Who By Fire

65. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Ease Down The Road (2001)

Everyone knows how Will Oldham was an unsatisfied actor, hanging with Slint, then became Palace, paving the way for the alt country music of the 90's. He built from the bottom up a new rural American music referencing the old weird America of Harry Parch and 'I wish I was a mole in the ground', with the underground DIY attitudes of 90's groups like Pavement and Sebadoh. Well in 1998 Oldham began to use the moniker Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and has never looked back. Whilst the Palace records contained rickety songs of rambling, depression, sex, love, violence and death; Bonnie sang similar subject matter but in a more accomplished, fun, and humorous way. Some songs are goddamn laugh out loud funny. With the song 'Death to Everyone' from masterpiece I See a Darkness (1999), Bonnie sang 'death to me, death to you, tell me what else can we do die do'.

If Palace then is Oldhams Songs of Love and Hate, then Bonnie's records start with New Skin for the Old Ceremony, and like Leonard Cohen the subject matter is similar, the humour is black, and by far the most common theme is relationships and sex, and like Leonard, Bonnie never reveals his true motives even in the most tender ballads. Also like Leonard, Bonnie's voice can inhabit a song with remarkably minimal backgrounds, the voice is what you listen for.

Bonnie's second outing 'Ease Down the Road' allowed Oldham to finally shed the shackles of indie underachievement and Lo-fi Pavementations, and in this way Bonnie was more able to be like Oldham than Oldham ever could be, embracing jackass style comedy, R&B and cheese. The character became three dimensional. Ease down the road mainly concerns, relationships on the move, masculine power and sex. The opener 'May it Always Be' plays out like a declaration of love, but mischievous Bonnie has to add 'come with me when I go into the bedroom, and we'll play bride and groom'. A King at Night meanwhile has resonances of Neil Youngs Thrasher where friends and relationships are left in the dust as the protagonist goes his singular selfish way, Bonnie understands the consequences as the King in the song is prepared to face the bloodshed to come for the fun, power and glory at his disposal.

Interestingly Oldham is a big fan (along with Nick Cave) of very late period Elvis, seeing no artifice in elaborate costumes, flowers, massive choirs, sentimentality and country funk; Oldham sees only honesty and truth, so honest that sometimes we have to look away.

At Break of Day is Bonnie in search of a certain night time company, 'Dawn is mine and I will share it, with whatever bird will wear it, on her body bare and pink'.

The centerpiece of the album is the title track, a story where Bonnie takes a woman to see her firefighter husbands family, and seduces her on the journey, persuades her to have sex with him then eases on down the road. Bonnie begins the journey with ill intention 'answering the call of awkward and true feeling'. Bonnie has little care for the husband and boasts he 'duly tied to light a fire, upon his rightful booty', Bonnie may admit to 'a little guilt and some guilt spilt' (hmm). However deep down Bonnie is a fun but lonely guy, as the most revealing line suggests 'strange is good if it is kept, a secret with "the lovers", who love their mates, and love themselves, and need the love of others.

Related vids

Cecil Taylor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP5L8tjnB6w
Curtis Roads
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajdRGF5NHIs
Coil
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7xEOgRazg4
Bernard Parmegiani
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk86s3v-iLA
Stockhausen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XfeWp2y1Lk
Cubic 22 - Night in motion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYBlxKP0bXU
Hassim - al-naafiysh the soul
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7H_gGA7Qr4

Autechre vids

Dropp (1999)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWGUnrIiOoI
Ganz Graf (2002)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4ZwTUUue1w
Lentic Catachresis (2001)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b2Wp9wELq8

66. Autechre - Confield (2001)

Rochdale sons Rob Brown & Sean Booth make up Autechre, who along with Aphex Twin, have best represented the ethos of Sheffield's Warp records. Especially as when recent years have seen Warp increasingly interested in indie stylings Autechre remain resolutely forward looking and future focused. The sci-fi future of techno that Autechre envision is complex and demanding but repays effort and has at it's centre a human heart and surprisingly transparent influences.

Autechre were 80's kids into b-boy culture, electro, graffiti and breakdancing outside the local Morrison's on a cardboard sheet, then came of age during the 91 Ardkore scene, when they had already a white label pressed. The sound progressed through techno, ambient but quickly became too complicated for dancing and so was labelled IDM, possibly the least attractive moniker for a musical style ever. John Peel had the best quote on IDM, 'I just want to hear the really stupid stuff'.

Late 90's Autechre began to stray from established techno templates by using atomised sounds, tuned polyrhythmic drums, imagine if Belgian Ardkore crew Cubic 22 was programmed by Cecil Taylor. Whilst melodies became oblique washes of colour, electro references were there in abstract timbres and rhythmic flourishes.

Confield is considered the moment where Autechre are at there most brain scrambling and esoteric, taking influence from Coil, granular synthesis, Musique Concrete & Bernard Parmegiani, best heard in final track Lentic Catachresis. Ten years on Confield remains just as rewarding and confusing as ever and is also remarkably visual music as evidenced by the videos, the tracks always put you in mind of a shape, colour, mood. Opinion remains divided about post 2000 Autechre, as either the point they became unlistenable and left the audience behind, or fans of the current era, such as I, who believe there remain codes and puzzles to be cracked from the steely maze of Confields grooves, we may even discover the missing quark.