Friday, July 29, 2005

Kat's Korner: Aimee Mann's The Forgotten Arm

Sun warming our bodies, coastal winds cooling them off. The great thing about this park is probably it's proximity to the ocean. Not that any of us is going to go jump in. That's the sort of thing we did in our wild, reckless teens. "It's the ocean for God's sake!" is how we'd dismiss concerns raised. Then, after awhile, bypassing the floating human waste isn't so funny or your foot gets pricked by a syringe or . . . It's still fairly pretty from a distance despite the fact that we have totally and completely f**cked it up.

So this park is probably our favorite place to have a picnic. It brings with it the distant memory of the passion we once had for playing in the surf and the comfort of enough distance.

So that's where we were Sunday. Toni and Dak-Ho had made the eats, Maggie had offer to pack them which was only greeted with howls of laughter. She truly is the inverse Felix the Cat -- with anything going into her purse apparently vanishing. Sumner was bringing a big wicker basket and I was in charge of the boom box and the discs.

Under the shade of our favorite tree, we set up camp and kicked back. Coldplay gave way to Prince, gave way to White Stripes, gave way to Tori Amos, gave way to Van Hunt as we laughed and joked and ate and drank, stopping to admire the scenery, a person or the moment itself or maybe just to join in with an improvised game of frisbee.

Ava and C.I. had been talking up the new Aimee Mann, so I'd brought that along. I hadn't put it in the boom box. It was more of "if we get tired of hearing all the stuff we already love, I'll put this on" kind of choice.

But Maggie had dropped the frisbee once too often and the jokes had been one too many for her, so she'd gone back to the blankets and beach towels to do what she does best, forage. She'd turned up Aimee Mann's The Forgotten Arm, probably due to the cover -- a pulp drawing of two men in boxing shorts.

Throwing kisses so Richmond's unfortunate can go on
Throwing kisses so Richmond's unfortunate can go on
Throwing kisses so Richmond's unfortunate can go on

Mann started out in 'Til Tuesday which for too many is remembered for her hair, a shock of white mane with a tail. (Really kids, in the eighties, some people did add a long strip of hair to their otherwise short hair.) Mann and the group have an image, to some who didn't pay close attention, that's right up there with Cyndi Lauper as a good time, everybody Wang Chung type of band.

Goes completely against the music which even when overly produced provided some of the starkest, most isolated lyrics you've ever heard in the top forty. Get beyond loudly singing the "Hush hush" parts of "Voices Carry" and listen to the story that song is telling. By the second album (Welcome Home), the band was sounding better, the production was losing some of that high gloss sheen, and Aimee Mann was demonstrating gifts that still make her one of the strongest writers in popular song. By the final album (Everything's Different Now), she was holding her own with Elvis Costello. This wasn't Costello breathing life into her tired act (the way it was when he teamed with Paul McCartney), this was two strong songwriting giants engaging one another. In the process, Mann produced, by herself, what I still consider to be one of her quieter masterpieces: "J for Jules."

She went solo, got screwed around by the labels. Came back to grab an Oscar nomination and do some solid work on her own recording label. The feeling is that you know what you're getting with an Aimee Mann album these days. Feelings can be wrong.

As The Forgotten Arm poured out of the boom box, it was obvious that we were hearing something remarkable. Joe Henry's producing. Henry can be hit or miss with me. He added very little to Ani DiFranco's Knuckle Down, for instance. Made me wonder why Ani had even used a producer on that album instead of doing it herself? But working with his sister-in-law, he helped her record her best non-soundtrack hit in years ("Don't Tell Me"). The sister-in-law is of course Madonna who used to be married to Sean Penn who is the brother of Michael Penn who is married to Aimee Mann.

Still awake?

Whatever connection brought Henry and Mann together, it was a fortuous one. The Forgotten Arm sounds like Aimee Mann and it sounds like something more. It's like she's working with a band again and, unlike 'Til Tuesday, they aren't fumbling around trying to figure out the sound, the sound is fully born from the first song.

Aimee Mann's lyrics probably intimidate many of her peers. It's not every songwriter fresh out of the gate that ends up prompting a state of music discussion from Joni Mitchell (and getting basically a seal of approval).

