FEATURE:
Second Spin
Jane Weaver - The Silver Globe
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A terrific album…
that I would encourage people to buy and give a spin to, I think that Jane Weaver’s The Silver Globe is an underrated modern classic. Produced and written by Weaver, it was released on 20th October, 2014. The Liverpool-born artist is one of our most inventive and consistent. Her eleventh studio album, 2021’s Flock, proves that! Another acclaimed and hugely successful release. The Silver Globe would have been eligible for the Mercury Prize 2015, though it was not shortlisted. Without doubt one of 2014’s best, this seems like a real oversight! Receiving huge critical love, you don’t often hear songs from The Silver Globe played right across radio. I heard Mission Desire a week or so ago on BBC Radio 6 Music but, apart from that, it is quite rare. This is an album that shows why Jane Weaver is such a revered and respected songwriter and producer. I will come to some reviews for the album soon. There is a 2017 interview – when she was promoting Modern Kosmology - I will get to, where Weaver talks about the success of The Silver Globe. The Quietus did an in-depth interview with Weaver in 2014 in promotion of The Silver Globe. I have taken quite a lot from it, as I think it gives depth and background to this amazing album:
“In 1988, On The Silver Globe, a film by Polish director Andrzej Żuławski, was premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. The movie was based on a book written by Żuławski's granduncle, Jerzy, and told the story of a group of astronauts who leave Earth to start a new civilisation. Żuławski – who is perhaps best known for his 1981 horror flick Possession - began writing the screenplay for On The Silver Globe in 1975, but the Polish government at the time interpreted the tale as a thinly-veiled parable about the struggles against totalitarianism and shut down the project. The film – and a hastily cobbled together version at that – was only subsequently released after the communist regime had been overthrown.
The movie is also the source of inspiration for the title of Manchester-based musician Jane Weaver's sixth solo album, The Silver Globe. And like Żuławski's film, The Silver Globe has not had the easiest, or quickest, of gestations. However, Weaver may well have produced her masterpiece; The Silver Globe is a magnificent record fusing spaced-out prog rock, samba-specked electronica, Buck Rogers-style disco, Motorik beats, Aussie-style Krautrock, vintage synths and Weaver's celestial voice.
And while The Silver Globe is a concept album, the narrative always ensures that Weaver's elegant songwriting is central to the record's allure. Written and recorded sporadically over the intervening years since 2010's Fallen By Watchbird album, The Silver Globe also contains the accumulation of some seriously talented guest appearances – David Holmes produces two tracks, Damon Gough provides a noodly guitar solo on 'Don't Take My Soul', Aussie space-rockers Cybotron add sax to the epic 'Argent', while Suzanne Ciani's Buchla waves grace the opening title track.
Jane Weaver has been an ever-present figure on the Manchester music scene for over 20 years. Her first band, Kill Laura, released three singles on Rob Gretton's Manchester record label and her solo career was initially backed by early incarnations of Doves and Elbow. Married to producer and Finder Keepers label-owner Andy Votel, Weaver also runs Bird Records, a boutique imprint that has championed the likes of Cate Le Bon, Maxine Peake and Beth Jeans Houghton.
We meet at a cosy pub in Marple Bridge, a sleepy village tucked under the edge of the Peak District. And if The Silver Globe is complex, visionary and bursting with invention, its creator is the epitome of Northern pragmatism and dry humour. Jane talks about her frustrations with the music industry and how, rather than let her dissatisfaction contain her creativity, The Silver Globe became a the conduit for a freedom of artistic expression and the defining album of her stellar, if vastly underrated, career.
I am imagining that The Silver Globe was an epic undertaking. When did you first begin to think about making the album and what was the initial inspiration?
