Addict.com
1996
Robyn Hitchcock's Healing Elixir
Since The '70s, Robyn Hitchcock Has Led His Devoted Circle Of Fans From Folk Rock To Pop And Finally, With His Latest Release, To Acoustic Guitar And Vocals
His Constant Shifting Proves That, Indeed, A Rolling Stone Will Gather Moss
by Seth Mnookin
By this point in his career, to say that Robyn Hitchcock is a cult-artist is a cliche: since the '70s, his surrealistic Folk Rock with The Soft Boys, The Egyptians, and as a solo artist has inspired unswerving devotion in some and complete indifference in others. Indeed, he remains virtually anonymous in his native England despite several brilliant albums, including Fegmania! with The Egyptians and Underwater Moonlight with The Soft Boys. His Pop Rock displays '80s exuberance at its best, pure joy sealed together in three-minute packets. Hitchcock, now in his forties, is still making majestic albums -- but now they're centered around his acoustic guitar and vocals. They're songs that in structure and spirit are miles away from the Pop masterpieces Hitchcock is best known for.
He attributes this progression to the natural aging process: "You know, when you're younger you've got high testosterone, and you want to rock -- maybe even roll. But it's this physical thing. And as I get older, it gets less physical. Not that I was ever that physical to begin with. People don't really dance at my concerts -- they, sort of, shuffle a bit. Or ripple (as if a breeze is blowing through a discrete forest in front of the stage)."
Hitchcock, on the phone from his apartment in London, chuckles and lets flash a glimpse of his ever-mischievous, surrealistic side. "I better watch out...I'm just going to become unhooked and float away."
Robyn Hitchcock's new release, Moss Elixir, is one of the year's (as well as his career's) most satisfying albums. Not bad for an album that begins Hitchcock's relationship with Warner Music, as well as his first album of new material since 1991's disappointing Respect. Indeed, the sparse, occasionally delicate surrealism that pervades Moss Elixir is light years away from the cramped, pointy melodies of Respect.
One gets the sense that Hitchcock accomplishes everything he sets out to do in Moss Elixir, and quite nicely at that. Hitchcock has been shifting for years towards his neo-hippie Folk artist side and away from his Psychedelic Power Pop icon side for years. Respect was terribly frustrating because of this -- the album hung with an unwanted density, with Hitchcock making strong gestures towards Folk music but still playing with a Rock band. "I had initially wanted Respect to be recorded with the musicians sitting around the table and singing into a bowl of fruit," Hitchcock writes in notes to Moss Elixir. That, however, was not the result. Never mind. As Hitchcock notes, "Hindsight is a groovy bedfellow."
In the years since Respect, Hitchcock -- unencumbered by a record deal -- went out and toured a lot (mainly sets accompanied only by violinist Deni Bonet, who also is Hitchcock's main musical sidekick on Moss Elixir). I caught him in the middle of that touring in the winter of '95, when Hitchcock and Bonet toured behind a handful of new material as well as older staples.
But even classics such as "My Wife And My Dead Wife" came out much differently from the live version captured on 1986's Gotta Let This Hen Out!: it's easy to locate exactly where Hitchcock has shifted gears. No longer bubbling over with the energy of being young and musical, Hitchcock turns a gleefully paranoid ditty into an emotional, terse statement. Vocally, he was much more nuanced, and he conveyed emotion with subtle additions and subtractions rather than the overwhelming energy he's displayed in the past.
"I don't need to have loud music behind me all the time (or even most of the time). I think Moss Elixir is suited to being an older album.
"Fifteen years ago I wasn't good enough on my own, and I needed other musicians. I don't anymore."
One thing that never wavered over the last several years is Hitchcock's faith in his own songwriting ability. "I write consistently good songs," Hitchcock says.
"A lot of thought went into which songs made it on the record. I had twenty pretty good songs, and in the end people I knew were quite disappointed. But it was great to have that choice." Hitchcock, more self-assured than he was a decade ago, readily concedes that, "This is my strongest collection of songs since Fegmania!."
Along with Moss Elixir, Hitchcock and Warner are releasing a limited-edition vinyl-only companion, Mossy Liquor, which contains both alternate versions of recordings on Moss Elixir and some songs that didn't make the cut. In a way, the dual-release mirrors the effect of the last several years' Hitchcock reissuing campaigns, which have been going on at both Rhino and Rykodisc. These reissues -- especially the Rhino material, which contains Hitchcock's post-Soft Boys repertoire -- have, on average, half-a-dozen or so bonus tracks, often alternate, and startlingly different, takes. And, as the live version of "Heaven" included on the reissued Fegmania! or the pared-down "If You Were A Priest" off the bonus tracks on Element Of Light showed, Hitchcock was becoming increasingly introspective and spacious in terms of his music. Mossy Liquor is a wonderful stop along that road.
"I didn't want to make a double album even though I had more than enough material. I wanted to whittle it down. But theoretically there's no reason why hard-core fans can't just have all. So serious fans can track down Mossy Liquor -- because I think you need to be quite a serious fan to like it. I mean, you have to be really really well into it because when there are alternate versions, the ones on Mossy Liquor are not as strong as the ones on CD. I think generally the songs are a little lighter."
Despite the uncertainty of the last several years -- previous to Moss Elixir, the last thing Hitchcock had released was a single he did with Calvin Johnson for K Records in 1995 -- Hitchcock has had no doubts about the shift in direction he's making with his music. "My voice has changed, I'm sure, since the first Soft Boys records. I mean, Bob Dylan's voice is unrecognizable to what it use to be -- but that's due to abuse." (These sort of tossed-off asides are a frequent presence on Hitchcock's conversational landscape.)
"As I get older, I think my music is acquiring more depth and is less dependent on being situationally passionate." Returning to the subject of his aging as serving as evolving road map for the direction of his music, Hitchcock muses: "I know other rockers, and, you know, you've got to be careful when you pick up a guitar after you're forty. You need to have a good reason. And I'm not sure I have one. Folk and Blues are able to grow up, but I'm not sure it works in Rock 'n' Roll. I'm not sure it's that interesting. I mean, think of The Stones today trying to do the same thing compared to what they were doing 20 years ago. They're making a mockery of their former selves." Diplomatically, he concedes: "They're entitled to it. They wrote the songs. They get the chance. However, I don't think I'd be very good at it.
"Of course I'll set the course on 'mellow' and everyone will end up falling asleep," Hitchcock laughs. "I mean, I should experiment more. I should get into computers and samplers (and stuff). Try to be more innovative. But I'm more interested in picking up my acoustic guitar than I am in what comes out of it -- or even how the album sounds. As long as I can keep doing what I'm doing, I'm happy. So it's worked out. I love the feeling of writing songs. It's like, you see something wriggling in the net, you find a song, and work it down and nurture it. I like growing things."
Hitchcock already has several new projects in the works for Warner, including a film he's planning on doing with Jonathan Demme, the Philadelphia moviemaker also known for the delightful Talking Heads documentary/concert Stop Making Sense. And he's planning to release a live album -- consisting mainly of new material -- from the shows that will produce the Demme film.
That'll all come soon enough. For the time being, Hitchcock fans have as satisfying an album as he has given them. I don't know about Hitchcock's assertion that music doesn't rock, or even roll, anymore. No matter. It's live, growing matter. Damn satisfying. And that's fine by me any day.
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