Album Review: Aldous Harding – Designer (Flying Nun)

Its album number three from Aldous Harding. What has she got in store for us this time?

The musical evolution from Harding’s first record, full of gentle, traditional-sounding English folk music to Party, with its endlessly surprising and innovative musicality was one of the most exciting transformations I’ve heard.

It’s no secret that that album was a favourite of mine, as much for its sense of adventure as for the feeling that I was listening to something fresh and new.

But with that comes the heightened expectation for this, her third long player.

At first I was somewhat disappointed to hear that Aldous would be working again with producer John Parish, in the same studio and with the same core musicians that made Party. Something inside me wanted her to be taking new, bold steps with every release.

Then, a few months ago, we were presented with The Barrel, a typically quirky tune that could have easily fit onto Party.

While I loved hearing The Barrel, I did feel a twinge of disappointment in the fact that it sounded a bit familiar, not straying far from the previous record.

But then I found myself singing the tune to myself over and over. It had insinuated itself into my brain and I was stuck with it. I found, when I was presented with the entire album; I couldn’t wait to get to the track, which is number five out of nine.

It’s crazy how music works.

For those who may have found Party a bit too challenging, perhaps they’ll feel more comfortable with Designer’s opening track, Fixture Picture.

The production is traditional guitar, bass and drums and the feel is light and airy. It’s got a catchy chorus and the lyric reminds me of Paul McCartney’s Single Pigeon, a tune Harding has claimed as a favourite of hers, and covered on occasion. Still, as the song proceeds, we suddenly hear a string section adding a bittersweet coda to the otherwise dreamy tune.

That’s what I like about Aldous Harding, that element of surprise. And this record is full of them.

The title track is a perfect example. On the surface it seems like a typical pop song with, what can be described as a slightly “funky” beat”. But just when you think you know where it’s going, it takes intriguing twists and turns, both musically and lyrically.

A piano fragment springs out of nowhere and disappears again. Then, horns and woodwinds combine to sound like something out of Pet Sounds. Then we hear a jaunty little piano riff aided by percussion. Meanwhile Aldous sings lines like, “You bend my day at the knee” and “We were ala mode”.

Think about it too much, and it makes little sense, but then, on another level, it does, or it doesn’t matter.

Harding and producer John Parish have created a sound palate with plenty of space in it, leaving room for whatever comes to mind, whether it’s the stabbing strings of The Weight Of The Planets or male harmony vocal that appears during Treasure.

The song, Damn features a simple, repeating 4-note piano figure, but it’s enough to carry Aldous’ most intimate vocal on the record. “Damn a chamois, I thought I’d made a tambourine”, she sings at the beginning, then later, “Damn it Hanny (no doubt referring to her real name of Hannah) when you jump up and down, the chains almost sound like a tambourine”.

The Weight Of The Planets is a song Aldous performed regularly while touring Party, and it good to hear it here. She and Parish have concocted a cheesy-sounding drum machine beat to carry the song while random string parts and vocal “yips” spice up the track.

The final two tracks, Heaven Is Empty and Pilot, are stripped down productions.

On the first, Aldous sing over a barely audible acoustic guitar…ruminating on the lack of an afterlife. “Nobody’s there”, she sings.

And on Pilot, she vacillates between her high, childlike voice and her deep, darker tone over a lone piano.

“I get so nervous I need a tattoo, something binding, that hide us”, she sings, possibly letting us in to her inner thoughts.

But it’s a line from The Weight Of The Planets that seems to sum up Aldous Harding best:

“I can do anything, no one is stopping me”.

And, indeed, listening to Designer, one feels like we are hearing an artist who is free to do whatever she wants. And capable of taking the listener someplace they’ve never been before.

Marty Duda