Indecision can be a bugger. One minute you’re strolling along, happy as Larry, not a care in the world; the next, you’re awash with choices and stuck to the spot. Should you put on a jumper or a cardigan? Should you choose a pint or a short? Left or right? Up or down?
Let it get a hold on you and you’re rooted with inertia, bearing the stress of life with all the serenity of the North Sea in winter.
Embrace it though, and realise that it doesn’t have to be a case of either/or, that you can have the cake, eat it and lick the plate clean afterwards, and something wonderful could happen – you could make an album like Porcelain Raft’s Strange Weekend.
Mauro Remiddi, the name by which PR’s mother knows him, is a man who knows the joy of embracing indecision. He’s spent the last couple of years squeezing every thought, every emotion, every whim he has into song and the results have been music that defies definition – one moment, you think he’s heading for Kings of Convenience country, the next he’s headed down Spiritualized street, and all without it ever sounding forced.
Strange Weekend is the culmination of those explorations – his opening opus proper, by which the wider world, rather than just those in the know or those dying to be, will judge him – and it is nothing short of remarkable, if only because it is utterly impossible to pin down.
It has some majestic, magnificent moments – the opening salvo of Drifting In and Out, a driven mind-bender that manages to mix genuine tenderness with face-melting trip-out, and spaced closer The Way In, a tear-drenched comedown of a tune, are a pair of particularly sturdy bookends, while other high points include the tautly epic Backwords, the punchdrunk love of Picture and Unless You Speak From Your Heart‘s twisted pop.
Yet, taken as a whole, there is a distinct feeling that a little bit of underplaying and a little more decision could have made everything better.
On occasion, the background of the underpinning soundscapes lurch forward and distract from the song’s path and the majority of the offerings sound as two or three songs have been meshed together to make the final piece – though admittedly, the majority also still work superbly well despite that feeling.
It all adds up to a collection which is either one of the best or one of the messiest, and quite which it is changes every time you listen to it. Indecision, you see… it can be a right bugger.
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