Album: Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan, Keep Me in Mind Sweetheart (V2)
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Given the variety of intriguing approaches, from shanties to waltzes and rumbas to torch-songs, employed on this year's Sunday at Devil Dirt, the second album-length collaboration between Belle & Sebastian's Isobel Campbell and former Screaming Trees frontman Mark Lanegan, "Keep Me in Mind Sweetheart" is not the first track one would expect to lead off a six-track EP of outtakes.
With only acoustic guitar and Campbell's occasional harmonies behind Lanegan's sepia baritone, it's an almost painfully naked performance, bested here by several of the five other songs. "Asleep on a Sixpence" employs Tom Waits-ian gnarled sentimentality and nursery-rhyme simplicity to evoke a sailor's yearning for his girl over piano and cello. The instrumental "Violin Tango" does what it says, a phonographical forgery in which the astringent violin is set to yawning double bass and vinyl crackle; while elsewhere, pedal steel guitar tints the country number "Rambling Rose, Clinging Vine", and a soul guitar vamp carries Campbell's lead vocal on the enervated "Hang On". But "Fight Fire With Fire" is the best track, a rumination on the knots of love and hate that bind a couple in misery: "If you win, that means I lose/And I am a clown like you too".
Download this: 'Fight Fire With Fire', 'Asleep on a Sixpence', 'Rambling Rose, Clinging Vine'
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments