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Paul Weller
22 Dreams

(Island, 2008)

Gruff gatekeeper to Ye Olde Modde Rocke deserts post, has genre-bending brainstorm inspired by Debussy, Coltranes and... AMM!

Paul Weller

The new (ie. forthcoming) Weller album has been spinning merrily chez MOJO, and while it's too soon to tell if it will Wake Up The Nation, it has certainly blown away 2010's cobwebs with the intensity of the performances and the breadth of musical ideas: "a Style Council record played by The Jam," is spaketh a passing Wise Woman.

It's a continuation of the experimental phase ushered in by 08's 22 Dreams, the re-emergence of a broad-minded Weller who can groove to My Bloody Valentine and Can as much as to Dusty or Tim Hardin. Turning back to 22 Dreams to see where this all began, one is still struck by its stylistically schizophrenic, 69-minute smorgasbord of reveries and meditations, the first Paul Weller album you can imagine being made by the Paul Weller you hear on Robert Wyatt records. Addressing aging and fatherhood with almost disconcerting candour, and including unabashed mood pieces tied to the seasons Weller watched change from his home-from-home at Black Barn studios, Woking, it could hardly have stepped more boldly outside The Modfather's perceived comfort zone. It's a record you have to listen to again and again, if only to assure yourself that you heard it right the first time.

There are exquisitely crafted songs - like Black River's dramatically unWellerish echo of early Bowie or the jazzy, melancholy turmoil of Cold Moments. There are experimental grooveathons, like the frenzied Push It Along and druggily disorientating Echoes Round The Sun (a Noel Gallagher co-write). There are moments of bravura musical alchemy, as when Lullaby Für Kinder's time-freezing piano étude segues into the bluff, violin-encrusted folk of Where'er Ye Go. From soup to nuts, there's barely a chord-change the listener could have confidently predicted.

Occasionally, Weller pushes the boat out too far (God - with former Stone Roses guitarist Aziz Ibrahim impersonating the deity in chewy Mancunian - is 22 Dreams' Lenny Henry moment), but at its best/weirdest (111's unsettling Moog'n'Mellotron troika, Night Lights' crepuscular raga, the self-castigating soul-pop of Have You Made Up Your Mind) it's as if a delirium has set in, with Weller and his cohorts drunk on music, too excited sometimes to end a piece "properly" before fast-forwarding to the next unexpected idea.

There are great albums that are nose-to-tail singles, but 22 Dreams is not one of them. Settle in for the duration, however, and expect a genuine trip. Exactly what kind of psychic jolt has prompted this radical reorientation is anyone's guess, but for whatever reason the risk-taking Paul Weller is back. And as Wake Up The Nation already intimates, he'll be with us till last orders at least.

Danny Eccleston

Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 10/02/2010

Further Listening

The Clash – Sandinista! (CBS, 1980)

Aphrodite’s Child – 666 (Vertigo, 1972)

The Style Council – Confessions Of A Pop Group (Polydor, 1988)

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