|
| |
Veda Hille
This Riot Life
(Ape House)
Douglas Heselgrave's #7 album for 2008
First Appeared in The Music Box, June 2008, Volume 15, #6
Written by Douglas Heselgrave
Fri June 20, 2008, 06:30 AM CDT
A week has passed, and I have done nothing but listen to This Riot Life,
the latest effort from Vancouver-based songwriter Veda Hille. The grass is
growing, the sink is full of dishes, and my daughter’s bicycle tire has gone
flat. Really, though, I don’t have a problem. I can stop listening to her record
any time I want and take care of all of the other things in my life that matter.
I just don’t want to.
Music writers love making lists of records they’d take to a desert island.
Journals are full of such hypothetical compilations, and I make them myself at
least twice a year. This Riot Life has put me in a dither. While
listening to the effort, I often wonder if there are any other records a person
would need to take with them if they were instantly transported to such a remote
locale. With This Riot Life, Veda Hille has created a collection of songs
that really encapsulates just about everything that is good about words set to
music. This is quite a claim to make, I know. However, the more that I listen to
This Riot Life, the more convinced I become that it is an album with very
few peers.
Since releasing her first independent cassette of tuneful and witty
observations about urban life in 1992, Veda Hille quietly has built a reputation
in Canada and Europe as a performer of quirky music with interesting melodies.
Not content simply to toil away around the fringes of the folk music scene,
Hille has spent her career diving right into every interesting, creative
opportunity that has presented itself. From orchestral pop to odes to plant life
to hymns about the vastness of the Yukon skyline, Hille’s body of recorded work
embraces a whole range of concerns and aesthetic experiences. Fearless and
funny, Hille is a true artist who appears completely unfettered by form and
convention, and her courageousness has allowed her to evolve into one of the
most interesting singers and performers in the world today. Recent commissions
from prestigious patrons such as the CBC Orchestra, Push Theatre, and the
acclaimed Leaky Heaven Circus have pushed her into a variety of situations — all
of which have deepened her art and allowed her to continue developing her music.
Lyrically speaking, the themes that Veda Hille explores on This Riot Life
are rather intense. Her delicate health as well as a brush with her own
mortality have inspired her to create music that manages to be deep,
entertaining, and humorous, all at the same time. Drawing upon everything from
The Song of Songs to a poem by William Cowper to lines from her
grandmother’s old hymnal, This Riot Life is an unconventional exploration
of the many faces of spirituality. If, however, the idea of another
singer-songwriter sharing her personal epiphanies is too much to bear, don’t
despair. The material on This Riot Life is anything but depressing.
Hille’s lyrics often embrace the playfulness of e.e. cummings’ poetry, though
they also are tempered by an uneasiness that is inspired by Laurie Anderson.
Sometimes, it is difficult to grapple with these opposing textures, but it
always is exciting to hear how Hille brings them together.
Shifting narrative voices in songs populated by sleepless children, misguided
saints, Nazarene Aces, and workers in a Japanese bath house all come together
within Hille’s work to create a universe that is inhabited by the most quirky
characters this side of Bob Dylan’s Desolation Row. Addressing topics that
range from birth and death to the trickiness of love and the mysteries of sex,
Hille leaves no stone unturned as she and the characters in her songs explore
what it is we’re meant to do and what we are meant to take with us after our
brief time on Earth has ended.
There are both an academic sensibility and a Brecht-ian theatricality
informing some of the music that Hille conjures, but her compositions are too
joyous and creative to become puffed up by their own importance. Her ideas are
too searching and hopeful to be weighed down by cliché.
If William Blake had written music after having visions of Job in the belly of
the whale, it might have sounded something like what Hille concocted for This
Riot Life. Throughout the disc, the songs are imbued with playful, magical
qualities that elevate her heavy but intriguing subject matter.
