A brilliant addition to an already impressive catalogue
The musical career of Duke Special has been a refreshingly unique and ambitious one. He seems to be an artist who goes wherever his inclinations take him, tries everything he thinks he can make work, and most of the time it does. He isn't massively famous, but has managed to amass a dedicated following His early work comprised of two EPs, a compilation collecting those two EPs tracks together, another EP and eventually supporting Neil Hannon's The Divine Comedy on tour, before releasing his debut album, Songs From The Deep Forest to much critical praise, in 2006. He went on to tour further and released a second critically acclaimed album, I Never Thought This Day Would Come, in 2008. From here (after more touring), he was asked to write the music for a new adaption of Bertolt Brecht's play, Mother Courage and Her Children, which he did. This sparked the ambitious project of a 3-CD box set which was released later that year called The Stage, A Book and The Silver Screen, each CD being based around a different concept. The Stage referred to the Mother Courage recordings, the performances of said play again being very well received. A Book was a mini-album of five songs based on an unfinished musical adaption of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, written by Kurt Weill. The Silver Screen was an album of twelve songs each based on a different silent movie made by the mysterious Hector Mann (a silent movie actor who went missing in, and has been since, the 1920s), each written by a different artist. He has since released an album based on a series of photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and now he returns to us on his third "normal" studio album, Oh Pioneer. The man is nothing if not unique and eclectic, drawing on a wide variety of interests and putting them into his music in his own unique way. His early songs were catchy affairs usually relying on love, hope and loss as catalysts, but he has since evolved into something different, using some of his music to tell stories and reflect on certain lives we may not otherwise have encountered. His more recent work seems to have been an influence on how he works when producing commercial music, as I think we can see on Oh Pioneer. So, what has the Duke got to offer us here?
Long term fans of Duke Special could be forgiven for being apprehensive about what to expect on a third studio album, after the radical departure that he went on, embracing theatre, musicals and making concept albums based on books and photographs. I must admit, I was in this minority, not being overly impressed with the work on Mother Courage and the photography based album, Under The Dark Cloth, although I did enjoy the Hector Mann record. I was pleased to see a return to the basic format, but slightly wary of what kind of album it might be. I need not have worried: this is classic Duke. Oh Pioneer is not as accessible as his early two albums, but rewards with repeated listening, and contains some simply fantastic songs. The songs grow slowly, retaining theclassic ballad-y, vaudeville-esque sound that Duke Special has crafted so well, but there is a depth to the stories surrounding the songs that may not have always been there before. Duke tells us that the opener, for instance, is about "A group of friends on the roof of the Oh Yeah building in Belfast, having a few drinks and daring to tell their dreams to each other", whilst another, 'Little Black Fish', is about a children's book written by Iranian author, Samad Behrangi. It seems the storytelling of the Stage, Book and Silver Screen period has had an effect, and brought a new depth to the lyrics that may have not been present before.
There is not really a bad song here, and this album is worth checking out and persisting with, and I will make special mention of a few tracks. The single, Punch of a Friend is inspired by a part of John Steinbeck's East of Eden where a character visits a lonely, depressed, totally despondent friend, punches him to the ground and helps him back up to start again with his life. The track itself is just a brilliant reflection on this simple story, and drifts along in a dreamy, wistful tone, drawing you almost into a trance as you listen to it. This is done expertly again on the final track, Twice Around the Island. It's quite slow and slightly darker than most, but has a catchy, lovely chorus which again lulls you into a dreamy trance as you listen. 'Nothing Shall Come Between Us' is the simplest track here and most reminiscent of the early work. It is simply a beautiful, accessible love song, and probably my favourite track here, although it's a hard decision to make.
To sum up, a brilliant record. Not a perfect one: there are a couple of tracks that mark a dip in quality and may not hold your attention as well as the rest of the album does, but the tracks that do, make the whole journey worthwhile. Whenever Duke Special releases anything like this good, I simply have to throw up my hands and say to any potential listener: find me something that isn't to love.