Citizen Bravo, Raymond MacDonald & Friends – Return To Y’hup: The World Of Ivor Cutler
Chemikal Underground – Out Now
The late and much-lamented “oblique musical philosopher” Ivor Cutler, who died in 2006 aged 83, was a Scottish poet, songwriter and storyteller-humorist with a genuinely unique and entirely uncompromising artistic vision. He possessed a distinctive performance style – a splendidly dour and deadpan delivery, most often accompanying himself on an ancient harmonium. His career spanned 45 years from 1959, during which he made countless appearances on radio, including sessions for Radio 4 and Andy Kershaw and an inordinately large number for John Peel (more than any other artist except for The Fall, it transpires!). He was something of a fringe/cult figure and (inevitably) an acquired taste – those listeners who fell readily under Ivor’s spell found his unabashed eccentricity intensely endearing, while those who didn’t, tended to regard him more with benign puzzlement than malign antipathy. Either way, although his works would invariably appear by turns overly whimsical, pithy, laconic, surreal, obscure or even nonsensical or childishly simplistic, the “method in their madness” has over time (and on closer scrutiny) revealed a canny degree of substance and percipient commentary. His offbeat, skewed worldview chimed with successive generations. It appealed to many of the most notable minds of the eras through which he lived, from Bertrand Russell to the Beatles (in whose Magical Mystery Tour film he memorably appeared). Thus, those who can legitimately claim influence from Ivor are legion (and too numerous to begin citing here). Most relevant here, though, chief among these are the supremos of the Citizen Bravo experimental collective responsible for instigating the Return To Y’Hup project – Raymond MacDonald (saxophonist with Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra) and Matt Brennan (drummer, researcher and founder of Zoey Van Goey), who, with producers Malcolm Benzie (eagleowl, Withered Hand) and Andy Monaghan (Frightened Rabbit) and a host of cameo collaborators, have in essence re-created Ivor’s special mini-universe.
Those new to the concept mentioned above will require a few words of explanation. Arguably the most coherently realised of the various imaginary “worlds” created and inhabited by Ivor Cutler was the fantasy island of Y’Hup (pronounced “ya-hoop!”), of which he often claimed to be a citizen (for all that he was born in Govan, Glasgow!). Fittingly, then, the very first voice you hear on this album is Ivor’s own, cordially inviting us to disembark from the briny ocean (as it were) and step onto his island world. Ivor crops up in person only sporadically thereafter. Still, he’s indelibly and permanently felt through his words and music – and through the unifying presence of his own vintage harmonium, which was specially imported into the studio and also onto the stage for the Celtic Connections gig of this special project at the end of last month. Return To Y’Hup, then, is a celebration of the life and work of Ivor Cutler, with the underlying purpose and concept of resurrecting the mythical island through new arrangements of his musical and poetical pieces involving a host of distinct Scottish voices from that land’s vibrant indie/alt-folk/left-field music scene. The pieces comprising this album, although drawn from different phases of Ivor’s career, nevertheless mostly encompass, or are related in some way to, the central concept or theme of Y’Hup island, the existence of which was first propounded on the first of Ivor’s own record releases, an EP neatly entitled Ivor Cutler Of Y’Hup, which originally appeared in 1959.
The first section of this celebratory tribute record presents creative contemporary reworkings of the EP’s seven tracks which stay faithful to the spirit of the originals. In this sequence we encounter such gems as Size Nine And A Half (voiced by Emma Pollock of The Delgados and Burns Unit); the insouciant Pickle Your Knees (with Karine Polwart clearly enjoying herself enormously in this janglesome setting); Gravity Begins At Home, on which an unruffled Rick Redbeard (Rick Anthony from The Phantom Band) makes the upside-down fantasy world seem almost the natural scheme of things; and The Boo Boo Bird, brilliantly (if somewhat disturbingly) characterised by singer/“pedal steel queen” Heather Leigh. Sensibly interpolated among these pieces are three brief (spoken) explanatory interludes, the text of which is adapted from the introductory sleeve-notes of Ivor’s two early EPs. In the first of these inserts, fellow-poet Phyllis King (with whom Ivor had a 40-year romance and who recites on some of the later IC albums), acts as our guide to Latitude And Longitude, a brief location-mapping of Y’Hup.
