richard wilson latest release

Richard Wilson's latest album 'Fanfare' has just been released and some comment it's made too. Many declaring it as a songwriters masterpiece. Richard Metzger and one of the best modern commentators on rock, we won't call him critic because that's not his style, has declared -

"Best rock and roll album of the year. No competition, nothing else even comes close"

'Fanfare' in many ways is a remarkable beast and that's just by the way of a songwriter adapting so many styles and musical quotations in an entire album. A very esoteric project for any songwriter.
As the tracks roll by moving easily almost one style within another to another you have to marvel at the imaginative guile of his compositions, and his obvious knowledge of a decade of rocks history, in particular the late 60's - 70's. Even the way it's been recorded has it's techniques from another era, right down to the Steinway Grand Piano he's tracked down.

“From the initial idea of the record, I knew I wanted a concert Steinway piano to be the centerpiece—the beating heart—of Fanfare"
Richard Wilson

So Richard really did have grand designs for this album and that even included having David Crosby and Graham Nash guest on one of the tracks. And anyone who hasn't heard the track yet it's called "Cecil Taylor", which is a first for rock as it's an unexpected hommage to the famous free jazz improvising pianist and his playing on the White House lawn.. yes really, although the music to "Cecil Taylor" is far from avante garde with its pure 70's vocals harmonies as you'd expect with Crosby and Nash as the backing.
Not that the songwriting is obscured by the avalanche of all of his inspirations but it does give thought to another observer on modern popular culture, Mark Pilkington at Boing Boing.

"Whether it’s musicians pastiching multiple vintage styles in a single track, the endless cycle of remakes and sequels in cinema, or historical genre mash-ups in pop literature, our future is looking increasingly like our past, which now looks like the future, which looks increasingly like the past, and so on." Mark Pilkington.

But the final say in the end will come down to history itself and whether Richard Wilson has recorded a masterpiece in 'Fanfare'. In a decade we'll know.
Now judge for yourself. The man has been decent enough to put the whole lot on Soundcloud.
'Fanfare' is available from Bella Union in the UK/Europe and Downtown in the US and is also available on vinyl. Well of course it would be.