Caught in the Carousel

By Thomas Cooney

Is that feint crackling meant to be a needle starting in on an old album, an actual LP? Or is it the scratches and trapped dust on a neglected reel of film? Given that this gentle static opens Swing Out Sister's CD Somewhere Deep in the Night there shouldn't be any doubt that it's the scratching itch of nostalgia.

"Everything's been said and done," Corinne Drewery sings in the album's first track. "What else is there to say/When tomorrow's been and gone/And given into yesterday." Her voice is a register lower than one is used to from her. The cadence of the song is fresh and classic. The music has a wintry chime to it, cool winds blowing, cajoling a whisper but not a ring from winter bells. "Through the Sky," is the opening track of yet another miracle of deeply inhabited pop music orchestrated by the fetching duo on the cover.

Though it's 2001, it might as well be 1967. For there is Corinne, her camera-envied face smiling into the back of Andy Connell, the two of them astride a motorbike that is half-Vespa and half-motorcycle. They exude a radiance that is Ali McGraw and Steve McQueen; an allure that is Emma Peel and Simon Templar; a gusto that is Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni; a sultry sexiness that is Anouk Aimee and Jean-Louis Trintignant.

"Will We Find Love?" follows and Connell's orchestration begs your patience past the opening line: "Falling like a sunset in my mind." The reward comes a quick three lines later with Drewery's vintage bittersweet lyrics: "And the world's disappearing as fast we can run." For listeners of a certain age, there is a quality to this song very similar to those Oscar-winning songs that came within the first half hour of Irwin Allen disaster movies of the 1970s ("The Morning After" from 1972s The Poseidon Adventure; "We May Never Love This Way Again from 1974's Towering Inferno) These were songs that always seemed on the verge of schmaltz (some might say they collapse into that schmaltz. But when it comes to Swing Out Sister's vignettes, rescue always comes, preventing any track's capsize.

The title track is one of those thoroughly frustrating songs that drives the listener crazy. Why? Because it can't ever live up to its promise of Nirvana. With its jazzy rhythm, its cinematic score, its romanticism ("Come live with me/We'll be the people we once dreamed we could be") this song just drives until it hits a scat-filled bridge (courtesy Myke Wilson) that leads the song deeper into a night that loves itself for being night. The song then descends away into Drewery's laughter, leaving the listener on the other side of that bridge, rather stunned by the ride's end. That's the end??! What is this, a French movie? "Somewhere Deep in the Night" is yet another of the duo's songs that seems as heavenly as music can ever be.

But the movie allusion is appropriate. More than any other of the duo's nine albums, this is a widescreen affair, and Andy Connell is writer, director, composer, star. If their previous album, Filth and Dreams, is—as I'd argue it is—Corrine's album, then Somewhere Deep in the Night is Andy's.

It was a sticky moist rain that was steaming on the windowsill that July London day in 2010. I was sitting in a side room away from the rehearsal studio, capping and uncapping the pen, nervous about asking the question staring up at me from my notepad. Click, Clickclick. Click, Clickclick. It was still early in the day, and Andy Connell, still in polite mode, sat patiently. He looked at my pad as if trying to read upside down. Click. I had only then realized it was a selfish question, one that might handcuff an artist: "In the past ten years or so, it seems clear that most music critics have come around to realize how good you guys are. In light of some rather dismissive reviews early on, is there a sense of satisfaction that, for the most part, your work (especially the last five albums) has been universally acclaimed? You're no longer devotees of Bacharach, Morricone, Francis Lai, and John Barry, but, it seems, people have now realized you're their equal?"

To my relief, Connell, didn't waste a moment, didn't even let me get one more click in: "Yes, it feels great. Mind you, we never really were getting slammed by the critics."

"Perhaps, but the praise you've earned (especially since Filth and Dreams) is pretty universal and pretty impressive. And, what's more, there's this sense that you've always done what you've wanted to, musically speaking. You never compromised."

He shifted in his chair, adjusted the tails of his untucked shirt and made an off-the-cuff remark about sales and the tribulations of working for record companies. He offered a smile that was neither wry nor apologetic. It was just an acknowledgement of the truth of the matter.

But here is what that truth was: Even though Swing Out Sister had continued to enjoy modest sales after the phenomenal success of their first two albums, they had seemingly fallen off the mainstream musical landscape. Even though their 1997 album Shapes and Patterns continued the dependably- modest sales in the UK and the US; and even though it spawned a monster hit in Japan (winning that country's equivalent of a Grammy for Song of the Year), Corinne Drewery and Andy Connell found themselves in the ho-hum bin of a record company who would only offer to release and distribute the next album in Japan. What's worse, that album Filth and Dreams not only signaled a major artistic shift in the band, but it alienated some die-hard fans. And, if that weren't bad enough, the limited distribution meant that few fans (and fewer critics) would have much access to an album that—given the intentions of the artists to record a smartly flawed, dusty pop/jazz album—would soon be recognized not only as the duo's masterpiece, but also would have the distinction of being the final pop masterpiece of the 20th Century.

What all that meant, in the greater picture, was that this was a duo that not only deserves worldwide distribution, they deserve uniformly worldwide acclaim. But the fact that this follow up to Filth and Dreams has seven instrumental numbers should tell you that the passion of all involved (longtime producer and pseudo third member, Paul O'Duffy is producing yet again) is dedicated to the music and not the sales. This is not a pop album or a jazz album. It's a paean to the films and soundtracks whose simple beauty we might never see again. (That the album would see its release shortly after September 11th only served to sadden one's sense of all that was lost in the world once at the new Millenium's doorstep).

So cinematic is this utterly original record that one can actually envision the filmed sequences these songs serenade: "The Vital Thing" (Corinne shopping as winter lights come on in the four o'clock hour); "Suspended in Time" (Andy and Corinne at the ski lodge, snow falling outside the window); "Alpine Crossing" (Corinne and Andy skiing across the snowy hills of Chamonix); "Fool Tag" (Corinne and Andy disappearing into the dark doorway of the night); "Non E Vero Ma Ci Credo" (Seeing the red pulse of the ambulance, Corinne drops her bags and purse and rushes into the closing door of the ambulance, demanding to ride along); and "Now Listen to Me" (Corinne and Andy flaunt winter's bite and drive away in the topless MG, Corinne behind the wheel. As Paris comes into view, the setting sun graces from behind Andy's head to Corinne's temple where he plants his kiss before the credits roll.)

Every time I listen to even two tracks at a time from this album, I feel the need to find the DVD of the film it came from. I search the media cabinet. A Man and a Woman? No. The Thomas Crown Affair? Nope. Umbrellas at Cherbourg? Ummm, you don't own that, fool. Oh, wait, no. This isn't from a film. This is the soundtrack to parts of my own life; the best parts.

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