The idea of a concept album about the current pandemic is a terrifying idea. It's the sort of thing that would lend itself to the same kind of lugubrious un-self-awareness as that "Imagine" video from all those "celebrities" a few months ago. Thankfully, there's one talent at work in this world who's capable of addressing our plague year, and not going down that self-indulgent road. That artist is Momus. His new record, Vivid, drops tomorrow on Darla here in the US, and it's affecting and (oddly) comforting.
"Oblivion" and "Working from Home" are elegant, possessing Van Dyke Parks-worthy arrangements done on computers (presumably), with lyrics that semi-directly address this current pandemic. If those numbers are beautiful, "September" and "Parasite" use lopsided hooks to convey and chronicle the unease that's gripped us all. While "September" reveals a tiny debt owed to the brasher moments on mid-Eighties Tom Waits records, "Parasite" seems to draw a clear lyrical and thematic line from "What Will Death Be Like?" from so far back in Mr. Nick Currie's own back-catalog. This is, frankly, one of the rare compositions here that sounds very much like the Momus we all (hopefully) grew up with. And that's another way of stating just how stark and intimate most of Vivid is.
I'm not too sure that Momus is using the current state of life as a reason to start moving in a new direction, or it's just a sound born out of the desperation of having to do everything at home now, but Vivid feels fresh and clean. And that's an odd thing to say about any Momus, particularly one made as a strange diseases ravages the world. While "Empty Paris" and "Long Distance Love" may have nearly written themselves, given current circumstances, the slowly insistent "Spring" seems like the work of someone scaling everything back. The track is masterful, with the elements here precisely layered as the selection progresses. It's practically a classical composition, really, as is closer "Optimism" with its Piazzolla-like rhythmic pull. Nothing here on Vivid jars the senses, but Momus works his way (sometimes slowly) into the soul, with compositions that smartly insinuate themselves. This is the rarest of records, and that's to say one which compels on an intellectual level even as it moves the emotions with its beauty.
Vivid is out tomorrow via Darla here in the US.
More details on Momus via his official website.