Dean and Britta – Back Numbers

 

Dean and Britta – Back Numbers

By

Jesse E. Mullen

 

You’ve co-led an acclaimed group for a few years now. You’ve begun a romantic relationship. And you’ve used that relationship as inspiration for your sultry, smoky songs. Where do you go from here?

If you’re Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips, you start another group. As a musical partnership, the duo were most famous for their work in NYC-based indiepop band Luna. When Phillips joined the group, it was immediately clear that she and Wareham had a chemistry that was spellbinding.

Songs such as “Mermaid Eyes” and “Rememories” featured Phillips’ gorgeous voice prominently. But Wareham still sang all lead vocals. So, in order to create a more collaborative project, the duo started the offshoot Dean and Britta.

Their 2003 debut album L'Avventura showed a penchant for dreamy songwriting and exquisite covers, but it was a little too lightweight overall. Enter Sonic Boom. The Spacemen 3 co-leader was brought in to remix a few tracks off of L'Avventura for a special EP.

That release, 2003’s Sonic Souvenirs showed what the duo could do with a tougher, spacier backing. Boom added reverb effects to the vocals, the guitars, and his own signature style of digital-delayed analog synthesizers and keyboards.

So, when they brought Sonic Boom into the fold for an entire album, expectations must have been high. 2007’s Back Numbers was to feature Boom’s penchant for playing and arranging. But could it live up to the hype?

Opener “Singer Sing” is pure bliss, with Phillips’ voice and a rhythm machine introducing the track in modest fashion. Once Wareham’s warm voice joins in the chorus however, we’re in dream pop heaven. Phillips’ underrated bass playing also features prominently, adding a warm melodic tone that’s not always found on the instrument.

"Words You Used To Say" harks back to Luna's last days of Romantica and Rendezvous. Phillips’ warm bassline, Boom’s jittery analog synthesizers, and Wareham’s signature guitar playing introduce the track in laidback fashion.

Phillips and Wareham trade call-and-response lines over the hip, urbane soundscape. In the chorus, Wareham urges his lover to “bring it home” to him. What “it” is, one can only guess. It can be assumed, however that it is of a sexual nature.

Elsewhere, the duo’s cover of Lee Hazelwood’s “You Turned My Head Around” is equally enchanting. With Phillips on lead vocals, the track makes full use of her range and power. She is tender and cooing in the verses, but when the chorus hits, she isn’t afraid to belt it out.

Phillips was the singing voice of the cartoon character Jem from Jem and The Holograms, which had forced her to use her voice in all sorts of theatrical ways. However, the bulk of her recorded material is much more restrained. It is fun for the listener to hear Phillips expand her range, and channel some of that old energy for one of her records, albeit briefly.

For his part, Wareham turns in a haunted performance on a cover of Donovan’s “Teen Angel.” Still evoking the late-night sultry feel of Romantica, Wareham is mostly alone on the track, save for some acoustic guitar and vibraphone accompaniment.

On “White Horses,” Phillips delivers another spellbinding performance. The arrangement, combined with Phillips’ singing and the production style make the track reminiscent of one of Phil Spector’s 1960s productions.

Ironically, “The Sun Is Still Sunny” is more evocative of the music by Spiritualized than the work of Sonic Boom. (Spiritualized is led by Boom’s ex bandmate Spacemen 3 Jason Pierce.) In fact, Spiritualized would later use a very similar melody set to a waltz on the 2018 track “A Perfect Miracle.”

A swelling string arrangement, and gorgeous harmony between Phillips and Wareham bring the chorus to a higher level. On an album full of highlights, the track still manages to standout as a cut above the rest. Very impressive, considering the quality of the material.

The album closes with the gorgeous “Our Love Will Still Be There.” Originally by the 1960s garage rock group The Troggs, Wareham and Phillips take the track dreamy minimalist territory. With electric piano, washes of gentle synthesizers, and unison vocals, it is an absolute joy to the ears. When Wareham and Phillips sing the title phrase in harmony, we believe them.

While side projects are usually fun as curios, they rarely do anything essential. There are, however, a few exceptions to that rule. With Back Numbers, Dean and Britta successfully capture the hazy warmth of a relationship given new life.

Zoë Records/2007

 

 

 

 

Kathleen Edwards – Back To Me

 

Kathleen Edwards – Back To Me

By

Jesse E. Mullen

 

Your mid-20s are a time of identity crisis. As Ethan Hawke says to Winona Ryder in the film Reality Bites, “the only thing you have to be by the age of 23 is yourself.” But what if you don’t know who that person is or what they should be? Few artists articulate this feeling better than Kathleen Edwards.

Born in Ottawa, Ontario but raised overseas – her father was a diplomat – she began recording in 1999 with an extremely limited EP entitled Building 55. Fast forward to 2005, and Edwards released her second full-length album Back To Me coming two years after her official debut Failer.

From the first notes, Back To Me is leaps and bounds ahead of her previous work, both in terms of maturity and execution. 

While Edwards is the main voice – and the primary author of the material here – her collaborator Colin Cripps is her secret weapon. Playing lead and/or slide guitar on every track – except the solo acoustic “Away” – as well as producing, they were a musical match in heaven. Cripps’ atmospheric, creative playing perfectly compliments Edwards’ honey and grit vocals.

In “Summerlong,” Edwards – and Cripps who co-wrote it – spin a tale comparing a temporary fling to a childhood game of hide-and-seek over chiming Rickenbacker guitars. Benmont Tench of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers even shows up on the track to add gorgeous piano touches.

And in “Copied Keys” Edwards has written possibly the saddest song about feeling alone with the one you love since “Unsatisfied” by The Replacements.

Over a crying slide guitar and violin, the narrator describes her life in the starkest terms possible – her friends, her streets, and her identity no longer belong to her.  She has been treated like a piece of furniture in her partner’s apartment. When the song reaches its climax towards the end, it is a total highlight of the album – and 2000s Americana in general.

But perhaps no song is greater than opener “In State.” Over a monster riff that will be stuck in your head for days, Edwards compares a cheating lover to an outlaw – and duly threatens to turn him into the authorities. It’s the kind of song on which entire musical careers are made.

In a just world “In State” would have been a major radio hit. In fact, if it was released in 2015 rather than 2005 it very well could’ve been.

Although she predated the alt-country renaissance by a few years, Kathleen Edwards achieved the pinnacle of the genre in Back To Me.

Zoe Records/2005