Album Club, January 2016: Jackie Leven - 'Creatures of Light and Darkness'
Happy New Year everybody,
We start the New Year with an Album Club choice by JasonP. As always, please listen to the album fully before you vote.
Album Club January 2016 - Jackie Leven, Creatures of Light and Darkness
Jackie Leven is one of those singer/songwriters that many have never ever heard of, despite him being one of the most prolific artists and live performers around while he was alive. He died in 2011, a great loss to his many fans across the globe.
A bit of background. Born in to a Romany family, he grew up in Fife, and became a folk musician in the 60s. He formed the seminal rock band Doll by Doll in the late 70s, a band cited by critics but largely ignored by the public - too at odds with the punk and pop sensibilities of the time.
When the band split up in '82, Leven stated a solo career. This was tragically cut short after he was the victim of a random assault that nearly killed him. The injuries he suffered from strangulation meant he couldn't speak for two years. Deeply depressed he became addicted to heroin. He cured his addiction with a combination of acupuncture and holistic therapies - which led to his founding of the Core Trust, a charity devoted to fighting addictions. It was at a dinner for the trust where he met Princess Diana (one of their patrons) who asked him to sing - a request that eventually propelled him back into his musical career.
What followed was his first major album, 'The Mystery of Love Is Greater Than The Mystery Of Death'. What followed until his passing in 2011 were some 26 albums - some released under the pseudonym Sir Vincent Lone - all dealing with, at their heart, what it is to be alive. Too diverse to be pigeonholed, Leven's music has variously been described as combining
'the raw materials of country, soul, blues, Celtic balladry, girl-group pop, art-rock, found sound, spoken word, and, once or twice and with quite respectable results, even hip-hop. Critics lazily tag his music either as "folk rock" or "Celtic soul," though Leven hates the first ("What the fuck is folk-rock about anything I've ever done?") and says the second is "better than nothing but probably doesn't do me any favors, given that I don't sound anything like Van Morrison."
Creatures of Light and Darkness is Leven's eighth studio album, and one of my personal favourites.
Almost like a travelogue of experiences, Jackie Leven's Creatures of Light and Dark, takes you on an emotional voyage through the observations of a man who has certainly seen much. From the minute the mariachi trumpets of "Spanish Dad" kick in and the tired, rich country voice of "Rainy Day Bergen Women" you realise this talented folk singer/songwriter writes his music in the quiet moments of reflection on an extraordinary life spent not just in his home town of Fife but also Franco's Spain and the deeply divided Berlin of the late 70s. He takes these settings and uses them as backdrops for his thoughts on memory ("Washing By Hand") and ideas of love ("Exit Wound"), loss and spiritual and emotional denial. On "The Sexual Loneliness of Jesus Christ", certainly one of the stand-out tracks, Jackie samples the voices of Glaswegian miners who have just been sacked as he ponders what it might be like to be out of touch from an important part of life. Creatures of Light and Darkness was named after an experience Jackie had as a child visiting a local pit. Stepping from the darkness to the light is certainly something he can relate to and is a perfect title for this beautiful and very personal album. --Caroline Butler
More on Leven's story can be found in this tribute by Paul Du Noyer, written shortly after his death:
http://www.pauldunoyer.com/pages/jou...urnalismID=337
and the album is on Spotify HERE
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