Otherish are back to challenge every tissue of your body with their new album, When I Was You.
Release Date: 29th November 2024
Label: Old Flat Top Records
Formats: CD / Vinyl / Digital
IT’S BEEN WORTH THE WAIT!
We’ve been waiting for this one! We guessed, from the string of singles that, over the past six months or so have been infiltrating our consciousness, that something big was afoot in the parallel world of Otherish. We were right: those singles were the precursor to When I Was You, the fourth album from Hiberno-British boundary-ignorers Otherish, and it’s a tissue-challenging triumph. It’s been worth the wait!
For anyone who isn’t quite up to speed with matters of an Otherish persuasion, let me recap: Otherish are a quartet of multi-instrumentalists and composers, each of whom possesses a liking and a talent for exploring the outer-reaches of the musical firmament. Brothers Paul and Mark Bradley and co-conspirator Francis Kane all hail from Belfast and George Claridge – the fourth member of the collective – was raised in Winchester. Produced between Belfast and the band’s current base of Bristol, When I Was You continues the Otherish mission of setting out their vision for the world in the form of diverse songs that embrace philosophy, rebellion and sorcery. Hang on to your hats – when an Otherish album hits the skies, who knows where it’s heading…
IT COULD ONLY BE OTHERISH
Described as “A dream of reminiscence, distance, history and memory – all bounded by the curvature of the Earth,” It’s the gentle, almost folky, Yonder Thon, that gets When I Was You off to its flying start. The song gets straight down to business – there’s no time for any of that ‘intro’ nonsense – as Paul launches his vocal tirade, even before the first bar has exhausted itself. The song is packed with the usual Otherish twists and turns with otherworldly choirboy vocals contrasting starkly with Paul’s restrained MOR drumbeat. This could ONLY be Otherish…
The title to George’s Wyrd is taken from the Old English word for fortune or chance, and it’s a well-chosen title. The song is a subtle paean to humble memory and chance and it’s an enticing blend of folk and psychedelia. The tune and lyrics could feasibly have arrived by time capsule from 1967 but the presentation – baroque keyboard, echo-y backing vocals and spacy percussion – are Otherish, through and through. The lyrics – and title – to Goldenhair are taken from the James Joyce poem, Chamber Music V. The stately acoustic guitar and cello that accompany the song’s vivid, intense harmony vocals all combine to deliver an experience that may be short, but is thoroughly satisfying.
Francis conducts a psychedelic audience with The Imperial Stool, a being or deity that, apparently, “Knows what to do” for the dreamy, engaging, The Internet Was Vaping. It’s delightfully weird, in an everything-going-on-at-once kind of way, as echo-laden harmony vocals penetrate deep inside the listener’s brain. And the weirdness persists for the ‘humanist hymn,’ Every Sigh Home, a song that overlays barbershop harmonies upon a foundation of spacy swirls and piano fills.
USED UP, USELESS AND USEFUL…
We’ve already raved, within these pages, over George’s Used Up Useless Useful Idiot, the most recent of the singles to precede When I Was You and a true album highlight. George’s lyrics take a bitter, yet justified, swipe at those who exploit leadership as an opportunity for self-enrichment and at (in George’s own words): “The lackeys vainly expecting that they, too, might be granted a space in the bunker of the super-rich and ‘leaders’ when the End Times come.” The dystopian Bowie sound seems even more pronounced after repeated listens to the song, whilst George’s lyrics have taken an even more scary and scathing aura, and his closing warning “You’ll get what you deserve,” seems even more prescient in view of recent world events.
big sound
Otherish embrace a Simon Dupree ‘big’ sound for the delightful, hilarious, The Custard Pi Attempt. Cabaret and psychedelia are mixed seamlessly together as, with a sincerity worthy of the late, unlamented, Hughie Green, Paul assures us that our “Custard Pi will tell no lie,” before a gloriously discordant guitar solo provides the cue for a recitation of the mystic Pythagorean/Euclidian pi – to 25 decimal places. I’m sure that the guys are aware that Kate Bush has trodden the same ground, but it’s a routine that’s worthy of reviving.
George continues the contemplation of the current state of humanity that he expressed to such devastating effect in Used Up Useless… – but in a milder, less vitriolic way – with Everywhere is Nowhere Now. There’s something slightly demonic about the seething synths, the persistent drum rhythm and the disembodied voices that provide the song’s intro, but everything calms down as clean, fluent, guitar and swirling organ provide the space for George to express his dismay over issues that include phone-addiction and urban decay.
BEATLES INFLUENCES
“Stop Me, Ancestors,” calls Paul, as the central theme to The Palimpsest, a cacophonous improvised loop, before things take a calmer course for Calendon, another song of contrasts, with woozy psychedelia lying comfortably over a solid, funky backing. And, on an album that offers a hefty portion of boundary-pushing psychedelia, the left-field doo-wop of George’s The World’s in You comes as a genuine surprise. “You’re not in the world – the world’s in you” is the message in a song that, not for the last time as far as When I Was You is concerned, reveals a distinct Beatles influence.
And that Beatles influence is, perhaps, even more evident for Pyramids Of Tir Chonaill, the album’s lead single and, just maybe, its most dreamlike sequence. A homage to the mountains and coastal vistas of Donegal, the tune has similarities to The Beatles’ Flying. If there’s such a thing as pastoral mysticism, then this is an example, right here. Put your feet up and savour the soothing vocals and the calming instrumentation.
Paul’s reading of the well-known, well-loved Irish traditional ballad, My Lagan Love, is superlative. Cello and acoustic guitar provide the mystic atmosphere that the song demands, Paul’s vocal delivery is equal to the best and the inclusion of the song in this collection is as welcome as it is unexpected.
IT IS’NT YOU THAT’S INSANE – IT’S THE WORLD
It’s a couple of those recent singles that bring this outstanding album to its close. First up is the excellent Summer in Belfast July 2098. When I first heard this song, back in June, I described it as: “… a postcard in music, sent from the Belfast of the rapidly-approaching future. The song’s dreamy lyrics describe a scene in which children play in the summer sun and residents go about their daily business travelling by public chute. The story is told by voices that are – simultaneously and alternately – deep and high, distant and vividly present. The music is spacy and gloriously funky, with a relentless pulsing rhythm and a top-coating of lazy summer psychedelia thrown in for good measure.” I’m happy to stick with that but if you’re after any further clarity, just imagine The Belfast Beach Boys going ‘disco.’
And so, to the album’s closing number, the July single, Without Each Other’s Otherness, Would Any One of Us Exist? It’s interesting that Otherish have chosen to close an album of such wide – and often challenging – dimensions with the song that is, perhaps, their poppiest offering yet. Bursts of sweet electronica ride comfortably upon the pulsing rhythms in a bright, optimistic song with lyrics that ask a cascade of rhetorical questions before forming the album’s final conclusion: “It isn’t you that’s insane – it’s the world.” Just remember that.
in a better place
For a prolific band like Otherish, it seems that we’ve waited a long time for When I Was You. In reality, it’s been just 15 months since previous album How Lucky We Are Being Us and Each Other arrived in the world but, on the Otherish scale, 15 months is an age. But When I Was You is here now, and the world is a better place as a result.
Listen to Pyramids of Tir Chonaill, a track from the album, here:
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