Richard Thompson, Dream Attic
A detailed snapshot of an artist at the height of his powers
Richard Thompson's never gone in for much in the way of studio frippery, so it's surprising that it's taken him four decades to release an album like Dream Attic, whose songs were captured on a brief west coast tour in early 2010. Recorded with his seasoned touring band, including ace sideman Pete Zorn and session pros Joel Zifkin, Michael Jerome and Taras Prodaniuk, the album's 13 tracks harness the energy of Thompson's phenomenal live shows without making any audible concessions in the way of precision.
If the rapid-fire recording of Dream Attic shows anywhere, it's in the songwriting. "The Money Shuffle" gets things off to a shaky start with its sarcastic swipe at stock-swindling financial gurus. "If you'll just bend over a little, I think you'll feel my financial muscle," Thompson sings, substituting crass immediacy for nuanced reflection. A song so tied to current events would have been best sent out over the internet the morning after, in the tradition of a broadside ballad. Luckily, the music doesn't suffer from the same haste. Zorn's winding twin-saxophone riff and Thompson's unresolved harmonies lend the song a lingering unease more engrossing than its lyrical bludgeoning.
Although some of Dream Attic's songs drift past the seven-minute mark, there's no wasted space. You don't have to love 20-minute drum break to appreciate Thompson's way with a prolonged guitar solo. Where most guitarists are content to string together a series of small ideas, Thompson's are miniature musical narratives that elaborate and amplify the mood of the song — an observation that holds for the rocket-fueled rockabilly of "Haul Me Up" as well as the hauntingly harmonized "A Brother Slips Away."
At this point, Thompson boasts such a rich back catalogue that evaluating each album in term is a difficult prospect, and one that once you've succumbed to his spell seems almost beside the point. Will the serial-killer ballad "Sidney Wells" or the lilting "Here Comes Geordie" still figure in Thompson's live sets a decade from now? Maybe, maybe not. (My money's on the latter.) But Dream Attic offers a detailed snapshot of an artist at the height of his powers, with no complications between him and what he does best.