Jane Weaver: I started writing the album about three-and-a-half years ago. I had just done a mini-soundtrack album at Eve Studios [in Manchester], which is a really amazing place. I did a sort of experimental, atmospheric, Morricone-inspired record in three days. I knew I loved the studio and that I wanted to do more experimental stuff. Due to certain restrictions – things going on in my life and financial constraints – I knew that when I started writing the new album, it wasn't going to be a three or four day recording stint, or the kind of thing I could do at home or even in a small studio. The things I was hearing made me realise the album would be an epic job. I quickly realised these songs were getting very complicated. That's why it has taken me so long to do because I wanted to work with different people and try different studios – and that's why it has taken three-and-a-half years.
The album title is taken from the film On The Silver Globe by Andrzej Żuławski. What was it about that piece of cinema that resonated with you so much?
JW: I don't know at what point I saw the film, On The Silver Globe, but I felt an immediate connection with it. On The Silver Globe is about a bunch of astronauts that go to another planet and start a new civilisation and it all got me thinking about a revolution and a post-apocalyptic theme. I was frustrated with what I was doing at the time and I was struggling. I felt I hated the music industry and the way it works. When I first started making music there was a certain process that was followed in general, but now there is this big free-for-all thing, which is amazing and I am not down on it at all, but it made me think about where everything will end up and questioning why I was making music as an artist. It was a 'What is the point?' moment: "Why am I spending all my money on this art project when I shouldn't really be as I have a family?"
So had did that trigger you to make your most ambitious album yet?
JW: I think I had just got to the point where I realised that you just have to see yourself as a painter, who is just painting and painting, and some of it is good and some of it is bad, and to just keep going. You have to do it for you and forget about the world outside. Also, since the last album, I had been getting bored with the singer-songwriter thing and the limitations in what was expected of me. I am in a brilliant position; I have a label and work in conjunction with Finders Keepers, and can basically do what I want, so why was I limiting myself? I'd almost brainwashed myself. That was part of the reason I tried to push myself further into doing more experimental stuff.
You have worked with a number of collaborators on The Silver Globe. Were you writing song parts with specific people in mind?
JW: No. A lot of it was accidental. For example, I have known David [Holmes] for years, and I was going to LA anyway and it just so happened that David was living there. He asked me to visit him in this "amazing" studio he was working at. I haven't worked with a producer for years – I do a lot of it myself. I trusted David, gave him the demos and asked him to do what he wanted. I let him takeover – which I'd not really done before.
How did that feel?
JW: It's pretty weird; sometimes he would say "that's pretty bad" or "that doesn't really work" and I would be like [forces smile] "Okay David." But, it worked out for the best as I got great tracks out of it ['Arrows' and 'Stealing Gold'].
How often do you work on songs with Andy [Votel]?
JW: Now and then. We don't tend to sit down and write together - would probably argue as we would both think we are right. I respect and appreciate where Andy's strengths are. He is amazing at arranging and remixing and adding little flourishes to things – production-wise - that I wouldn't necessarily think of. When he heard 'Don't Take My Soul' he wanted to do something with the track and he got Damon [Gough], who I have always wanted to work with, to do a little guitar part. I let them get on with it – just gave them the song and left them alone in the studio.
The Silver Globe is very atmospheric and, to my ears, has a very cohesive aesthetic. What was your thought process in developing the feel of the album?
JW: At the time I was listening to a lot of Yoko Ono's Fly and Approximately Infinite Universe and I had this idea of getting a really kosmiche-sounding backing recording. I now have a band, so when I was hearing these songs I knew that a lot of them were one loop but with repeated for about ten minutes. I thought it would be amazing to go into the studio and record all the backing live. Other aspects were more spontaneous - I had Suzanne Ciani do some Buchla waves [on 'Cells'] and Andy also managed to contact Steve Maxwell from Cybotron to do a sax solo [on 'Argent']. Steve was in Australia and the whole thing was pretty crazy as I wanted a kind of connection with the club scene from the Mad Max movie.
Is a lot of your music inspired by films?
JW: It can be. I think with films, a lot of the stuff I watch is to do with Finders Keepers' soundtracks. It is through Andy's projects, where I will be sitting down to try and do my work and there will be a dreadful vampire film on in the background, which he is doing the soundtrack for. I'm forced to watch lots of lesbian vampire films at nine in the morning! I have to tell him to shut the curtains so the neighbours can't see in! I will say that a lot of film stuff that I like has come from that route and has just caught my eye. So, yeah, all the horrific soundtrack stuff is on the album.
