Having already produced a hot contender for album of the year in ‘Lit’, Pennan Brae returns with ‘Cinema’. Kicking off with ‘A Nightmare’, a 60s flavoured song that could have come straight off Sgt Peppers, we are in a different world from the Power Pop of Lit. We are in the 70s for ‘Mississippi Love Song’ with strings, accordion and backing vocals from Alison Jenkins. Jenkins is one of a number of duet partners on the album. Tianna Ireland features on ‘The Poor Storyteller’ alternating verses with Brae. Overall it is another 70s influenced set, full of the strings that feature all across the album. He has gone for a rather different way of doing things compared to lean Stones inspired rock of his last couple of records. In fact the strings and voices take the heavy lifting that might have been guitar riffs on another album. ‘Taste The Pain’, a song that talks about frustration over more distant voices and strings.
‘Anyways’ is a gentler song, Springsteen piano with a violin part straight off Pachelbel’s Canon. Baroque and Roll? A Tremelo guitar solo puts us back in 1967 again, before fading back to the Piano and Violin. Having been listening to the single remix of Weed & Whisky Women for a while, the pedal steel powered album version was a surprise. Having taken to the single this is the song, I took longest to connect with on the album so far. The Southern Rock styling of it is growing with each listen, with the solo and closing section having more than a touch of Rolling Stones at their finest. At least he’s spelt whisky right! Last album track proper is the slow, ‘Vancity Blues’. Singer Rebecca Lam is featured over a classic blues riff, and guitar solo.
The album closes with three radically different remixes. On ‘A Nightmare – Full Moon Mix’ a Casio drum machine gives way to 80s disco synths. It’s 1985 all over again. ‘Weed & Whisky Women (Distilled Mix)’ sticks with the 80s with a PiL bass line, although the heavily treated voices are right out of now. I wasn’t sure about this originally, but it has grown and the dub feel of the mix is infectious. I compared it to some of Thomas Dolby’s later albums elsewhere, and that is a decent enough comparison. Lastly we have ‘Mississippi Love Song – Riverside Mix’. A vocoder-ised spelling of the difficult word is a great idea for a rhythm track. The accordion and violin makes the cut into the new mix leaving us with a Techno-Zydeco-Celtic fusion.
In interviews Brae has described this as an experimental album, and hinted at a another one in the works that is more guitar driven. I hope he hangs on to some of the ideas here because most of it works. The fact that he has thrown the kitchen sink, in fact the whole food preparation area, at the album makes it a wonderfully over the top experience. I have been picking out new bits buried in the songs on each listen, and that is what brings you back for more. The “I hadn’t heard that before” moment of something different. Another star album for Pennan Brae and his collaborators, producer Kaj Falch-Nielsen, and mix engineer Kirk Kelsey.
