rustic tune which sits alone amongst the brasher and more dense electronica of the first two, great Underworld albums). 'Straight Jim' is full of warped, dirgey guitar and quick beats. 'Via Bangalore', sends waves washing up against the shore; its hypnotic vocal refrain could almost lull one to sleep. In 'Lead On... Take It Away' and – hidden track – 'No One's Thought Of That', cheap sounds and spoken word are welded to brass and a cascade of squiggling beats respectively... and it just works. Possibly the finest track of the seventeen is the classy, ambient 'GG 5'7', with its glorious heartbeat bass and looping and swelling sonic sounds. It's a track that sounds so complete, so like it couldn't possibly be improved at all.
Let The Ugly Disappear marks the end of an era, but it contains songs which deserve to be remembered, treasured, listened to with eyes closed. Songs to remind you that it's possible to find love on the London Underground, that the rain will eventually cease, that everything will be OK.
