Richard Hawley "Coles Corner" (Mute)
By Tim Den
Friday. Sep 02, 1:35 AM
Stunning, stunning, stunning.

To say that Coles Corner stunned me like a police taser would not only be a poor analogy, but a gross understatement as well. Expecting the usual Mute arsenal of electronic and angular attacks, the title track immediately caught me by surprise with its cinematic strings, alone-in-a-crowd torch song qualities. As if Frank Sinatra teamed up with Scott Walker’s muse, The Divine Comedy’s conductor, and a scriptwriter from 1950s MGM Studios, “Coles Corner” plays out like the ache you feel in your bones when an old movie like From Here to Eternity stirs up sentiments only something so timeless can. You know the tingling you feel when “Somewhere” comes on during West Side Story? How, after 45 years of lingering in the populace’s collective subconscious, even the slightest tug of the arrangement can bring tears to people’s eyes? That’s what “Coles Corner” sounds and feels like. A crippling familiarity, untainted by cheap resold nostalgia because of its understanding of the essence that made its forerunners ageless. Richard Hawley’s delivery – haunting, charismatic, foreboding – remains at once calm/collected and immensely emotive, like a heartbroken man refusing to admit his hurt. Yet by tempering the smooth façade with cracks and dents, we are allowed to see glimpses of the vulnerability underneath. Nuance, nuance, nuance. I fail to recall another singer/songwriter capable of such dynamics… not even The Divine Comedy or Rufus Wainwright can stretch so far both ways.

And though the strings come back during (first single) “The Ocean” – washing crimson tides over your senses as it swallows you in its climactic waves – Hawley is not content on relying on swooning orchestration to dictate mood for the listener. Throughout the album, he strips accompaniment down to the barest essentials, sometimes just a lone acoustic guitar, sometimes the silence between tapped piano keys. On “Just Like the Rain,” there are no traces of Technicolor: just the open Oregon forests during the train dodge scene of Stand by Me. Perhaps cuz of the chiming guitars recalling “Everyday” by Buddy Holly used during that specific scene, there is a wide-eyed innocence in the quick shuffle and country-esque chord progression. On “Hotel Room,” Hawley’s affinity for Santo & Johnny reveals itself fully, as it waltzes smokily around the narrator’s desperate plea to a devastating guitar line (think how “Sleepwalk” makes your knees weak). The drama, the splendor, the beauty: is almost too much to bear.

Though his command of the best of music’s rich history is magnificent, Coles Corner never comes across as ancient or disjointed. Between the lonesome country twang and the moonlit serenades, there is a sense that Hawley respects and belongs with these golden eras. He knows how they turn, breathe, and flex. He knows the power they yield in their subtleties: something that straight copying could never capture. Coles Corner should’ve been born 50 years ago, but in 2005 its purity sounds more refreshing that ever.
www.richardhawley.co.uk
www.mute.com

Tim Den

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