So, like a ghost in the snow
I'm getting read to go
Because baby, that's all I know --
How to open the door
And though my exit was crude
It saes me coming unglued
For when you're not in the mood
For gloves and the canvas floor
That's how I knew this story would break my heart
When you wrote it.

The song will grab you and nail down every memory of that one romance you stayed in way too long because it meant way too much even though it cost far more than you were willing to pay.
And when Mann's voice rises, whispers and breaks on the "break my heart" part, you really register it.

That's what Henry and Mann have done producing this album, found a way to underscore the mood of the songs and to provide the best arrangements for them. When you write as strongly as Mann does, it's probably easy to assume the song is ready for posterity and there's no need to fuss over an arrangement. Which is why her albums can sometimes sound like a collection of demos, incredible demos granted, and not like an album itself.

The Forgotten Arm isn't just her best album, it's one of the top ten albums of the year. We were dancing and swaying to "That's How I Knew This Story Would Break My Heart" and bouncing around to "Going Through the Motions" the next. On the latter, the first line, the first note, of each verse, she nails in a way that she hasn't since she had 'Til Tuesday behind her. The music isn't just providing support, it's pushing her further. And she seems to know that and provides her strongest vocals in years.

The album's theme is that Joe, the boxer "tossing kisses so Richmond's unfortunate can go on," and Caroline are in the midst of a messy, emotional affair and calling it quits at various points. It's an interesting theme and it probably freed a writer like Mann to explore even more lyrically than she usually does. And possibly since each song has the safety of characters and doesn't need to be viewed as the latest "I confess!" entry in her canon, she's able to explore musically.

"Video" is the perfect example of what Mann and Henry are doing. Lyrically, it's full of the insight and bravery we expect from Mann and, in the past, we've grown accustomed to this sort of song getting a simple, no frills treatment. Instead, it gets a cinematic treatment that not only opens up the song and enlivens it, it also fits the cinematic nature of the lyrics.

Like a building that's been slated for blasting
I'm proof that nothing is lasting
Counting to eleven as it collapses.
And tell me baby:
Baby, I love you.
It's non-stop memories of you.
It's like a video of you playing
It's all loops of seven-hour kisses
Cut with a couple of near-misses
Back to the scene of the actor saying
"Tell me baby, baby -- why do I feel so bad?"
And baby -- baby, I love you.
But baby -- I feel so bad.

Between "Video" and "Going Through the Motions" the other thing that stands out the most is probably Mann's rediscovery of the rest note. The melodies share a stop and start quality that add the momentum when they get going and that underscore the suddeness of an ending (which, again, is the theme of this album -- the start and stop nature of romance).

You could pour over and pick apart this album for hours. It's the finest thing she's recorded thus far and finer than the majority of albums winning praise and audiences currently. But that probably still wouldn't convey the energy or infectuous nature of the music. Noting at this late date that Mann explores the human heart better than any of her peers is noting the obvious. Stating that she's made her most musically adventurous album, one that will grab you and anyone around you is a new argument.

Some people familiar with Mann's past accomplishments may scoff at that. It's been so long since she's been paired with a band that we wrongly tend to see her as the last of the coffee house greats, strumming her guitar on stage while we sip our espressos and mutter "Deep, man." (Or is it, "Deep, Mann"?)

But The Forgotten Arm isn't just an album that will have you nodding in acknowledgement as she writes the score to the push-pull dance of our times, it's also an album you can put in the player and blast as you zip down the Pacific Coast Highway. Which is exactly what we did enjoying the power of Aimee Mann working with a band.

Put away the notions of an Aimee Mann album as something you haul at two a.m. when the party's wound down and it's just you and a few stragglers needing to chill. The Forgotten Arm is the sort of album that you can play as the guests arrive. It's full of robust energy and excitement and though some listeners may end up overlooking the beauty of Mann's lyrics as they savor the musical experience, it will hopefully remind others that the coffee house poet can still front a band and bowl you over all over again with arrangements that are as passionate as her lyrics have always been.