Strange Fruit - Catherine Wheel

Sorry to go a week without blogging. Been busy.

One of my current favorite bands is Catherine Wheel
(current in the sense of currently listening to, not necessarily currently active, which CW apparently are not). Of the bands I've heard in the Shoegaze genre (which is by no means even half of them), these guys have the best sound, combined with the best songwriting. It's all about atmosphere. Any schoolkid can turn up the guitar effects and make noise leaning into the Peavey combo amp his parents bought him, but it takes art to make the songs that Catherine Wheel put out on their first two albums, Ferment (1992) and Chrome (1993). I have not listened to their albums after this period, which according to their Wikipedia entry took them away from Shoegaze into "hard rock". Will be worth a listen in the future.

A major part of the atmosphere achieved by the Shoegaze era CW is no doubt due to Tim Friese-Greene, a member of the seminal new-wave/alternative pop/rock band Talk Talk,who produced Ferment and played keyboards on Chrome.

As an aside, the Ferment album cover reminds me of a view down the throat of a sandworm.

In some of the online material about CW there are some comments that the lead singer, Rob Dickinson, was not confident in his vocal strength and that is partially responsible for the position of the vocals in the mix, which somewhat follow the Shoegaze poetic of voice-as-instrument. For me, this is not a drawback of this genre. It adds an irreplaceable dimension to the narrative and atmosphere. This is especially true in the case of CW. The vocal is in the high range for male (while not being falsetto), which adds a romanticism and even a fragility that synergizes with the strong guitar wall. Without this vocal sound, a huge part of the emotional content of these songs would not come across.

Strange Fruit (damn, no video on Youtube), from the Chrome album, encapsulates everything that is great about the Catherine Wheel sound.


At first glance, the lyrics look like standard oblique loner poetry. But there are a couple of really great stanzas here: First verse: "I've been inside this fruit when juices flow. But the taste is just a memory you hold. There is no real decay. No feeling of the skin. No juice."
Second verse: "This is sweet the soul the flesh I wish. It's the liquid that I miss. There is no real decay. The flesh is barely bruised. It's no use."

Dark, strange, I would even say gothic. Fits the sound perfectly, even though it is a not a dirge-y gothic tempo. They also dovetail really well with the song’s structure.

The guitar opening is strong and straight, uppish tempo. Then the drums kick in, clean, simple. Verse vocal is high and strong. The second part of the verse brings in a new hook, with great harmony somewhat receding in the background. The guitar line falls down from on high.
The every-beat drums during the chorus, which brings in yet another hook, really rally things. It's rare to find more than one real hook in a song and this one arguably has three (two verse plus the chorus). The guitar sound throughout is so full you can lean against it, into it like a big sofa. The chorus hook is emphasized further by the repetitive lead guitar line. The transition from chorus back to verse is really great, with an unexpected phrasing.
After the second chorus there is a brief bridge part just before a nice dreamy break (in America, Shoegaze was called Dream Pop).
Then we are given a big third verse and final chorus, which just rings out into forever at the end. The structure here is pure pop song, but this gives you everything you need soundwise and atmosphere wise. There are few perfect songs out there. I've already blogged about one. Strange Fruit is another.