Ultimately, The Silver Globe seems to end on a very upbeat note. My two favourite tracks are the closing 'If Only We Could Be In Love' and 'Your Time In This Life Is Just Temporary' that both feel very positive.
JW: They are positive. There a few doom moments on the record but there is a resolution, because there is a sense of that we are all only in this world for a few years and many tragic things happen – and have happened to me in my life where people have died – and it makes me think "What am I worried about?" in a kind of Zen moment. We have to crack on with it and stop moaning.
You have talked about The Silver Globe being your most ambitious album. Once an artist has unshackled themselves is there a danger of endless opportunities and being unable to focus on an end result?
JW: Absolutely - at various points I thought I was having a massive meltdown. It can be very hard to reign in. I was continually adding to the tracking of a song, but I would then have to go through all the keyboard tracks I'd done and pick the ones I wanted to keep. It can become a bit of a nightmare. But, all of this just takes time and I did want it to be right and I did want it to sound good”.
I will get to the 2017 interview, where Jane Weaver was talking about Modern Kosmology, and The Silver Globe’s success. The more I listen to The Silver Globe, the more that I get from it. Such a brilliant album with so many interesting sounds and songs, everyone needs to listen to it when they can:
“Two decades, several bands and six solo albums in is not normally the point at which an artist qualifies as an ‘overnight success’. Yet Jane Weaver managed this unusual achievement in 2014 following the release of her magnificent record The Silver Globe. Her previous solo work had explored psychedelic and electronic components in conjunction with stark folk, but the vivid technicolour of The Silver Globe brought her unique magpie vision to life in a striking and new way – and gained her a whole new following in the process.
With this year’s follow-up Modern Kosmology proving a bigger critical and commercial success, I managed to catch up with Jane Weaver ahead of a UK tour that brings her to The Cluny on Thursday 2nd November as part of the venue’s fifteenth anniversary celebrations.
Discussing the increased attention on her work following The Silver Globe, I asked Weaver if her rising status had taken her by surprise. “Yes, definitely! After The Silver Globe, I started getting more gig offers, and I was pretty overwhelmed by the warmth and support I suddenly got. To me it was so nice to know I was engaging with people, and most people are nice.”
Perhaps informed by this, Modern Kosmology arrived earlier this year, presenting a more direct, focused and confident state of intent. Considering the album’s genesis, Weaver notes, “I wanted to make some of the instrumentation clearer and more linear; I made the decision to not swamp everything in space echo (which I love). I suppose it made me feel more exposed, especially when it came to my voice: I like to experiment with different synths and textures, percussion and drum machines, so that [Modern Kosmology] sounded a bit crankier than the last record”.
The reviews for The Silver Globe were universally positive. As I said, it is a tragedy it was not put up for the Mercury Prize. Even if there was this acclaim, I find it rare that songs from the album are played today. The Arts Desk shared their opinions about a 2014 work of brilliance from the constantly inspired and consistent Jane Weaver:
“2014 has seen a fair few late lunges for the line in the race to be my best album of the year (a contest fought more for prestige and honour than hard cash in all honesty). I’m a mild-mannered sort, and hate disappointing the recording artists clearly hanging on my every word for validation, but Theo Parrish, Spectres and Craig Bratley will have to settle for commendations along with Goat, The War on Drugs, Peaking Lights and Klaus Johann Grobe this time.
Jane Weaver’s The Silver Globe has taken gold – and done so with clear distance between it and the rest of the pack.
Where the concept behind Weaver’s last album, 2010’s The Fallen By Watch Bird, spawned a book, the overwhelming sense with The Silver Globe is of something no less narrative-driven, but more visual, and not just because of the head nods to Polish film director Andrzej Żuławski (On the Silver Globe, Possession) and Chilean counterpart Alejandro Jodorowsky (The Holy Mountain). The sheer range of colours and textures in this narrative of personal discovery and artistic freedom are redolent of a beautiful, hand-stitched quilt of individual story songs sewn together to create a stunningly beautiful and audaciously ambitious allegory.
