Europa 51: Abstractions

With a name like Europa 51 (the collective name for Simon Johns and Andy Ramsay — who both played with Stereolab — and multi-instrumentalist, composer, and arranger Steve Russell), a collection of guest musicians including the late Mary Hansen of Stereolab, members of High Llamas, jazz bassist Simon Thorpe, and harpist Celine Saout, would you expect anything other than sophisticated, jazzy, shiny pan-(western) European music? You sure wouldn’t!

Would you expect said sophisticated, jazzy, etc. music to be as uninteresting and – yes – unimpressive as Abstractions is? You probably wouldn’t, but you’d also probably be disappointed. To be fair, each track has some nice touch to it: a Tom Waits-esque horn blowing raggedly here, some analog synthesizer squiggles there, understated percussion ticking and tocking around. And, as a whole, there seems to be something lush and filmic about the proceedings, like the French equivalent of a Spaghetti Western. And, keeping in mind the musicians behind it, it’s certainly well-performed.

But why is record ultimately so anonymous-sounding? Instead of answering that question, which might not really have an answer, I’m going to enter into the cinematic spirit of this soundtrack for an imaginary Baguette Western in order to see what I can say about the record. (Incidentally, there is a real film Europa 51, directed by Roberto Rossellini and starring Ingrid Bergman. As I haven’t seen it, the following fantasia about this soundtrack may or may not follow the plot of the actual film.)

To begin, “Radio Rodeo” (the group does have some great titles for their compositions, although I often can’t figure out why certain pieces are named as they are) is a tight little behind-the-credits jammer with acoustic guitar, bongos, and piano. Our protagonist (let’s call him Jean, for no good reason other than the fact that Jean is a French name) is introduced, riding across the desert, in “Europa 51”, which is vibrant with the sound of vibes, echoing electric guitar and mournful horns. (When the television show based on the film of this record is released, with only one of the original cast reprising his role, this number will be the theme for that show.)

“Realism of the Illusion” places Jean in a bizarre frontier town that’s modeled after a carnival, where he meets a sad horn player, a sneaky bass plucker, and a mechanical wind-up doll who pines to be a real human. While his new musician friends are getting sloppy on cheap tequila, Jean sneaks after the doll. In “Voyeurism”, Jean spies on her (let’s call her Mary, in honor of Hansen) through the dusty slats of her Venetian blinds. He’s bewitched her wordless voice and heavenly harp. Unfortunately, his reverie is broken midway through the song, as his drunken companions come ambulating by, dragging him away from a dream with the prospect of some real booze with some real people.

“Four Steps in the Sun” sees Mary watching Jean through her blinds as he wanders away with his buddies. This is her plaintive cry to humanity and human love, where her beautiful voice is either undercut or made even sadder by an all-too-goofy banjo. “Golden Age of Gameshows” shows Mary following Jean gently, as he and his friends carouse. When Jean sees Mary, he breaks free from his buddies and dances a wordless waltz with her, joyful in their shared moment. (This brief passage of music is one of two thrilling sections of the record.) Realizing drunkenly that Mary’s only made of cogs and wires, he breaks away from this dance. Accompanied by a ringing guitar, shimmering organ, and cymbal washes, she walks back to her house in tears.

“Free Range Corona” finds a guitar and banjo strumming as Jean, forgetting for a moment his drunkenness and his companions, realizes the incredible happiness he shared in the dance with Mary, and makes his tentative way back to her house. He arrives, knocks on her door, she opens it with tears in their eyes, and they embrace as the sounds of a drum kit and barrel organ join the guitar and banjo. Their voices join together in sweet harmony. (By the way, this is the second of the exciting sections of music here. It’s really unfortunate that there are only two.) “The Society for the Prevention of New Music” shows the rest of their happy life together, to the tones of an Irish flute, an accordion, banjo, and fiddle. The couple builds a house, have some children (half-human and half-machine), and grow old together. The final credits roll to “Folkmaster Flex”, as the following subtitle appears on the screen: “Joy, like beauty, is all in the eye of the beholder.”

Maybe that subtitle would work well as a final thought for this record, too.