The Wave Pictures – Brushes With Happiness
Moshi Moshi Records – 22 June 2018
The Wave Pictures have reached the stage in their career where they’ve earned the right to experiment. Frontman Dave Tattersall has already established himself as one of the best guitarists of his generation, as well as being a clever, sad, funny lyricist in the tradition of Jonathan Richman or Darren Hayman. The band, completed by Franic Rozycki on bass and drummer Jonny Helm, are renowned for high energy live performances and are equally capable whether tackling grungy rock, African-inspired desert blues or melodic indie-pop choruses. Given that range of influence and breadth of talent, it is no surprise that the opening track on their latest album, The Red Suitcase, sounds like both a searing mission statement and a heartfelt autobiographical document.
The Red Suitcase is a slow-burning slab of midnight blues with a lengthy vocal coda – ‘waving to the waves, waving to the waving sunflowers’ – which situates it somewhere between Hey Jude and Songs: Ohia’s Farewell Transmission. There is also the hint of Vincent Van Gogh, and not just in the images of sunflowers, but in the way the whole thing is put together: a bold but subtle palette, confident strokes, immediacy. And it is this immediacy that brings me back to what I said at the start of this review about the experimentation in this record, because it all becomes even more impressive when you realise that Brushes With Happiness was recorded entirely live and unrehearsed in single, late-night takes. Indeed, with the exception of Tattersall’s lyrics, which were written beforehand but not shown to the other band members, the whole thing was pretty much improvised, made up on the spot with only booze and bonhomie to help.
It’s not the first time The Wave Pictures have used this tactic. 2016’s A Season In Hull was similarly off-the-cuff. But the results here are if anything even more impressive than that excellent record: the sound is more ragged, more intimate, and the songs are stronger. The atmospheric Rise Up is an excellent showcase for the spacious, muted template set out by the rhythm section, the perfect bedrock for Tattersall’s minor-key tale. The song exists on the lonely street corner where the emotions of blues meet the improvisations of jazz. Jim is tighter, an example of how the band can add melody to mood, while Laces is songwriting laid bare: the track growing out of its elemental components before our very ears. When Tattersall’s typically smouldering guitar solo comes to an end you are left wondering how something so complete can be formed so quickly out of the limited ingredients at hand.
The Little Window – complete with false start – is an audacious, partly spoken-word piece of London psychogeography, full of deadpan observations. Elsewhere, alongside the usual Wave Pictures signifiers (clever lyrics, scintillating guitar), Tattersall is not afraid to get up close and personal with older, perhaps less obvious influences like Van Morrison or, on Crow Jane, early Fleetwood Mac. The Burnt Match is cheeky, chipper and almost surreal in its imagery, while the musical details – xylophone, Helm’s impressive martial drum rolls – further add to its odd wonder. And the simmering closer, Volcano, is a masterpiece of lyrical description, the banal rubbing shoulders with the portentous and the symbolic.
Since their debut in 2003, The Wave Pictures have been releasing albums at the rate of more than one a year, and they’ve got another one lined up for later in 2018. For a band with such an output, they have had very few missteps. Brushes With Happiness is another winner, an album of raw emotion and even rawer musicianship from one of the UK’s most underrated bands.