Career-defining peak for one of UK Americana’s finest.
In the mid-90s, Wilson brothers Danny and Julian were the songwriters and driving force behind new London (via Australia) band Grand Drive. In November 1997 they released their raggedly wonderful first single ‘Tell it Like It Is’. It was an NME single of the week and impeccably tagged as “one of the most luscious, soul-tugging singles of the year.” They followed it 18 long months later with one of the great debut albums of UK Americana. ‘Road Music’ (actually a compilation of early singles and EPs) that was full of achingly soulful songs about loss and yearning. Now, nearly 27 years later, Danny George Wilson may just have surpassed that high water mark with ‘You Are Not a Stranger Here’.
This new LP is Danny and the Champions of the World’s seventh studio release and first since 2017’s ‘Brilliant Light’. Over the years, Wilson has also released D&TCOTW live material, solo records and a brace of Bennett, Wilson, Poole albums along with having a hand in running record shops and a label. So it’s not as if the wait has been due to their de facto leader being sat about twiddling his thumbs. Working with both the ‘Champs’ and on his other projects, Wilson has recurrently refreshed his sound, without ever feeling the need to totally reinvent what he does. So with ‘You Are Not a Stranger Here’ we have songs and arrangements that simultaneously offer a new and arresting direction for the band but remain entirely and irrefutably Wilson / Champs-esque at their core. There is more space, more calmness and introspection in these songs than we have heard before. The sound is less forceful and rhythm-based, having opened up and slowed down, becoming more expansive on the way, yet it is still idiosyncratically Wilson’s own individual songwriting voice that shines through.
In a way these evolutions kind of mirror how UK alt-country has developed over a similar time period. Moving on from the fundamentalist Byrds / Parsons / Neil Young inspirations and embracing a broader palette that reflects influences from the earnest slowcore of Red House Painters or Rex, the countrified chamber-pop of Lambchop or American Music Club, even the more ambient sounds of His Name is Alive or Tarnation. Perhaps the most readily apparent set of influences on this record though could be the sophisticated pastoral synth-pop/art rock hybrid of such as The Blue Nile and Talk Talk. If all these references suggest something that is infinitely crafted, with not a note out of place or a single word that jars then that is very much the effect that Wilson and his cohorts were after.
‘You Are Not a Stranger Here’ is a uniquely focussed collection, taking time over the smallest of sounds or most fleeting of lyrical echoes. It was nurtured through extensive deliberations amongst the band about the style of album they wanted to make in order to best embody their current status and in particular the energies that stoked Wilson’s return to recording with the Champs. Indeed he went so far as to create a playlist for the band to inform the recording sessions, which he notes made it clear that “the terrain is different here” and ‘You Are Not a Stranger Here’ was going to be a significant step forward from previous records.
The record was once more be produced by Champs keyboard player Thomas Collison and features long-term members Steve Brookes (drums), guitarist Paul Lush, Geoff Widdowson (sax) and pedal steel player Henry Senior. To complete the squad, bass came from Daniel Hawkins and there was a second saxophone from Wilson’s Aussie based uncle Lachlan. This reliable crew of regulars and more has had no trouble in adapting to the new scope of Wilson’s songwriting vision and the performances are uniformly excellent, bordering on the thrilling on occasion.
‘You Are Not a Stranger Here’ has a somewhat elusive conceptual coherence, being “laid out” over the course of a single day. It is one that might be totally inconspicuous were it not for the short snatches of dialogue and the ‘interlude’ tracks. These inform the narrative timeline through the morning weather, the commute and a frustrating call centre hold. The album ends with the protagonist’s (whether it is Wilson or not is a moot point) return home to ‘Sooner or Later’. Within the loose concept Wilson surfaces a number of subtle themes; going through the motions, trying to understand one’s feelings or the transience of drifting thoughts and memories.
But the central concern that emerges from Wilson’s songs here is a kind of confused or unsure self-reflection, where he is experiencing and implying less clarity and certainty about his feelings and his place in the world as time passes – either over the course of the day or through the span of a life as lived. In ‘Future Past’ he tells us “I used to be so sure, but I’m not so sure any more” making his apparent confusion explicit. As he himself has offered in recent interviews, his songwriting here is infused with the small nostalgias and regrets of introspective middle-age and the songs that materialise “don’t profess to know anything. In fact, they’re a lot less self-assured than all of the previous thirty years of songs”.
Perhaps ‘Kicking Tyres’ is the pinnacle of this self-reflective atmosphere. It’s a slow-build 9-plus minutes that progresses from a plaintive, forlorn piano opening into a magical, atmospheric rumination on testing out your view of the world and how your experiences fit into this. Throughout its full length it progresses at a stately pace yet the intensity of the mood manages to build and come the end we are almost wrung out. It may just be the crowning moment of his career, calling to mind such touchstones as the previously mentioned Talk Talk and Blue Nile along with Floydian guitar and beautifully expressive pedal steel that recalls the superb solo BJ Cole or his work with Procul Harum, even Felt.
‘You Are Not a Stranger Here’ is the most universal of records with the most personal of settings. It has the capacity to appeal across the board. Classic rock aficionados can enjoy it on the same level as they dig War on Drugs, fans of artier UK indie will revel in the lush expanses and swirling atmospherics and there are enough infectious and almost anthemic moments to appeal to those yearning for the 80’s pop of Bowie and Roxy. If your direction of travel is from a more direct Americana source than this remains a masterly Danny and the Champions of the World alt-country record, albeit with a stamp of Wilco oddness. Ultimately though it is simply a fabulously creative and engaging 40 minutes of a band at their peak and a songwriter reaching new heights of communication. ‘You Are Not a Stranger Here’ is big music for a small world, intimate yet expansive and demanding to be felt.
Great review Guy