Blue Aeroplanes – ‘Altitude’ (EMI) Released 03/04/06

Well, you wait 10 years for one Blue Aeroplane and then two come along at once. Hot no the heels of EMI’s reissue of ‘Swagger’ and a momentous live rendition of that whole record, comes Gerard Langley’s lovestruck wanderers with their first overground release in far too long a time. And effortlessly, thrillingly, it’s a masterpiece- these are exuberant skyscraping fireworks and a complete vindication that there is some hope for guitars and lyrics in the world of KaiserMonkeyBoy land. God, the clarity of the production, the guitars, the drums and bass- Gerard’s cryptic ecstatic word-diamonds- the whole bloody thing just sounds so fresh to these rock-cynical jaded ears.

Altitude creeps in with a minutes worth of crystal fragments- acoustic and electric guitar splintering in space. Then, the fuzzpump kicks in: ‘Raise the Roof High’ kicks in – backing singers, Gerard’s voice older but familiar, midway between speech and song and massed guitars. For those that don’t know, Blue Aeroplanes like to use a lot of guitars. A hell of a lot. But this is texture and knitting- ultra melodic- it rocks and tears the roof off but it does it with silk slippers. Then, Gerard starts playing with us. From that to ‘Tree Full of starlings’  (“Nostradamus couldn’t picture the future/ and neither can you”) a left-turn into Astral Weeks, plaintive violin and Dawn Larder’s truly exquisite backing vocals. Newly restored, the roof get s booted off again with ‘Surreal Thing’ and then things get weird, wired and out-there. ‘Hexanal’ (some kind of garden chemical I believe) has lazily hallucinatory guitars, lethargic almost Eastern cello and Gerard whispering clues “You’d swear that cranberry shade was artificial/ But it’s really cochineal”. As we’re calmly bathing in this sound, ‘Star Below’ lands. It’s mental. Really. It sounds like Philip K Dick producing Nick Drake, Miss Larder’s vocals buried in crackle whilst Langley beams his (walkman recorded, I think) voice down.

Halfway through now and we realise that Blue Aeroplanes have produced their White Album- songs just seem to be coming in from so many different angles- a cubist painting of sequence but one that you can stare at for days, hours and weeks.
Can we just mention ‘Love in A Down World’ whilst you put your shoes on to run down to HMV or whatever? Let’s put this at number one (EMI are you listening?) for the whole summer. You won’t get bored. It will stop the country from watching those funkers on Big Brother. Come on people- we need to be singing “Don’t be so ****ing miserable/ Up here we’re grounded and beautiful” at the top of our voices and to each other.
What a celebratory event, a revelatory album. To surface from the underground with such style, sophistication, verve and bravery is a Moment. Capital letters.

I could go on but let’s leave the last words to Gerard. “All the silver all the gold/ All the treasures you can hold.” This is one of them.