Ed Harcourt’s Haungtingly Beautiful Lie
This is the second review of Ed Harcourt’s album, The Beautiful Lie, that I’ve done and I’m glad I didn’t just throw the last one right up onto the web because since then I’ve listened to it while driving across Montana. My first review was positive but picky and I don’t know if it was the openness of the big sky state which has made me more open to this album or if it’s just one that grows on you but now I’m falling in love.
If you don’t know Ed Harcourt, he’s been around. He was on EMI in the UK and reached as far as #6 on the charts in Sweden. And he’s versatile. He’ splaying piano mainly but he branches out into other instruments like guitar and drums. (Supposedly those drums were recorded in some, as I imagine it, dank dark hallway in Ed’s own house.) You’ll also find on this album accompaniment by strings and some brass and all arranged beautifully.
But like I said this isn’t some pick up, put in, don’t think, and let your mind enjoy album, even though some tracks like its opening, Whirlwind in D Minor might take you that way. It’s got some brooding, some deep dark tones. Some of these tracks aren’t quite loveable. They are more like spicy IPA’s, acupuncture, or difficult relationships. They’re a little complex and take a little pain.
I can tell you when it happened to me. There’s a place, and I can’t tell you where it is because I don’t know what road I was on or where exactly in the expanse of Montana I was, but as I was driving across emptiness, no cars, no people, just grass over a hill came possibly one hundred giant wind turbines. If you’ve never seen them up close there is something beautiful about them, something simple like giant spinning orchids. I can’t exactly explain to you what seeing them in the middle of nothingness is quite like but maybe it’s a little like Ed Harcourt’s album. Maybe there is something simple and beautiful in the soul of this album that you can’t quite see, that seems a little out of place, that needs just the right moment for it to expose itself.
I don’t know if that’s true but Ed has created something worth enjoying here even if it takes a little work and time.