The album’s progress then sidesteps the second of Ivor’s early EPs (Get Away From The Wall) to roam at random through his later catalogue. Key inclusions are the four especially pertinent items from Ivor’s first LP release (1961), these containing some of the disc’s most memorable interpretations: a supremely edgy, jittery personification of Muscular Tree, where Glasgow singer-songwriter Megan Airlie is backed by the avant-garde Limelight Ensemble; the cautionary tale of A Tooth Song (featuring a David Byrne-like Adam Stafford, whose former band was the appropriately-named Y’All Is Fantasy Island!); and Who Tore Your Trousers James, a nervy and angsty dialogue between Rachel Sermanni and Chris Thomson. There’s also the charming Sh Chi, which is delicately voiced by Belle & Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch. This is one of several items which complement the central Y’Hup theme by conveying Ivor’s childlike delight in the wonders of the natural world; others in that category include Yellow Fly (sung by Kris Drever) and (of course) I Believe In Bugs (whispered by Jo Mango to a slinky calypso rhythm).
Further on in, we can revel in the quirky delights of The Path (recited cryptically by Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite); the helter-skelter Madness-style mayhem of Johnny Lynch (aka Pictish Trail)’s take on Good Morning! How Are You? Shut Up!; and a gloriously ramshackle scratch a-cappella ensemble performance of I Got No Common Sense (from 1975’s Velvet Donkey LP); against a quivering flutey backdrop, James Yorkston reads A Real Man, an honest declaration of vulnerability whose text is taken from a poem in Ivor’s 1999 collection South American Bookworm; and Robert Wyatt contributes the pithy Out Of Decency (from 1997’s A Wet Handle). Camera Obscura’s Traceyanne Campbell leads the stirring world-music vibe of Ivor’s 1983 anthem of empowerment Women Of The World, and the Ludo-sourced track Shoplifters inspires a shifty electropop collaboration by Indian-indie fusion artist Future Pilot AKA and alt-rock duo Stranded Astronaut. On the closing item, Beautiful Cosmos, Anne Miles duets in a recreation of the touching Jammy Smears track depicting the simple relationship between Ivor and Phyllis (unfortunately here, right at the very end, striking the album’s only false note with the use of a chipmunk-style vocal effect).
A principal glory of Return To Y’Hup is its ingenious deployment of a roster of artists, all of whom are self-confessed Cutler fans, who might also thus be considered to represent his cultural descendants. Each, being a fan, is able to dig beneath the deadpan and arrive at a dramatic interpretation of Ivor’s words that refuse to undervalue his achievement or undermine his own identity. Of course, there should (and indeed could) be no attempt, however well-intentioned, to emulate the master’s voice or his individual delivery. Nevertheless, the assembled collection of talents paints a convincingly affectionate portrait of the artist, not just as the young man (well, comparatively so) of those early EPs but also the respected elder statesman of surreal whimsy, a figure that he retained almost casually well into his 80s and the onset of dementia. And, importantly, the oddball nature of Ivor’s original creations is – albeit perhaps surprisingly – both retained and further developed for our age. I say “surprisingly”, in view of the relatively few cover versions of Ivor’s works – Nic Jones’ take on I’m Going In A Field being one notable exception. Indeed, I was half-expecting that opus to crop up here, along with the perennially popular Gruts for Tea, one of Cutler’s most beloved bits. (I understand that a total of close on 40 of Ivor’s idiosyncratic works were performed during the Celtic Connections show, so one may reasonably assume that these might have been included…).
Return To Y’Hup is available in both CD and double-vinyl-LP format as well as digitally, and as per the wishes of Ivor’s son Jeremy Cutler, proceeds from the album will be donated to the registered mental health charity The Philadelphia Association (which was founded by Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing, a contemporary of Ivor’s). This suitably idiosyncratic (and mildly heady) exploration of Ivor’s creative world serves as a loving homage and sincere tribute, and compellingly illustrates why the estimable Mr Cutler was both of and out of, and yet also quite some measure ahead of, his time. This project abundantly and generously achieves its aim of re-affirming Ivor Cutler’s status as a “national treasure”.
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