The Blue God - Martina Topley-Bird Album Review

Martina Topley Bird

Album Review

Everything seems alternative these days.

Now we get alternative pop. Cool. Finally, former Tricky collaborator breaks loose.

It seems like an eternity since MTB’s debut Quixotic. Well, it is five years after all. Having built her reputation with trip-hop pioneer Tricky, she now enlists Gnarls Barkley supremo Brian ‘Danger Mouse’ Burton at the controls. It falls somewhere between Morcheeba stylings (MTB sounds distinctly like Morcheeba’s Skye..and just occasionally Cerys Matthews) and pop quirkiness (Bjork comes to mind), but not that whacky. Her second album takes some getting to know, but as I’ve found after several rotations, it gets under your skin. Martina says of her music, "Music is as much about challenging the audience as tapping into the creative flow…I’m interested in using music as a way of exploring the emotional layers in life.” She adds,” Brian is a huge Anglophile, and the album is very visual sounding. I wanted there to be a sonic manifesto as well as a lyrical one, and I think that’s been achieved." Recorded over three months in LA last year, the production is a sumptuous as you expect from ‘DM’ fusing psychedelic pop riffs, Hollywood glitz, ambient interludes, chiaroscuro, and futuristic pop noir. Considering the melting pot, it remains very much a British album, sympathetically overseen by ‘DM’. It’s a cool synth opening on the understated groove of Phoenix, and we begin to wonder if it’s all down to studio wizardry and soulless music. Thankfully it isn’t because catchy beat-laden single Carnies has a real band feel, though April Groove disappoints because of the artificiality of the production, but an edgy guitar solo shatters the illusion. We hit a high point on the next two. Gorgeous Baby Blue is an out-and-out pop gem moved by some shifting sticks and textured instruments and the soaring chorus propelled by MTB’s finest and sweetest vocals. Twanging and echoed 60s styled guitar introduces trip-hoppy ballad Shangri La boosted by distanced heavenly backups providing the album with a more widescreen soundscape. Da Da Da Da is complex and simple in equal parts shifting one way then the other, but it works beautifully, which must have been a ‘tricky’ challenge for Danger Mouse. Poison owes much to the 60s as it does to now, a clever fusing of musical templates.

Happy-go-lucky Razor Tongue is a lyricless synth-based tune, full of sunny vibes and wiry guitar solos. Complexity resurfaces on Yesterday. Sampled voices, complex drum movements, ambience, synth-squeals thrown into the pot to prove she’s no one ‘trick’ pony, and not shy of pushing the boundaries, when she chooses.

File under :Grower

Elly Roberts