Laura Cortese & The Dance Cards – Bitter Better
Compass – 17 July 2020
Laura Cortese’s four-piece band have already been widely recognised as something of a progressive folk outfit. They are a quartet of string players who all sing and whose primary instruments are fiddles, cellos and the double bass. But the sound that such a combo might conjure up in your mind, a cacophony of sweeping bowed strings perhaps, really is nothing close to what you actually hear on record. Neither is it overly experimental or difficult, yet the results are often ground-breaking and unique. Maybe this is because when together, for every period this group spend working and developing material, they also love to dance, which is something that positively bounces out from their music. They are full of life; even when contemplating its ups and downs, there’s an energy and vitality to the work. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that ‘Bitter Better’ is very much a modern pop record, albeit one that’s made by people who have soaked up the folk tradition and are more than comfortable with classical instrumentations and structures.
Still, that Pop comment is, I believe, wholly accurate. The quartet is actually an eight-piece in terms of the players listed on the sleeve notes. As well as Laura and her fiddle along with the usual array of strings are guitars, pianos, synthesisers, keyboards and percussion, and they are certainly not used sparingly. I can hear so much of the eighties in here, a flash of Hall & Oates spins in your mind one minute, the next you sense that Laura is purring in a rather Stevie Nicks like manner. And it’s all rather delightful. Take the song ‘Younger Man’ as an example; it opens as an aching soul ballad with a pure string quartet backdrop. But quick as a flash a stamping beat appears followed by a free-flowing fiddle solo which extends boundlessly before the whole thing combines into a splendid eruption of energised, folky, pounding sound. This is unpredictable music that follows its own rules and is all the better for it.
‘Bitter Better’ has been fortunate enough to enjoy an unrushed gestation period, which may be the reason the end product has so much strength and gravitas. For six months, Laura had to stay in Ghent, Belgium, to obtain her residency there. So, with a stretch ahead that for once wasn’t going to be interrupted by touring and other disruptive commitments, she was able to allow her new songs to come to life at their own pace. Fragments would be written at home on the harmonium with the rhythms being tapped out on her lap. Laura would write about the state of the world and her own life within it at a pace that, again, allowed thoughts and words to emerge as she processed these feelings in her head.
That un-rushed nurturing of her creativity has resulted in some really strong material for this new album. Stuff that can really spike your attention, in amongst the poetic imagery some hard-hitting real-life debris can jump out of nowhere. ‘From The Ashes’ is an excellent example of what I’m talking about here. Essentially this is a song that appears to ponder passage and the endless cycle of life. “I come from the ashes of what was begun, what will begin again” she sings while images of fruit trees, suspension bridges and backyard cartwheels flash before your eyes like you’re flicking through an old box of hazy polaroid’s dug out of the attic. Then the devastating line “I come from parents who almost never spoke to one another, after I was three years old” arrives and you have suddenly shot way beyond nostalgia. This is the real stuff; I don’t know enough about Laura Cortese to state whether that lyric is merely excellent writing or a poignant bit of real-life pain but the way she sings it, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it was the latter.
There is no messing about with the sequencing, the album front loads with a pair of absolute scorchers. Eleven songs later though you realise that this is a set that doesn’t dip in quality. But to just focus on that opening pair, ‘Treat You Better’ is immediate, hooky and what would have once been thought of as a sure-fire radio hit. This is the lyric that the album title is derived from, as it picks apart a relationship that still feels love but has also seen cynicism and bitterness develop. The singer is literally reprimanding herself with the repeated “I should treat you better” line. Like many a long-term relationship, this is yearning for a time before criticism became normalised. However, in brilliant double-edged fashion, the pop sheen of the production on this tune is rather uplifting.
‘Corduroy Jacket’ is a little more heartfelt in its critique of self-esteem and hang-ups; it is almost a variation on ‘Just The Way You Are’ for the 21st-century indie set. Again though, the musical construct around this track is absolutely spot on, the synthesised hook that runs through the whole three and a half minutes is the finest of earworms. These details would have emerged during the writing period when Laura reached a point where the band could visit and work the songs up together. She recalls an adventurous period, fuelled by cheese, Ghentian mustard, beers and dancing where new ideas prevailed and ended in long nights discussing “love, loss, memory, resilience and release”. This all appears during the course of the record, just as the inspirational medieval landscape viewed from the studio window can be felt in these glorious, widescreen recordings. If this really is Pop music (and I do wish it were), then the genre is alive and well in 2020.