Music Arcades: Martin Archer: Winter Pilgrim Arriving

Two things have become evident as I've slowly worked my way through Martin Archer's work as a solo artist (1, 2, 3) and band member (1, 2, 3, 4) — not to mention, shame on me, I recently discovered a duo album of his that I've had for over a year without removing it from it's cellophane wrapper yet. 1) I had him wrongly pigeonholed on the basis of getting to know his music from his live performances on keyboard and sax. 2) Damn these interruptions, I've forgotten exactly what (2) was; but I think a related point about the diversity of his recorded work, where he works with diverse configurations of nine collaborating musicians.

Each instalment of the Archer discography leaves me slightly more impressed, and this is no exception. From Martin's extensive online-not-sleeve notes, "Emotionally and sonically this record is deliberately located in the early 70s, the time when I was learning about music by listening not only to Miles, Softs, Henry Cow, Faust, but also to Fairports, John Martyn, and Nick Drake." To mix metaphors, that's a pretty heady cocktail of unusual bedfellows. Bar one (see below), the pieces do not sound, to these ears, directly indebted to any of those forebears — even when namechecking them, as in Chemistry Lock (Mike, Elton, Hugh, Robert) — which I take as testament to how well they've been digested as influences, rather than just regurgitated.

It's not comfortable listening for the most part. The most overtly attractive piece, Nick Drake's Horn, is also the shortest at under two minutes. When I put on the opening track, the Boy's whole body apparently went rigid, such was the dissonance — he wasn't even in the room. My one small misgiving is that, "in the old days", a sixteen and a half minute track like Winter Pilgrims Arriving would have occupied one full side of vinyl, and would have had space to stretch out and makes its contours felt. As it is, it feels sandwiched and cramped as less than 25% of a nearly 70-minute album.

Finally, Martin joins the select ranks of great titlers, along with Alasdair Roberts, Ballboy, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, and maybe Sonic Youth and Robyn Hitchcock.

Buy direct from Martin