The changing of decades always seem to introduce truly amazing albums that fall through the cracks. Be it because they are caught in between eras. Be it because they’re simply made outside of any prevailing trend. These albums, unfortunately, reveal their true brilliance (sometimes) only in hindsight. Recently, I’ve had that aha! moment with Clevedon Pier by Andy Davis.
Vastly more known, if vaguely still remembered, for his work with British folk rockers Stackridge and (genius-level) New Wave pop group The Korgis, one wouldn’t be blamed for completely losing track of Andy’s career (and discography) once those two fell off the map. Released in 1989, on MMC, some English Windham Hill-like label, nearly a decade after “Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime”, you’d be tough-pressed to even fathom that something like Clevedon Pier would be worth your time. Mr. Korgis doing New Age?…”Where do I sign up?” (said no one ever).
Well, for the very few who bothered to sign up, what you were treated to was his sole solo work that points at various, infinitely interesting directions Andy could have taken…if someone would have bothered to listen. En homage to his hometown of Somerset, UK — much like Paul Buchanan (and Blue Nile friends) similar ode to their Glasgow released in the same year — so to did Clevedon Pier feature gorgeous, sparse, elegiac songs touching/pearing at a peculiar ambiance native to their locales. Influences gleaned from ambient, jazz, folk and pop music, rear their lovely heads. And mostly a man, his drum machines, folk instruments, and some synths try to eke out very adult, very sophisticated ideas with the least amount of ornamentation as possible.
The signs were there before. Andy after unceremoniously being ignored by the Pop masses in two guises, as New Wave master and folk sweetheart, then unceremoniously kicked out of the most famous of the two when they were on the cusp of something special. From playing on Lennon’s Imagine to being snuffed out of a lucrative pop career, as you can imagine, Andy had little love/loss for the music business after that. Luckily for us, he was able to be cajoled out of semi-obscurity by a group you may know — Tears For Fears.
In their earliest phase, Graduate (the proto-TFF) had idolized their fellow yokel’s music both his largely unheralded work with the Korgis and his even more eccentric Slow Twitch Fibres side-project. They were the ones that convinced him to play keyboards as part of their touring band. “Women of Ireland”, which opens Clevedon Pier, would be what they used to open their American tour. In due course, others like Bill Nelson, Julian Cope, and Yazz would eventually to enlist Andy’s help on songwriting or session duties. Making a living from music was now something Andy could do in the shadows of others.
However by 1989, now much older, wiser, and experimented, Andy’s own talent and ideas were given another chance. Given the opportunity by MMC (the brainchild label of sometime-Van Morrison drummer Peter Van Hooke), so to would Andy get a chance — much like Rod Argent, Neil Innes, and others — to record his own “mature”/adult, contemporary record, all stylistic terms that was mere store placeholder for still viable and quite intelligently-made Pop music for musicians that seemingly had aged-out of the MTV generation. Musicians that had music kindly out of time.
Heavy on the sophistication, on songs like “Jabe”, the song lengths ease out, letting you luxuriate through warm, pining moods. Joined at times by future Goldfrapp mastermind (and one-time Tears For Fears bandmate/friend) Will Gregory on all sorts of horn instruments and fellow Korgi, Stuart Gordon, on strings, every note they add to Andy’s multifaceted barely-there arrangement of guitar, keyboard, and assorted sonic sundry, feels imbued with a certain grace and dignity.
For those in the mood for more nocturnal moods, “Hunger”, replicates the (largely) drum machine-led out sexy swing of latter-day reborn, ladies man, Leonard Cohen. Others like “Basso Symphonie” belong truly in the New Age Jazz archetype, thankfully, one of the classier sort I’ve recently shared with you. Here and there we’re allowed to hear Andy sprawl out, using some fine fretless bass work by Mo Foster to create modern mood music that can now be seen as en vogue with our time. Other gorgeous instrumentals like “Prelude” and “Clear Dawns” foment Andy’s brilliant idea of relaxation music.
No one likes a reviewer to wax on about every song. So, I’ll spare you all of that. Let’s skip to my favorite track: “Over & Over”. A love song — aren’t these always the best…— that uses some aesthetically-pleasing finesse to build and build from a slightly leftfield electro-pop ballad into an equally emotional open-hearted dance floor burner.
I read somewhere that Andy’s only wish was that he could write a song as great as his idol, Cole Porter. I think, much like in a lot of his work, Andy is truly underselling/undervaluing his own music. I love me some “Night And Day” but I hope my future youngins look back at this one “over and over” in the same light as they’re cut from the same cloth. Sometimes, when we’re old enough, we understand it better. At the end of the day, subtlety always reigns supreme — although, some of us might be blessed to realize that a bit a bit earlier than others.