Van Morrison - Remembering Now
★★★★
EXILE/VIRGIN
“Pretending my life is not in ruins/Pretending I'm not depressed.” So ran the opening lines on Pretending, the quietly devastating final song of Van Morrison’s last album of new music, 2022’s What’s It Gonna Take. Maybe you didn’t make it that far, beaten down by all those songs about government mind control and the World Economic Forum. But here was the sound of a man in crisis, unsure whether he was having “some kind of breakthrough [or] a nervous breakdown” and putting it all in song.
Well, something has changed, and maybe it was that act of excoriating self-analysis. Because, after two restorative 2022 covers albums (Moving On Skiffle and the pointedly titled Accentuate The Positive) and last year’s archive collection, New Arrangements And Duets, comes what might be Morrison's best album since 1991’s Hymns To The Silence. It begins with a brace of easeful, radiant openers, Down to Joy (initially recorded for Kenneth Branagh’s 2021 film, Belfast) and If It Wasn’t For Ray, a salute to Ray Charles, that, in its “da-da-da-da dup-da-da-da-da-da” scat, musically quotes another Morrison’s soul paean, Jackie Wilson Said. The third song, I Haven’t Lost My Sense Of Wonder is, of course, another act of self-reference, echoing the seven-minute title track of Morrison’s vastly underrated 1984 LP. It’s also a declaration of intent, that this album will reconnect with both the laid-back Hammond and saxophone groove of that particular album and the heightened state of consciousness that has defined Morrison’s finest work. However, the inclusion of string arranger Fiachra Trench (who last worked extensively with Morrison on 2006’s Pay The Devil) points to another influence, that of Avalon Sunset’s soaring romantic lyricism.
As with many of Morrison’s 21st Century releases, Remembering Now admittedly runs long at 63 minutes and while the first half possesses a freewheeling intimacy that is hard to resist, the record truly opens up on Once In A Lifetime Feelings a Don Black co-write which finds Van driving down to Monte Carlo, surprised by his own romantic optimism and the sweetly aching Stomping Ground, in which the singer yearns, once again, for vanished memories of Belfast’s Strandtown and “the Church of Ireland’s… six bells chime”. “See where I started from”, sings the impassioned Morrison, and this, in part, seems to be the goal of Remembering Now, to get back to the real soul. But in the majestic final half of the record, particularly on the mantric, waltzing title track and epic, rhapsodic closer, Stretching Out the title of the album takes on another meaning. This is Van Morrison remembering how to be in the moment, realising that the days of wonder are not in the past or lying in ruins, they are in the moment. They are now.
Remembering Now is out June 12 on Exile/Virgin.
ORDER: Amazon | Rough Trade | HMV
Track listing:
1. Down To Joy
2. If It Wasn’t For Ray
3. Haven’t Lost My Sense Of Wonder
4. Love, Lover And Beloved
5. Cutting Corners
6. Back To Writing Love Songs
7. The Only Love I Ever Need Is Yours
8. Once In A Lifetime Feelings
9. Stomping Ground
10. Memories And Visions
11. When The Rains Came
12. Colourblind
13. Remembering Now
14. Stretching Out
Get the latest issue of MOJO for the definitive verdict on all the month’s essential new releases, reissues, music books and films. More info and to order a copy HERE!
