In 1990 producer Daniel Lanois (Bob Dylan, U2, Peter Gabriel) helped set singer-songwriter Chris Whitley up with a deal with Columbia Records and produced his first album. Fifteen years on, with a new label (Cooking Vinyl) and a new producer (Malcolm Burn) Whitley has produced a set of rich, dark 21st Century blues songs that seem the embodiment of Lanois production values: raw sounding acoustic instruments that drive along over layers and layers of electronic studio effects.
The album ‘Soft Dangerous Shores’ is highly reminiscent in this respect, of Peter Gabriel’s finest recordings of the early nineties. Guitar strings buzz and thwack the fretboard, chairs squeak and percussion tracks don’t sound like programmed blips but real, fleshy slaps. Added to this is Whitley’s vocals sounding at times like a bluesy Seal and at others like Robbie Robertson.
‘Fireroad (For Two)’, the first track, sets the tone for the rest of the album. Synthesizers create a dark brooding setting with twisted choirs and unhinged strings, but the more dominant sounds are acoustic, especially the wonderful slide blues guitar that snakes around Whitley’s dark velvet vocals. A softly pounding rhythm section completes the feel – it’s an acoustic Depeche Mode, dark and sensuous.
The title track feels like a thousand musicians, half of whom are percussionists, have been thrown into the mix to create a morass of sound. Many tracks, however, such as ‘As Day Is Long’ and ‘Valley of the Innocents’ have staggered, shaggy edges as if each individual has accidentally come across the others playing, decided to join in for a while and then wandered off again.
‘City of Women’ juxtapositions submarine pings and other assorted effects with meandering acoustic guitar, with the microphone picking up Whitley sitting down in his chair, listening to the backing music and commenting, soulfully, ‘That’s nice’ before tentatively beginning his vocal part.
‘Her Furious Angels’ has a slightly funkier feel to the others, a lighter track that is vaguely reminiscent of John Legend while the final four tracks carry on the sephulcral blues of the opening tracks.
Lyrics are sometimes oblique to the point of meaning nothing, and yet the way they are intoned turns them into incantations that are effective in a way that is more percussive than poetic.
‘Soft Dangerous Shores’ is dark pop. It is the sound of dusk.