I love New York.<\/p>\n
Really, I do, even if I have lived my entire life on the left
\ncoast and am a notorious homebody. Thing is, I’ve been to New York
\na couple of times and gotten a tremendous buzz off just being
\nthere\u2026 the energy, the diversity, the badass big-city
\nattitude\u2026 the whole place just feels like possibility made
\nreal. You can do whatever the hell you want in New York and no
\none’s going to say “that’s weird,” ’cause it’s just about
\nguaranteed there’s something weirder down the block or around the
\ncorner.<\/p>\n
That makes it the perfect habitat for a singer-songwriter like
\nDavid Clement. This is a fellow who’s clearly not interested in
\nsettling on a homogenized sound and making a record that sticks to
\nit. He’s also not interested in mainstreaming his lyrics; this is
\nsharp-witted art-rock all the way, with an avant-garde vibe that
\nowes a huge debt to David Bowie.<\/p>\n
Nowhere is this more evident than on the opener “noid noid,”
\nwith its slightly off-kilter melody, lyric full of existential
\nself-loathing and background vocals right out of Ziggy Stardust.
\nClement covers plenty of other musical territory before the album’s
\nover, though, showing flashes of Elvis Costello\/Ramones angry-pop
\n(“ahh,” “delusion at last call”); somewhat spaced-out hard rock
\n(“da boy,” “the accoutrement”); and a surprising flair for
\nR.E.M.-esque ballads with gently chiming guitars (“Sheba’s death
\nrattle,” “the yard”).<\/p>\n
Clement’s focus on these songs is very much on relationships,
\nbut in most cases the outlines are drawn with a kind of
\nimpressionistic obscurity, judiciously doling out situational
\ndetails while remaining sufficiently enigmatic to make you listen
\ncarefully. When he does get specific, the results can be oddly
\ntouching, as in “geriatriphilia,” with its sweetly sarcastic lyric
\nand an organ tone that’s lost in the no-man’s-land between Hammond
\nand Methodist.<\/p>\n
Most of the time, though, his pen is tough on both himself and
\nthe lovers who float in and out of his narratives, such as the poor
\nfellow in the stuttering, polyrhythmic “smells like a metaphor,”
\nwho goes from being celebrated to eviscerated in just 2:09. (And
\nyes, Clement is a gay songwriter who doesn’t bother playing games
\nwith his pronouns.)<\/p>\n
The guitar work, arrangements and production are tight
\nthroughout this album, both because Clement is supported by veteran
\nplayers hailing from the likes of The Attractions, They Might Be
\nGiants, and Alex Chilton, and because he’s had so long to consider
\nwhat these songs should sound like. They were originally recorded
\nfor release in 1998 as Clement’s sophomore album on Mercury
\nRecords, but fell victim to the corporate takeover\/music-business
\npolitics meat-grinder that chewed up so many intriguing acts at the
\nend of the century.<\/p>\n
On
\nYour Free Gift<\/i> Clement reclaims his songs and remakes them
\nfor a new century. And while the end result is far enough outside
\nthe mainstream that it’s unlikely to find a home on modern rock
\nradio, that’s Middle America’s loss. Quirky, adventurous and
\nstubbornly intelligent, this album isn’t for everyone… but
\nneither is New York.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":26312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6810],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-37539","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-david-clement","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37539"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37539"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}