There’s two odd choices of words in Pitchfork’s recent review of Blue Water White Death, the collaboration album between Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart and Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg.
The first is that the CD is ‘inessential’. The other, and this is the one that has really got to Meiburg, is the word ‘complacent’.
In a recent post on Meiburg’s Facebook page in which he wonders whether Pitchfork has the power to scupper an album’s chances of being heard, he rages: “ But to dismiss it as ‘complacent’ seems well wide of the mark to me. I was there, I tell you. Complacent it was not. Is not.”
We at Neon Filler were among the dozen or so people who responded with small words of comfort to Meiburg that most people with a brain don’t really care what Pitchfork thinks. We also asked him for a copy to hear for ourselves whether it is complacent. Hey, presto, within an hour a representative from Blue Water White Death’s label Graveface Records was in touch and a download was in our hands.
Jonathan Meiburg
So what do we think of it? In terms of being ‘essential’ we agree with Pitchfork there, seeing as we can’t eat or drink it or use it for shelter, unless of course we buy a few hundred copies. The accusation of ‘complacent’ though is something we are prepared to side with Meiburg on. There is clearly a lot of love and hard work gone into this album, which mixes similar, if more raw, styles of Xiu Xiu and Shearwater.
I’m more familiar with Shearwater than Xiu, Xiu, and my admiration for Shearwater’s last two albums especially means that I am among the Shearwater and Xiu Xiu fans that Pitchfork concede will enjoy this album, warts and all.
Yes, it is rough and ready in places, but still has a passion about it and some wonderfully atmospheric moments. Stewart and Meiburg’s haunting voices help. For me Meiburg could release an album reading out my weekly shopping list and it would still be interesting. There’s more to a shopping list here though. Images of nature that are scattered across Shearwater’s output are in good supply here, as is some sumptuous acoustic guitar and moody piano.
Among the best tracks are ‘Nerd Future’, full of far Eastern rhythms, chimes and beats and of course Meiburg’s beautiful voice. ‘Gall’ is another, a soft piano one, punctuated with the odd quirky noise and electric piano scale, but with a melody that drifts around you. Not all the tracks appealed to me, which is unsurprising considering it is the product of just a week’s work and with, as Meiburg admits, little consideration for commercial appeal. It can also be a downright difficult listen at times. ‘Rendering the Juggalos’ for example has a lovely acoustic guitar riff driving it but is too often littered with distortion.
Blue Water White Death Album Cover
As I listened to it more this week it occurred to me that the Pitchfork reviewer’s lack of enjoyment of the album may be from being city based. Meiburg’s voice in particular is more suited to be listened to out and about I think. He is a keen environmentalist and ornithologist after all.
I’m lucky, I do a lot of my listening walking my dog across the Somerset levels around Glastonbury near my home. As I listened to the album for the first time, with the herons taking flight from the streams, two crows were waging war on a buzzard overhead. Blue Water White Death was a stunning soundtrack to this scene. I’m looking forward to listening to this as the murmuration of hundreds of thousands of starlings that come to the Levels this winter fly over and bounce across the fields.
Meiburg ends his Pitchfork rant saying how he hopes it doesn’t put people off as he wants it “ have a chance to reach the ones whose itch it might scratch.” He adds: “It certainly gives me a peculiar feeling when I listen to it, and I don’t really think it’s like anything else. “‘This album isn’t for everyone’ was about the best I had hoped for in terms of reaction.”
Well, for this rural living, Shearwater admiring, music fan it does just fine.
7/10
by Joe Lepper
See Also: Shearwater – The Golden Archipelago, Top Ten Albums of 2008
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