Let Aldous Harding Stay Weird and Wonderful
Aldous Harding has a new album out, it’s called Party and it’s pretty superb. That’s a subjective statement there, all music criticism is to at least some degree subjective, but as it happens the record is also getting killer reviews from most of the big publications out there. Harding’s a kiwi lass and she also just made a bit of history by appearing on BBC flagship music show ‘Later… With Jools Holland’ on the same night that fellow NZer Lorde was also performing. Two New Zealanders on the same bill of one of the world’s top live music shows. How about that? Kiwi women as well, just to add to the splendour.
Coincidentally (or in a show of solidarity) Lorde herself has already given Harding’s stuff her personal royal seal of approval:
The new album itself can be challenging in places. Aldous has this way of teasing and moulding her voice around her songs, dragging out words and experimenting with sounds. At times it almost sounds like there are different singers from song to song - these tunes aren’t so much sung as they are inhabited. One track is called ‘Party’ while another is called ‘What If Birds Aren’t Singing They’re Screaming?’ It’s not music that is going to appeal to everyone and it’s not trying to be either.
And her performance on Jools Holland was even weirder, wilder and more wonderful. A solitary piano for accompaniment, three sombre chords. The rest is all performance as Harding squeezes every drop from the song. Her voice hovers and crawls, her face desperately contorts, her eyes bulge wide and her hands gesture in Shakespearian agony. It’s so vivid and raw… it’s absolutely captivating.
Harding’s first album (self-titled, 2014) is a dark and moody kind of folk record. Gothic is a word that’s been written a few times. She’s still exploring similar territory but she’s gone deeper on Party, deeper than many have ever dared. Producer John Parish’s PJ Harvey connection is an easy one to make and compatriot Nadia Reid has probably shared a few bills with her in the past but in so many ways this record defies conventional definition. That’s not something that every music fans is keen on, yet for others that originality is a major attraction.
That’s a good thing, because in an era of targeted advertising and identity politics it’s refreshing to find an artist that doesn’t feel the need to stay in their lane, so to speak. Difficult and challenging art is often the most rewarding because it withholds. You have to meet it halfway, sometimes further. That extra effort then unveils a deeper understanding, a deeper empathy, a deeper connection. But it’s not for everyone.
Problem is, you listen to a record like this one and you grow to love it, you then get annoyed at people who dismiss it without giving it the same investment. Except that challenging art is supposed to be that way – the reason it’s challenging is because it shuns that wider acclaim in order to express something more distinctive. If you love an album like Party then you should want people to hate it. You should embrace that kind of disengagement. You should also applaud Aldous Harding for having the bravery to create something like that and to appear on a show like Jools Holland’s and perform in her own idiosyncratic way because it’s not easy to court such reaction. Hell, even publishing a silly article here and there you take every negative facebook comment personally. To open yourself up to that on an international scale in the pursuit of an artistic vision or muse is an incredible thing to behold.
Harding to NPR: "When I heard the chorus [of 'Party'] in my head I kind of went, 'I don't know if I'm allowed to do that,'" she says. "I've done something different, and it feels much better. Fits better. And I... went for it, by the sounds of it," she laughs. "I just got stuck in it, now didn't I?"
There you go. That’s it right there. While it can seem like there’s a battle ongoing between commercial art and non-commercial art (or rather: accessible art and non-accessible art), it’s actually pretty important that we have both, in a yin-yang kinda way. What’s cool is that on that very same episode of Jools Holland we sort of did.
Aldous Harding and Lorde definitely have a shared intersection in the same Venn diagram. Lorde’s alternative… but she’s alternative pop – which sounds like a bit of an oxymoron. She makes no secret of the fact that she’s trying to make accessible (and profound, because profundity exists on both sides of the spectrum; don’t be a snob) music. In her recent Rolling Stone profile she had this quote: “I have always been super-allergic to anything that feels exclusive in art”. Sweet as, that, right there, is also it. Both are valid, both are crucial, both are completely necessary.
And just like there will be people who don’t ‘get’ Aldous Harding, there will also be people who aren’t really ‘in to’ Lorde’s music either. Some poor souls won’t even be able to appreciate either. Luckily music is a personal journey so who really cares what others think? Especially when some stuff is supposed to be divisive, or at least unconventional. In the words of a great artist: Here is your princess and here is your horizon.
The Cache here ain’t for everyone either but independent writing is a tough business too. Luckily all it takes to give us a pat on the back is a quick click on one of them flashing banners.