Jamie Hutchings - His Imaginary Choir

Since Jamie Hutchings is already the main creative force in the band Bluebottle Kiss, writing its material and singing lead vocals, it's a valid question why he also needs to makes solo albums such as His Imaginary Choir. And indeed, this is only his second such effort after The Golden Coach. The answer may be that, on his own, he is able to indulge a more esoteric side of himself without subjecting his songs to the head arrangements of a rock group. Here, he plays several instruments along with his producer Tony Dupe, one of which is toy piano. Dupe, for his part, also contributes cello and violin. The instruments help create a light, effervescent folk-pop sound that is sophisticated in some ways (there is an actual "choir" of six female voices that chimes in periodically), and in other ways ingenuous (sometimes the tracks feature count-ins at the start or breakdowns at the end). The music's sound effectively supports Hutchings' light tenor as he sings lyrics that have a dreamlike quality. "One day/I slept such a long time/Womb-like," he begins in the opening song, "Buried by Trouble," "And I woke to find/The city a funeral pyre." But, in a sense, he never really does wake up, instead drifting through the songs, presenting observations in the first person and directing them to a "you" who may be a girlfriend or just an extension of himself. The narrator may be something of a bemused hobo, being moved along by the authorities in "Sir I'm Going to Have to Ask You to Leave," imagining himself and his girl as Bonnie and Clyde in "The World Grows Tinier," and making like an unthreatening imitator of Jim Morrison on "Montgomery on Central" (as he remembers "you" singing "Love Me Two Times"). The character is certainly ingratiating, especially when the choir is echoing his musings, with some of the trance-like appeal of Van Morrison, but, characteristically, none of that Morrison's intensity. (And it's probably not an accident that the album's title recalls Van Morrison's His Band and the Streetchoir.)