We Fell To Earth and curious confessions

Only a few days ago I wrote about The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster that mixes rock, punk, rockabilly and goth in their sound. Now I've stumbled upon a band that combines krautrock, shoegazing, psychedelic rock and electro just as wildly and successfully.

We Fell To Earth released their debut album already about a year ago but I didn't discover them until last spring. And for some peculiar reason it took me almost a year to realise just what I had encountered.

Yeah, I know. Sometimes I'm so slow it's embarrassing. But hey, better late than never, right? Right?

Anyways, We Fell To Earth consists of two persons: Richard File who used to play in UNKLE and Wendy Rae Fowler who used to be connected to the extended family of musicians playing in QOTSA, Desert Sessions, Eagles Of Death Metal and whatnot. The two camps have met before already and collaborated a couple of times (on previous UNKLE records, for instance) but We Fell To Earth shouldn't be treated as an extension to those collaborations. It's a band with a distict sound and voice of its own - a voice that's eerie, atmospheric and outlandish. At times creepy as well.

For someone who used to love trance music back in the 90's (yeah, I did go to raves and danced til dawn, sometimes even with glowsticks in my hands, if you must know) but later fell in love with 70's psychedelic and krautrock it's a match made in heaven.

Alain Johannes - a man and a cigarbox guitar

Multi-talent is a term often thrown around ungroundedly. But it's the only word that can be used to describe Alain Johannes. In addition to being able to play the guitar, bass, mandolin, banjo, keyboard, flute, clarinet, saxophone, fiddle and several other instruments, Alain Johannes is also a gifted singer, songwriter, recording engineer and producer. You may not know him by his name but if you've listened to Queens Of The Stone Age, Chris Cornell, Them Crooked Vultures, Spinnerette, Desert Sessions or Mark Lanegan records, you probably know some of his work.

Photo by Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times

I was lucky enough to see Alain Johannes play as an opener for Gogol Bordello and DeVotchKa a couple of days ago - a somewhat odd slot for him, if you ask me, but of course nobody does and of course I was happy to see him even only for 30 minutes or so.

On stage Alain seemed exactly as one might expect - perhaps slightly unaccustomed to being alone in the limelight but obviously a very skillful and talented musician, equipped only with his cigarbox guitar (as in the photo). The set consisted mostly of songs from his first solo album "Spark", released this autumn.

So why did such a talented musician wait till his forties before going solo? I'm guessing Alain just never had any reason to work alone before. He found his perfect match both in life and in music in Natasha Shneider, his life partner for over 20 years, who unfortunately passed away due to cancer in 2008. The story about the two meeting, living and working together, completing each other every step of the way is pretty exceptional. In addition to having a band together (Eleven, with the drummer Jack Irons) they often worked together on many of the aforementioned collaborations.

In a way, Natasha helped Alain on "Spark" as well. In his recent interviews Alain's told about how he felt Natasha's presence so strongly while writing and recording the album that it was like she was there, guiding him. This "gentle ghost" of Natasha was the only one who's help he agreed to have on the album, which is written, played, recorded and produced solely by Alain himself.

The most staggering thing about "Spark" is how balanced and hopeful it sounds. Obviously, the album is dedicated to Natasha and it deals with the tremendous loss of a very close person. The end result however is not a dark requiem but a beautiful collage of intertwining moods and musical textures, a perfect mixture of light and shade. A highly recommendable and inspiring effort, and definitely one of the best albums of 2010. And next year Alain's set to collaborate with Mark Lanegan on his upcoming solo album. Somehow I've got a feeling it might turn out pretty fine as well.

Alain in a cigarbox battle:

Lost Paradise Lost

Lately there's been an influx of re-releases and/or re-unions from many of my favorite artists. Faith No More and Soundgarden have been touring. Queens Of The Stone Age re-released their Rated R and played a couple of live shows. A Perfect Circle are currently touring the US and playing all their albums live. And this week Paradise Lost announced they'd be re-releasing their 1995 album Draconian Times and playing it live in several shows next spring.

Although I've been one of the first ones in line to get tickets to FNM's re-union gigs and gutted that I wasn't able to see either The Queens' or APC gigs, the news about Paradise Lost made me both sad and disappointed. Sounds illogical, doesn't it? It's not actually.

I literally fell in love with Paradise Lost's album One Second in 1997. I had already heard some their songs before that too of course but One Second was thee record for me. It sounded so cold, detached and stylish and had great songs. I wasn't able to listen to it alone in the dark because it gave me the chills. It was impressive.

The album was also a gutsy move from PL. They'd become big with their previous record Draconian Times but on One Second they altered their sound and became more melodic and polished. They even cut their hair which apparently is a huge no-no for any metal band, as I learned later. I didn't care. I just loved the music.



So, ever since One Second I've been their fan. Sure there have been times when I've been busy listening to other stuff but whenever there was a new album from PL, I always got it and liked it. I kept coming back. At one point I used to spend insane amounts of time in their forum online and got to know other fans. Some of them became good friends. I travelled abroad to see gigs, I bought the t-shirts, I interviewed the band and found them a bunch of really nice, down-to-earth and funny guys.

But then something happened. In 2007 PL released In Requiem. It didn't quite hit the nerve but had a couple of great songs in it, so I wasn't really worried yet. But the 2009 album Faith Divides Us, Death Unites Us got me seriously concerned. It wasn't the PL I had grown to love. The album sounded as fine and polished as usual, the songs were ok but there was something missing. It took me a while to realise that I just couldn't hear the soul anymore. There were cool bits and pieces here and there but they didn't come together. It was as if the band had tried too much, as if they were suddenly writing music to please their old fans instead of themselves. The album wasn't breathing. For me, it was like a zombie version of the PL I used to know. It was heartbreaking.

So when I heard the news about the Draconian Times re-release and shows, it was like a deathblow. It wasn't a gutsy or classy move. It wasn't about going forward and being creative. It made me realise that I was able to appreciate re-unions and re-releases if they mark either new beginnings or serve as closure for something that was disrupted too soon or suddenly. But in my mind for Paradise Lost, once such an innovative band, this is a huge step back.

Don't get me wrong, I've nothing against fans attending those upcoming DT shows and being excited about it. They just probably love PL for different reasons than I do. And if PL comes up with something cool next I'll promise to be a happy fan again - but it'd better be something really good. The bar's set high though but after all, it's there because they set it there themselves, back in 1997.