Better In The Shade. Patrick Watson

Have I changed my mind about Patrick Watson over the past decade! Quite some years ago I was slipped an, admittedly illegal, copy of one of his albums and there seemed to be nothing I liked about it. If I remember correctly I could have seen him perform in one of the smallest venues, but oh so nice, in Leiden and did not go. Why not?, I ask myself today.

Better In The Shade is Patrick Watson's seventh album and my third. Fans will instantly recognise his style. Not that everything remained the same. This album is more experimental and even more ethereal. It starts with the floating sound of the piano. Drenched in echo, sounding as if played under a thick woollen blanket, it sounds almost ghostlike. It matches Watson's singing. There's always an effect on the recording technique. Now there's also an effect on his voice as such. It makes Better In The Shade more mysterious than his previous work.

The result is that this album at first sounds colder. What I've found is that the effect wears off after multiple listening sessions. Step by step Better In The Shade warms up and becomes a record that becomes dear quite easily. Undeniably a Patrick Watson album is the result.

Promo photo: Nicola D'Orta

On the one hand this album is atmosphere. Patrick Watson creates a mood from and around which a song is built, layer for layer. Undefinable music is the result. A hint of a 60s film score can be eluded to, like in 'La La La', at the same time not one single song could have sounded like in, say 1965. The individual ingredients did not exist then as well. Some of the sounds in the back and sometimes even foreground Watson has created for Better In The Shade, could be used to make what I call non-music, as in just atmospherics hovering around. Through these sounds melodies are interwoven, creating a song built up from different moods and effects, but undeniably a song.

It all results in a form of idiosyncratic beauty. Some people may only hear gibberish, I hear beauty, intense beauty, that Patrick Watson shares with his listeners and the world. Music to truly listen to and fully undergo. I'm a fan and who would have thought so in 2009? 2011 or 2012? Do I still have that copy? It's time to take a listen and see whether I had clogged up ears at the time. Better In The Shade is proving me, once again, extremely wrong.

Wout de Natris

 

You can listen to and order Better In The Shade on Patrick Watson's Bandcamp page:

https://patrickwatson.bandcamp.com/