From its earliest days, pop music’s number one topic has been love. Now in an era where politics and social interactions seem ever more divisive and views are screamed with greater vehemence into echo chambers, the need to take solace in love songs is understandable. The fifth album from Chris Duncan, ‘It’s Only A Love Song’, is a lavishly orchestrated song suite full of sumptuous strings and romanticism. It is the musical equivalent of luxuriating in a warm bubble bath, lighting scented candles and laying back to ward away stresses and a harsh winter. The record takes inspiration from the likes of Scott Walker (during his lavish balladeer stage rather than his later meat slapping incarnation) and The Carpenters, as well as from the movie world ‘West Side Story’ and the scores of Michel Legrand who worked on ‘The Umbrellas of Cherbourg’, a musical that has a reasonable claim to being my favourite film of all time.
Ever since his Mercury Music Prize nominated debut, ‘Architect’ (2015), Duncan has displayed a rare compositional talent. A multi-instrumentalist, his records tend to be solo tour-de-forces, although on his latest release he has ceded ground to his parents, retired string players, with Mark and Janina Duncan contributing violin and viola respectively. The mood is set by the opening title track, a love song about love songs. From its piano beginnings onwards, the strings and Duncan’s multi-tracked feathery vocals conjure the spectre of classical Hollywood musicals, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers kitted out in top hats and tails gliding through an ornate ballroom. In romantic mode, he concludes, “it’s only a love song / but it ain’t half as good as you.”
Written for his husband, ‘Lucky Today’ finds him high on the hills in a state of paradise. Counting his good fortune, there is something strangely wistful in the song’s euphoric mood, the strings creating a romantic atmosphere. The blend of keyboards and orchestration gives ‘Triste Clair de Lune’ a 1960’s John Barry score feel, its exotically continental feel matching the reference to a “foreign serenity bloomed” and marking it out as an album highlight.
After the blissed-out mood, ‘Worry’ marks a change in direction in its hushed portrayal of worrying and crying all the time, although the sound is still sublime. Beginning with a rolling piano melody and harmonies, ‘The Space Between Us’ questions whether the relationship is over yet and bids farewell to endings and mendings, building to a state of hyper-romantic disappointment.
A song about the dangers of overthinking, ‘Think About It’ has a propulsive orchestral sweep to it, rattled along by “ba ba” backing vocals. While the music is gloriously smooth, ‘Delirium’ finds him “waiting for the day to come / when you remember your own name / and how to spell delirium.” There is a dizzying swell to the orchestration as he politely asks for the madness to go away.
‘Sadness’ reflects on a friend’s death as lockdown began and the difficulty of processing grief at that time, the voices banked to sound like a choir given orchestral grandstanding. One of the album’s most up-tempo songs, ‘Surface of a Fantasy’ rushes towards its velvet skyline, bade along by keys, strings and jaunty backing vocals. After ‘Reprise’, a brief take on ‘It’s Only A Love Song’ which brings to mind the ending of ‘It’s A Wonderful Life, the record concludes with ‘Time and Again’. It is a somewhat mournful take on age, albeit with the acknowledgement that “in this loneliness comes jubilance.” The song winds down with solitary piano accompanied by whistling.
‘It’s Only A Love Song’ takes in many aspects of love, from the thrill of devotion, through angst, endings and grief. Whatever the emotions expressed, the music is outrageously lush and pillowy. As a whole, it is almost too exquisite and frictionless. However, in the same way that the golden age of Hollywood romance flourishes as part of a compendium with the counterbalancing dark and disturbing films of Martin Scorsese and David Lynch, it should be part of a musical diet that also includes the likes of The Fall and Captain Beefheart’s ‘Trout Mask Replica’ for necessary fibre and dissonance.
C Duncan: It’s Only A Love Song – Out 24 January 2025 (Bella Union)
Duncan – Delirium (Official Music Video)
I was editor of the long-running fanzine, Plane Truth, and have subsequently written for a number of publications. While the zine was known for championing the most angular independent sounds, performing in recent years with a community samba percussion band helped to broaden my tastes so that in 2021 I am far more likely to be celebrating an eclectic mix of sounds and enthusing about Made Kuti, Anthony Joseph, Little Simz and the Soul Jazz Cuban compilations as well as Pom Poko and Richard Dawson.
