Pigeonholing Clogs, formed by members of The National to explore their more classical and folk leanings, is pretty tricky.
Folk would be a good start. But then there’s a bit of chamber music, jazz, Americana and ambient to add to the mix. For me it is probably the nearest thing to the late Simon Jeffes 1980-1990s band Penguin Café Orchestra in the way Clogs take whatever genre comes to hand to evoke a mood.
While Clogs output so far has been instrumental, on Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton they’ve found a voice. In fact not just one but several well known ones.
Clogs mainstay Padma Newsome takes a turn on vocals, as does fellow National member and lead singer Matt Berninger. Sufjan Stevens joins in as well on vocals and banjo, but it is Shara Worden, from My Brightest Diamond, who steals the show.
Across the range of folk, pop and chamber music styles on the album Worden’s voice looms large over around half of the tracks, with her distinctive operatic soul style creating something wholly distinct that works with the odd conceit of the album.
Written by Newsome in 2005, during a residency funded by the Fromm Foundation at the Italian botanical garden Giardini La Morgelooam, its a concept album of sorts about the garden and its creator Lady Walton, the widow of composer Sir William Walton on the Italian island of Ishcia.
It’s taken around four years to record and mix taking in sessions in Brooklyn and Sydney but the wait has been worth it. Among highlights are the hypnotic instrumental ‘I Used to Do’, Worden’s showpiece ‘On the Edge’ and Berninger’s emotional ‘The Last Song,’ which sounds like one of the best songs The National never made.
But it is not an album of standouts as such, it is a proper old school album to be heard from start to finish letting the listener drift in and out of moods, imagining Lady Walton’s ornate shrubs and greenhouses and marveling at the musical talent on display.
8/10
by Joe Lepper, June 2010
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