Badly Drawn Boy
One PLus One is On
(Twisted Nerve/XL)
THE LAST time I saw Damon Gough was in the unlikely setting of the Oxford Union debating chamber. The motion which had been proposed was that reality TV shows such as Pop Idol were “killing real music”. It would be difficult to think of a star more removed from the cult of instant pop celebrity than Gough, a “real” musician from the tip of his woolly hat to the hem of his ill-fitting dustman’s jeans.
Yet he elected to speak — well, mumble actually — in defence of the Pop Idol phenomenon. The crux of his argument seemed to be that, somewhere along the line, he had bumped into Darius Danesh at an airport and decided that he was an OK kind of bloke. If Pop Idol worked for him, then why not?
This shambolic, yet touchingly simple way of looking at the situation was entirely in keeping with the whimsical personality you encounter upon entering the world of a Badly Drawn Boy album. From the mathematically challenged title to the complex yet childishly structured songs, One Plus One is One is another collection that cheerfully defies the normal logic of the modern musical universe.
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Mixing sunny optimism with a broad streak of Mancunian melancholy, he tackles themes of love, loss and, er, Stockport (where the album was recorded) with an air of wistful charm that transcends notions of time, place or fashion. “As the past meets the future it gets clearer that it all boils down to love,” he sings on the title track, while trumpet, cello and violin lend a slightly archaic, olde worlde touch to a basic piano and acoustic guitar arrangement.
On Summertime in Wintertime he revs up with a riff and a flute solo that sound as if they have been resurrected from a Jethro Tull album, while The Blossoms, another flute-led instrumental, pops up halfway through to provide a little chamber-folk interlude.
On Year of the Rat a children’s choir joins in on the chorus, sounding as if they took a wrong turning on their way to a Broadway musical. It should sound horrible, but somehow Gough carries it off.
Produced by Gough and Andy Votel, One Plus One is One is a beautifully recorded album. Gough may look like a three-chords-and-where’s-my-capo? troubadour, but his acoustic guitar playing on a song such as Easy Love is perfectly articulated and sparkles like crystal. And he has the most beguiling vocal tone. Completely untreated, and occasionally a little wide of the actual note, he pours his dry, gentle personality into his singing with a passion that is all the more powerful for the lack of histrionics.
“It feels like there’s no fire left in your eyes/ This is how love dies,” he sings on Fewer Words, a fleeting song that lasts little more than a minute yet captures a world of haunting emotions.
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Gough’s relaxed attitude to Pop Idol may make more sense than it seems. After all, he has nothing to fear from the advancing wave of synthetic stars. The more of them there are, the more special he seems.
He’s a one-off. There won’t be more like him in a hurry.