Often presented as a sequel to This Mortal Coil and
curated by 4AD founder Ivo Watts-Russell, The Hope Blister
had indeed a lot in common with Watts-Russel’s
seminal trilogy released between 1984 and 1991. ...Smile’s
OK, released in 1998, was entirely made up of covers
and featured singer Louise Rutkowski, who had previously
contributed to both Filigree & Shadow and
Blood. Yet, this album took a resolutely different
approach to the songs featured and to the overall ambience.
Whereas all three This Mortal Coil records drew intensely
on sombre tones and ethereal moments (who can forget
the haunting interpretation of Tim Buckley’s Song
To The Siren by Liz Fraser and Robin Guthry) and
subsequently came to define, at least in part, the 4AD
sound during the eighties, Watts-Russel’s Hope
Blister subtly underlined the shift of sensibility of
the label towards American acoustic folk/pop.
Over the course of …Smile’s OK,
Watts-Russell and long-term collaborator John Fryer
presented a gently tinted take on songs by David Sylvian
(Let The Happiness In), Brian Eno (Spider
& I), John Cale (Hanky Panky Nohow),
Gus Gus (Is Jesus Your Pal?) Heidi Berry (Only
Human) or Slowdive (Dagger). Dressed in
delicate acoustic textures, creating soft sonic blankets
for Rutkowski’s voice, the songs were reworked
to accommodate the essence of the project.
A year on from this album being released, the mail-order
only follow-up Underams appeared briefly. Featuring
seven tracks spread over forty minutes, this album featured
a series of instrumental outtakes recorded during the
…Smile’s OK sessions, as well as
strings versions of Dagger and Let The
Happiness In. Although the album has long been
unavailable, it has been repackaged to coincide with
the label’s twenty-fifth anniversary celebrations
and a second disc featuring seven untitled tracks created
from Underarms had been added.
Underarms presents a darker, more minimal and
introvert alter ego to the light and airy …Smile’s
OK. The compositions are often built around sombre
drones, each developing slowly, often over the course
of several minutes. There is however one very important
feature carried over from the first Hope Blister record;
each song is intricately linked to the next and contributes
to the general atmospheric scope of the record. The
album kicks off with the cloudy and ominous Sweet
Medicine which, following a rapid intro, becomes
a monolithic piece built around stretched strings. Rugous
and abrasive, these textures are only softened by the
distant echo of a voice. Although developed in a variety
of forms over this album, this very much defines Underarms
in its entirety. Friday Afternoon appears softer
to the ear, but it results of a similar approach, which,
taken to more dramatic end, on the epic Sweet Medicine
2, takes this album to the heart of a major sonic
depression. Yet, this thirteen-minute plus track is
enriched with a mass of tiny particles only slightly
perceptible in the background. While the lush melodies
and arrangements of Dagger Strings and Happiness
Strings provide welcome rest periods, it is with
the heavyhearted White On White that this album
appears to reach its emotional peak.
In the hands of German sound artist Markus Guentner,
each of the Hope Blister’s textural compositions
is taken further into ambient territory. Often adopting
a similar drone-based tone to that of Underarms,
Guentner prolongs the experiment by recreating each
track from scratch while retaining its particular atmospheric
elements. This sometimes radically changes the character
of a composition. The reinterpretation of Sweet
Medicine, Sideways One is gentler, more
delicate, and propelled forward by low frequency pulses,
a process also applied to Iota on Sideways
Three. Once again, each track is only presented
as part of a much wider context. There aren’t
any clear divide between tracks as each one merges into
the next, the soundscapes seamlessly morphing into one
another to better convey the overall ambient structure
of the project.
Each one of these two records actually works independently
of each other and functions rather well as stand-alone
projects, yet apposed against each other, they become
an altogether different piece of work. The sombre tones
developed throughout these two records are undoubtedly
more demanding than the delicate acoustic formations
of …Smile’s OK, yet, very much
as with This Mortal Coil, they are intricately linked
to each other and contribute to create a far more impressive
and touching body of work.
4.2/5 |