The urgent immediacy of (almost) opener "Argent" and its near neighbour "The Electric Mountain" have clear musical touchstones in Soundcarriers and Broadcast, but that’s only the background to the story being spun here. In "Cells" and "Stealing Gold", we are led by the hand into a beautiful, bucolic landscape where we find maypole melodies that leave us spinning with their intuitive inventiveness. That Weaver has been bold enough to split these with a song as knowingly route one as the irresistable "Mission Desire" without compromising the heft or weave of the whole, is testament to her wholeness of vision as much as her songwriting prowess.
If you like the sound of it, don’t stream it, buy it. Own the thing – have the artefact. It’s a work of art and one that will repay you in spades”.
I am going to finish off with a review from AllMusic. The Silver Globe is an album that has so much richness to it, I am not surprised many of the reviews were long and detailed. Nine years after its release, this fabulous work has lost none of its brilliance:
“Liverpool-born, Manchester-based indie folk artist Jane Weaver made an early recorded appearance as a solo artist on a 1998 split single alongside a pre-fame Doves and a pre-Finders Keepers Andy Votel. The two became a couple, and while Doves' star went on to shine the brightest commercially, Weaver's made a steady ascent. She released her debut full-length, Seven Day Smile, in 2006 on Bird Records, a Finders Keepers imprint co-run by the couple. While that record and its follow-up, Cherlokalate, represented tentative steps into psych folk, 2010's acclaimed Fallen by Watchbird furthered her interest in the mystical and the magical. Named in reference to Andrzej Żuławski's 1988 film On the Silver Globe, this offering finds Weaver playing to her strengths. On "Argent" she blends a hypnotic and repetitive Krautrock-inspired groove with otherworldly, pulsing synths -- displaying her obsession with the early electronic pioneer Suzanne Ciani and an affinity with the Ghost Box stable -- and provides multi-tracked vocals which nod to Laetitia Sadier's work with Stereolab. Elsewhere, the cavernous, rich vocal effects on "Arrows" alone are enough to get lost in, but add to the mix a steady, metronomic rhythm and a Twin Peaks-esque two-note bass motif and it has a timeless feel, even on repeated listens. The vinyl version of The Silver Globe hides "Arrows" away as the penultimate track; thankfully, however, the other formats place this highlight in an earlier position, directly after the Hawkwind-sampling "The Electric Mountain."
There's other material here that could feel overly twee in the hands of her contemporaries -- hear the cartoon disco of "Don't Take My Soul," for example -- but it's Weaver's assured tone which ensures that this isn't the case. Her main achievement here is the fact that she effortlessly distills aspects of both the early electronic/library music/hauntology craze, and her psych folk grounding, into one highly accessible album. This is no mean feat -- while these genres can prove to be notoriously esoteric and abstract, there are inventive moments here which wouldn't sound out of place on mainstream alternative radio. "If Only We Could Be in Love" will undoubtedly interest fans of Goldfrapp, and "Mission Desire" is the album's true earworm, but the gentle folk of "Stealing Gold" is filled with enough of Weaver's idiosyncrasies to entice anybody into her world. For listeners new to her music, The Silver Globe is as good a starting point as any, not only to her own rich canon, but also to the weird and wonderful niche genres that have inspired her”.
The fact that The Silver Globe was accessible and yet quite layered and complex at times meant that it received a wide audience - and it put Jane Weaver on the radar of those who may have missed her earlier work. The fact this was her sixth studio album and she seemed to hit a new peak proves what an amazing artist she is. Few have the consistency that she does. I am not sure whether there is a follow-up to 2021’s Flock. There was last year’s The Metallic Index (2022) by Fenella, with Peter Philipson & Raz Ullah – so we may have to wait a little longer. Perhaps less widely played or discussed as it was back in 2014, The Silver Globe is an accomplished and phenomenal album…
WORTH another listen.