Lawrence Arabia The Sparrow
(Bella Union)
Despite the overly elaborate pseudonym, Christchurch songwriter Lawrence Arabia doesn’t seem to approach his songwriting with an encyclopedic comprehension of the subjects he likes to emulate. Thus far, it’s been a growing experience for James Milne, who's beginning to carve his own niche after fiddling with a variety of projects that couldn’t be any different from where he currently stands. His selective view of musical interests may skew towards that of a highly cultivated man in the Sparrow, with hints of Scott Walker and Serge Gainsbourg speckled throughout the entire production, but he handles them cautiously, taking only the superficial qualities of his influences to avoid them from spoiling his own disposition.
Still, Milne’s ear for pop songcraft couldn’t be any more prevalent, and there’s a strong sense of brio in his flamboyant arrangements that could portray him as an elegant provocateur. Outside of his dapper appearance, the characters he writes about are always much more cooler, as they bring to mind the image of archaic, Agnes Varda-like prowlers. You were the toast of the town with that etiquette, he sings in a flat monotone, a noticeable contrast from the high-pitched falsetto that accompanies the noirish, swelling strings and tinny, trebly bass tones of Lick Your Wounds. They need to go to bed, this conversation is in their heads, he quips in the The Listening Times, in which he strums a lazy guitar with a comical slant about the dull drudgery of listening to meaningless intellectual banter until sunrise. Milne gives us insight into the kind of people we generally dislike for irrational reasons, and most likely identifies himself as one of them, being the casual, yet astute observer that he is.
The self-imposed, woebegone humor of Chant Darling has been lost, if not hidden in the despondent narrative of songs like Bicycle Riding - the piano dirge lays bare that classic storytelling device about feeling helpless, regaining some mental clarity while strolling lost in thought in hopes of finding some direction and purpose. It’s not an unfamiliar scenario for Milne, whose still tempering his choice of words with a grovelling kind of wit. In the loungy, horn-driven The Bisexual, he muses, there’s an argument that says everyone is a little bit....you know, emphasizing that last bit with a salacious leer.
But even with his portentous delivery, Milne never comes off as boastful, and he properly plays an act with such aplomb that it’s hard not to become enraptured with it. Most of the Sparrow has a lot of class, but not in the way it obviously intends. The expertly level of musicianship is really where it excels, so much so that Milne backs off in many occasions and give the studio musicians their time to either freely wail and screech atonal outros, or end these lavish symphonies with a pointed touch. He may not be either the sleazy womanizer or the overtly literate cavalier, but there’s enough pop artisanship in The Sparrow to suggest he’s a rare breed of singer-songwriter whose gradually dotting melodic classicism while letting whisks of avant leanings come through.