If you've listened closely to The National's Alligator, you will
have noticed the wonderful, very subtle use of classical instruments —
strings primarily — to deepen and enrich the group's sounds. Here Padma
Newsome,
the sixth, unofficial member of The National, brings his ideas to the
foreground, working with National guitarist Bryce Dessner, Rachael Elliott
and Thomas Kozumplik to weave nuanced, achingly beautiful chamber
compositions.
These cuts linger somewhere outside the traditional
boundaries that separate experimental pop from classical music. Despite
the participation of Newsome, Dessner and, on one track, his brother Aaron
on bass, Clogs are not a side project of The National. In fact, they've been
around longer than that band — and their new album, Lantern, the
fourth full-length, deserves to be considered wholly on its own merits.
The disc starts with the very beautiful "Kapsberger," a shimmering
meditation on a baroque lute composition by Johann Hieroynmus Kapsberger,
here played on baroque guitar by Luca Tarantino. The second cut, "Canon,"
is far more modern, with its lingering bassoon tones and slow ritual
beat. The melodica, a hybrid of keyboard and wind instrument, makes its
first appearance in this track, sounding like an especially melancholy
accordion as it winds its way through the melody. The piece was written by
Charles-Eric Charrier and Rasim Biyikli of Man, a French duo that favors
the same string and melodica palette as Clogs and has sometimes
collaborated with the band. These first two are the only tracks not
primarily composed by Newsome, yet there's no sharp break between them and
the originals that follow. Perhaps the string parts come further to the
front, dense and full of urgency on "5/4," wistful and haunting by "2:3:5",
and lushly romantic in the Gypsy-tinged "Death and the Maiden." Yet
there's a continuity to the album as a whole that transcends multiple
inspirations.
Midway through the album comes the title track, the only one with
words. The vocals arise late in the game from a flickering landscape of
scraped violin, soft steel drums (or some keyboard that sounds like them)
and reticent picked guitars. Newsome's voice is high and pure, but
definitely within the pop tradition, making this sound more like a song
than a composition, blurring the boundaries a little further between
instrumental rock experiment and chamber-music tradition. It is odd and
very moving to hear a human voice emerging out of these carefully
considered instrumental textures, and the cut is clearly a
highlight.
Still, it might be the difference that makes it so. A whole
album of such songs might well be more ordinary and less interesting than
what we have with Lantern. The disc returns to its opening mood with "Tides
of Washington Bridge," the melodica snaking in and out of subtle
and shifting dual-picked guitar lines. "Song of the Cricket" picks up the
intensity, skirting chaos in its instrumental breakdown, then setting
things to order with a precise bout of staccato bassoon and
strings. There's a pristine delicacy to the plucked patterns of
"Fiddlegree," a rough balance of sweep and punctuation in "Compass," and a
very 21st-century urgency to pulsating "Voisins." The final cut "Tides
(Piano)" is, as the title suggests, all piano, exquisite and thoughtful, a
slowed-down trill of matched notes under a melody that seems punctuated by
question marks.
There have been a number of classical-leaning projects recently from
musicians more closely associated with rock bands — Belle Orchestre (with
members of Arcade Fire), Anima (who typically accompany Sigur Rós),
Anti-Social Music (Franz Nicolay of the Hold Steady) — and this one is
exceptionally beautiful and assured. Don't be put off by the classical
label, or worry that it might take a lot of background to understand and
appreciate Lantern. It's all right there in the music, and all you
have to do is listen.
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