…not a reference to last week’s somewhat out of place Chrimbo tunes from the Fence Collective, but instead a line from Malcolm Middleton’s excellent new album, Into the Woods. Which I’ve been mentioning on here for ages without actually owning a copy. But now, lucky for me, and for you lucky people who get to hear what I think about it, I have actually shelled out some shiny golden beer tokens, and bought the damn thing.
I’ve been listening to Middleton with foul foil Aiden Moffat via the mighty Arab Strap (the band for whom Belle & Sebastian’s 1998 track and album ‘The Boy with the Arab Strap’ was named, fact fans; anyone fancy taking a pop at which t.v. show featured an instrumental version of the track as it’s theme?) for ages now, and have always been massively entertained/appalled by the sheer filth and misery that spew out of the Strap’s dark, dark mind. Broken relationships, seedy sexual shenanigans taking place in alleys, unfaithfulness (“It was the biggest cock you’d ever seen / But you’d no idea where that cock had been / You said you were careful, you never were with me / I heard you did it four times / But johnnies come in packs of three”, ‘Packs of Three’), tales all told in a downbeat tone and with often the barest of even-further-downbeat melodies; characters unable to commit to a relationship, or be committed to in return (the album title ‘Philophobia’ literally translating as ‘fear of love’). And yet, often uncovering a golden heart in everyday heartbreak, as an unnamed narrator describes to an ex the reasons he can’t go back to her for a one night stand, taking his own stand against easy infidelity; (“And you can’t remember how she kissed, and now you’ve got the chance to find out / but you have to remember there’s this other kiss / and she’s sitting at home, wondering where you are / and what you’re doing / and you worked hard on this kiss and you know it inside out, and it’s as much yours as it is hers / and it took a long time to get right / two months of practice and months of embarassment / and now you’ve got it perfect / and you’ve been looking forward to that kiss all week”, ‘New Birds’).
Yet even with other projects there remains a dark heart to Middleton and Moffat’s writing; guest spots on both Reindeer Section albums (led by Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol fame, but featuring members of practically every band on the planet) have seen a marriage of Lightbody’s lighter musical material with some equally depressive lyrics (“You crack a joke about a mid-life crisis / but realistically, I’m already half way gone / my eyes are wet when I’m watching the telly / I’m completely sober and I’m not even sure what’s on”, ‘Whodunnit’). Perhaps a solo career will bring with it a slightly cheerier mode of mind?
It might appear to with a first listen to ‘Into the Woods’, which brings some incredibly sunny pop (yes! pop!) style tunes; fantastically self-referential opener ‘Break my heart’ begins with an upbeat burst, sustained throughout the whole song, even if it doesn’t seem like that can be possible from the opening lines; “You’re gonna break my heart I know it / but if you don’t / you’re gonna break my run of unhappiness / destroy my career”. Yet while the song suggests that break up and heartbreak are the inevitable results of any relationship, it goes on to document the relationship’s strength; if the relationship is going to end, then it appears that it can only happen if Middleton himself ends it from sheer bloody mindedness.
And the album retains and builds on this happier foundation; going via a few darker spots, sure, but there’s nothing here as relentless as the misery found on the Arab Strap material. Middleton hasn’t lost his downhearted edge; “Last year I got knives at Christmas / Stayed at home and no-one missed us / lying on the bathroom floor / don’t wanna ho ho ho no more”, ‘Burst Noel’. But for any darkness, there’s twice, three times as much in the way of the lighter side of life; these aren’t easy relationships, it’s true, but Middleton expresses a warmth and a tenderness born from what, going by previous output, must have been a pretty huge amount of being a miserable bastard.
This is a record that suggests, both musically and lyrically, that there is relationship redemption for all, even including the most sceptical, bloody minded bastards out there. If going into the woods is a classic fairy tale beginning, suggestive of danger as well as adventure, here it seems that there just might also be the possibility of a happy ending (even if it might just not be forever…). As in all the best fairy tales, no risk, and no gain; for once Middleton seems to think that the risk was worth it.