Reminiscent of everything from The Beatles dressed in its Sgt. Pepper’s
Lonely Hearts Club Band-era regalia to harpist Joanna Newsom’s progressive
rock-inspired, mini symphonies, This Riot Life is an aural delight, from
beginning to end. Some of the tunes embrace the kind of chamber pop that is
favored by artists such as Rufus Wainwright and Antony and the Johnsons. In the
swirling cadences of Hille’s music, one can also hear shades of Kate Bush while
other arrangements contain the hypnotic quality of Phillip Glass’ best work. In
the end, however, as it is with all good art, comparisons are fruitless. They
suggest a direction, and they provide an idea of what to expect. Truthfully,
Hille’s music is so focused and individual in its intent that it doesn’t really
sound like anyone else’s at all.
One of the most compelling aspects of the instrumentation on This Riot
Life is how perfectly it supports the subject matter of the songs, thereby
mirroring the arc of Hille’s voice as she sings. The buoyancy of her melodies
often disguises the obvious care that she took to create music that complements
her lyrics. In a fashion that is similar to Paul Simon and Brian Eno’s stellar
collaboration on Surprise, it often appears that each musical phrase on This Riot Life was painstakingly constructed to reflect and elevate
individual words or stanzas inside of the material. Throughout the album, the
melding of lyrics and music that Hille achieves is truly something at which to
marvel.
From the gently plucked strings that introduce the opening track lucklucky
to the crashing, romantic opus The Trees that draws the set to its
conclusion, This Riot Life is a very special listening experience.
Because of her reputation for composing challenging music, Hille was able to
enlist the help of some of the best country, jazz, and classical musicians on
the West Coast for help in illuminating the project. Jesse Zubot’s beautiful
violin solo on Oh Come On and Sal Ferreras’ vibes, marimba, and
percussion accents on Book of Saints and Soapland Serenade are
just a few of the instrumental highlights on the record. Yet, as good as her
backing band is, each of the songs finds its voice through Hille’s piano
playing. Because of her unusual phrasing and time signatures, the quirkiness of
Hille’s accompaniment on tracks like The Book of Saints recalls
Thelonious Monk. On other selections, such as Cowper’s Folly and Sleepers,
her deliberate notes are rich and vibrant, blessed with a grounding tonal
quality that seems to resonate from somewhere deep within the Earth’s core,
thereby making the incorporation of a bass completely unnecessary.
With its embedded mini, chamber suite lead by a clarinet that is reminiscent
of Benny Goodman’s challenging collaborations with Bela Bartok, Shining Forth
is, perhaps, the most compelling song on This Riot Life. From there,
Hille goes deeply into lush-life territory with Oh Come On, where she
devises arrangements that would make Rufus Wainwright and Brian Wilson scream
with envy. It is no exaggeration to suggest that Hille is poised at the
forefront of songwriters who write in a pop-orchestral vein.
Like many other ambitious projects, there are so many ideas contained within
This Riot Life that one risks the danger of becoming exhausted by it.
Yet, this never happens because Hille’s latest effort is a model of arrangement
and pacing. Like a Grateful Dead concert when the band has taken the audience
deep into the primal soup only to pull them out of their psychedelic overload by
covering a tune by Chuck Berry, Hille knows just when to throw her listeners a
musical life raft. Just as things are in danger of blurring into a delightful
cacophony, a piercing clarinet sound will clear the air, and a tango beat will
come along to carry the audience back to dry land.
In today’s market-driven music industry, artists with Hille’s scope are
becoming so rare that one almost never encounters them. Perhaps she should have
been born in Vienna or Florence hundreds of years ago when the old system of
patronage would have allowed her art to blossom, flower, and bear fruit. Lucky
for us she is alive now, and with any luck, there will be plenty of chances to
hear more of her music in the future. Bold, witty, and articulate, Hille should
be protected, nurtured, and declared a national treasure. Her work is important
and beautiful, and the world is a better place because of her art. 
Of Further Interest...
Antony and the Johnsons - I Am a Bird Now
Kris Delmhorst - Strange Conversation
Brian Wilson - Smile
This Riot Life is available from
Amazon. To order, Click Here!
For Canadian orders, please
Click Here!
For UK orders, please
Click Here!
Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2008 The Music Box
|
