Bill Ryder-Jones returns with a batch of songs that seem intent on raiding souls and breaking hearts.
It’s an album more than merely sombre, but only just. Teetering on some unseen precipice between darkness and light, Ryder-Jones manages to somehow lean forward into the void without ever losing hope and tumbling in.
‘West Kirby County Primary’ is a wonderfully imaginative and passionate record, filled with imagery and with Ryder-Jones using the simplest tropes and production to tell simple tales in a beautiful and enriching way.
This isn’t a record of jumbled ideas thrown at a wall, with the proverbial hope of adhesion; instead, these are little melodramas played out on a musical canvas, each story vividly brought to life by the light touch, yet boldly evocative style, of Ryder-Jones.
Not an inch is wasted.
He manages to incorporate his own style into the seemingly endless tapestry of influences. Like his last album, ‘A Bad Winds Blows In My Heart’, Nick Drake, Elliott Smith and Leonard Cohen are all over this record. Their sombre natural tones and inflections live and breathe throughout so much of the record. On songs like ‘Tell Me You Don’t Love Me Watching’ and ‘Seabirds’ he brings these influences to bear, creating timeless beauty, songs that are both reticent and poignant. And in these moments Ryder-Jones is not trying to wow the crowd, it’s about something far more subtle.
But he hasn’t merely re-trodden familiar ground (although in many moments ‘West Kirby’s introversion does echo ‘A Bad Winds’ tone), it also expands further into the mind of Ryder-Jones, taking in more influences – none more so than the Pixies. Like some kind of parochial, tea and biscuits Frank Black, Ryder-Jones pushes his sound to its total extreme, ever so gently. It’s never about trying to win over the crowd, instead it seems almost like he is constantly testing just how inventive he can be, almost like the Pixies recording The Kinks’ ‘Village Green Preservation Society‘.
‘Satellites’ is his passive-aggressive take on ‘Where is My Mind’, while ‘Let’s Get Away From Here’ pulls the infamous Black/Kim Deal one-two in seeming like a beautiful little ditty, seemingly needing no further description, until it suddenly does. A trick that changes only slightly on ‘Catharine and Huskisson’, to equally brilliant effect.
It’s this contrast which works so well. Much of the record seems slight, achieved by a brilliant musical economy on his part. There is nothing on this record except what should be on this record. Not a single additional instrument, moment or note. Everything is boiled down to its simplest and most refined form.
And this subtlety is only enhanced when its dynamic suddenly shifts. Comfortably, and excitingly, Ryder-Jones turns on a coin’s edge. Suddenly everything is at ‘11’. Guts ache, ears split as the music burst into life and literally roars from the speakers. And then, just like Keyser Soze, “he’s gone”.
‘West Kirby’ tells the tale of an artist that is as assured and considered, exciting and challenging. ‘West Kirby’ screams brilliance, only it does it in a beautifully soft whisper.
